|
|
|
|
|
|
|
scant weeks after the MIT AI Lab's ITS cluster was officially decommissioned. 2. The Stanford Artificial Intelligence Language used at SAIL (sense 1). It was an Algol-60 derivative with a coroutining facility and some new data types intended for building search trees and association lists. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
salescritter /sayls'kri`tr/ n. Pejorative hackerism for a computer salesperson. Hackers tell the following joke: |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
What's the difference between a used-car dealer and a computer salesman? |
|
|
|
| | |
|
|
|
|
The used-car dealer knows he's lying. [Some versions add: and probably knows how to drive.] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This reflects the widespread hacker belief that salescritters are self-selected for stupidity (after all, if they had brains and the inclination to use them, they'd be in programming). The terms salesthing and salesdroid are also common. Compare marketroid, suit, droid. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
salt n. A tiny bit of near-random data inserted where too much regularity would be undesirable; a data frob (sense 1). For example, the Unix crypt(3) man page mentions that "the salt string is used to perturb the DES algorithm in one of 4096 different ways." |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
salt mines n. Dense quarters housing large numbers of programmers working long hours on grungy projects, with some hope of seeing the end of the tunnel in N years. Noted for their absence of sunshine. Compare playpen, sandbox. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
salt substrate n. [MIT] Collective noun used to refer to potato chips, pretzels, saltines, or any other form of snack food designed primarily as a carrier for sodium chloride. Also sodium substrate. From the technical term 'chip substrate', used to refer to the silicon on the top of which the active parts of integrated circuits are deposited. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
same-day service n. Ironic term used to describe long response time, particularly with respect to MS-DOS system calls (which ought to require only a tiny fraction of a second to execute). Such response time is a major incentive for programmers to write programs that are not well-behaved. See also PC-ism. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
samizdat /sahm-iz-daht/ n. [Russian, literally "self publishing"] The process of disseminating documentation via underground channels. Originally referred to underground duplication and distribution of banned books in |
|
|
|
|
|