|
|
|
|
|
|
|
quarter n. Two bits. This in turn comes from the 'pieces of eight' famed in pirate movies Spanish silver crowns that could be broken into eight pieslice-shaped 'bits' to make change. Early in American history the Spanish coin was considered equal to a dollar, so each of these 'bits' was considered worth 12.5 cents. Syn. tayste, crumb, quad. Usage: rare. General discussion of such terms is under nybble. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ques /kwes/ 1. n. The question mark character ('?', ASCII 0111111). 2. interj. What? Also frequently verb-doubled as "Ques ques?" See wall. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
quick-and-dirty adj. Describes a crock put together under time or user pressure. Used esp. when you want to convey that you think the fast way might lead to trouble further down the road. "I can have a quick-and-dirty fix in place tonight, but I'll have to rewrite the whole module to solve the underlying design problem." See also kluge. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
quine /kwin/ n. [from the name of the logician Willard van Orman Quine, via Douglas Hofstadter] A program that generates a copy of its own source text as its complete output. Devising the shortest possible quine in some given programming language is a common hackish amusement. Here is one classic quine: |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
((lambda (x)
(list x (list (quote quote) x)))
(quote
(lambda (x)
(list x (list (quote quote) x))))) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This one works in LISP or Scheme. It's relatively easy to write quines in other languages such as Postscript which readily handle programs as data; much harder (and thus more challenging!) in languages like C which do not. Here is a classic C quine for ASCII machines: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
char*f="char*f=%c%s%c;main()
{printf(f, 34, f, 34, 10);}%c";
main() {printf (f, 34, f, 34, 10);} |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
For excruciatingly exact quinishness, remove the interior line breaks. Some infamous Obfuscated C Contest entries have been quines that reproduced in exotic ways. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
quote chapter and verse v. [by analogy with the mainstream phrase] To cite a relevant excerpt from an appropriate bible. "I don't care if rn gets it wrong; 'Followup-To: poster' is explicitly permitted by RFC-1036. I'll quote |
|
|
|
|
|