- CRUNCH
- v. 1. To process, usually in a time-consuming or complicated
way. Connotes an essentially trivial operation which is
nonetheless painful to perform. The pain may be due to the
triviality being imbedded in a loop from 1 to 1000000000. "FORTRAN
programs do mostly number crunching."
2. To reduce the size of a
file by a complicated scheme that produces bit configurations
completely unrelated to the original data, such as by a Huffman
code. (The file ends up looking like a paper document would if
somebody crunched the paper into a wad.) Since such compression
usually takes more computations than simpler methods such as
counting repeated characters (such as spaces) the term is doubly
appropriate. (This meaning is usually used in the construction
"file crunch(ing)" to distinguish it from "number crunch(ing)".)
3. n. The character "#". Usage: used at Xerox and CMU, among other
places. Other names for "#" include SHARP, NUMBER, HASH, PIG-PEN,
POUND-SIGN, and MESH.GLS adds: I recall reading somewhere that
most of these are names for the # symbol IN CONTEXT. The name for
the sign itself is "octothorp".
- CTY
- (city) n. The terminal physically associated with a computer's
operating console.
- CUSPY
- [from the DEC acronym CUSP, for Commonly Used System Program,
i.e., a utility program used by many people] (WPI) adj.
1.(of a program) Well-written.
2. Functionally excellent. A program which
performs well and interfaces well to users is cuspy. See RUDE.
- DAEMON
- (day'mun, dee'mun) [archaic form of "demon", which has slightly
different connotations (q.v.)] n. A program which is not invoked
explicitly, but which lays dormant waiting for some condition(s) to
occur. The idea is that the perpetrator of the condition need not
be aware that a daemon is lurking (though often a program will
commit an action only because it knows that it will implicitly
invoke a daemon). For example, writing a file on the lpt spooler's
directory will invoke the spooling daemon, which prints the file.
The advantage is that programs which want (in this example) files
printed need not compete for access to the lpt. They simply enter
their implicit requests and let the daemon decide what to do with
them. Daemons are usually spawned automatically by the system, and
may either live forever or be regenerated at intervals. Usage:
DAEMON and DEMON (q.v.) are often used interchangeably, but seem to
have distinct connotations. DAEMON was introduced to computing by
CTSS people (who pronounced it dee'mon) and used it to refer to
what is now called a DRAGON or PHANTOM (q.v.). The meaning and
pronunciation have drifted, and we think this glossary reflects
current usage.
|
Delicious
Digg
reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon