|
[A]
[B]
[C]
[D]
[E]
[F]
[G]
[H]
[I]
[M]
[O]
[P]
[R]
[S]
[T]
[U]
- ADA
- Something you need only to know the name of to be an Expert in computing.
Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop an ADA awareness."
Artificial Intelligence- The art of making computers that behave like the ones in movies.
-- Bill Bulko
[Top Of Page]
[Back To Home]
- Bug
- A cute little humorous term used to explain why the computer had your shipping
department send 150 highly sophisticated jet-fighter servo motors, worth over
$26,000 apiece, to fishermen in the Ryuku Islands, who are using them as anchors.
[Top Of Page]
[Back To Home]
- Command
- Statement presented by a human and accepted by a computer in such a manner
as to make the human feel as if he is in control.
Compiler- A tool for adding an exciting amount of uncertainty to the size, speed and
correctness of a program.
Computer- 1. Hardware you can program.
-- Nigel de la Tierre
2. A device designed to speed and automate errors.
Computer Human Interface- The means by which the program conditions the user into never trying all
things that don't work.
Computer Resources- The major item of any budget, allowing for the acquisition of any capital equipment
that is obsolete before the purchase request is released.
Computer Scientist- Someone who fixes things that aren't broken.
Customer- A primitive life form at the bottom of the food chain.
[Top Of Page]
[Back To Home]
- Debugger
- A tool that substitutes afterthought for forethought.
to complain about unstructured programmers.
Default Directory- Black hole. Default directory is where all the files that you need
disappear to.
Design- The activity of preparing for a design review.
Design Review- A process for ensuring you know exactly what it is you won't build.
[Top Of Page]
[Back To Home]
- Error Message
- Terse, baffling remark used by programmers to place blame on users for
the program's shortcomings.
Ethernet- Something used to catch the etherbunny.
[Top Of Page]
[Back To Home]
- File
- A document that has been saved with an unidentifiable name. It helps to think
of a file as something stored in a file cabinet, except when you try to remove
the file, the cabinet gives you an electric shock and tells you the file format
is unknown
[Top Of Page]
[Back To Home]
- Goto
- A programming tool that exists to allow structured programmers
to complain about unstructured programmers.
-- Ray Simard
Graphics- The ability to make pie charts and bar graphs, which are the universal business
method for making abstract concepts, such as "three", comprehensible to
morons like your boss.
[Top Of Page]
[Back To Home]
- Hardware
- 1. The parts of a computer system that can be kicked.
2. Where the people in your company's software support section will
tell you the problem is. (Compare software)
Help- The feature that assists in generating more questions. When the help feature
is used correctly, users are able to navigate through a series of help screens
and end up where they started from without learning a damn thing.
[Top Of Page]
[Back To Home]
- Information Center
- A room staffed by professional computer people whose job it is
to tell you why you cannot have the information you require.
Input/Output- Information is input from the keyboard as intelligible data and output is
to the printer as unrecognizable crap.
[Top Of Page]
[Back To Home]
- Machine-Independent Program
- A program that will not run on any machine.
Mainframe- The biggest PC peripheral available.
Maintenance- Fixing what you did wrong and getting paid for it.
Manual- A unit of documentation. There are always three or more on a given item.
One is on the shelf; someone has the others. The information you need is in the
others.
-- Ray Simard
Meeting- An assembly of computer experts coming together to decide what person or
department not represented in the room must solve the problem.
Memory- Of computer components, the most generous in terms of variety, and the
skimpiest in terms of quantity.
MIPS- Meaningless Indicator of Processor Speed
[Top Of Page]
[Back To Home]
- Obsolete
- A feature built into all technology. It activates itself shortly
after you open the box.
Office Automation- The use of computers to improve efficiency by removing anyone you
would want to talk with over coffee.
On-line- The idea that a human being should always be accessible to a computer.
Open Systems- A command, like 'Open Sesame' -- it means they want your wallet to open.
[Top Of Page]
[Back To Home]
- PCMCIA
- "People Can't Memorize Industry Acronyms"
Performance- A statement of the speed at which a computer system works. Or rather, might
work under certain circumstances. Or was rumored to be working over in Jersey
about a month ago.
Pixel- A mischievous, magical spirit associated with screen displays. The computer
industry has frequently borrowed from mythology: Witness the sprites in
computer graphics, the demons in artificial intelligence, and the trolls
in the marketing department.
-- Jeff Meyer
Printer- A joke in poor taste. A printer consists of three main parts: the case,
the jammed paper tray, and the blinking red light.
Priority- A statement of the importance of a user or a program. Often
expressed as a relative priority, indicating that the user
doesn't care when the work is completed so long as he is treated
less badly than someone else.
Programs- What software used to be, back when we knew how to write it.
Programmer(s)- 1. A person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis of being able to
turn out, after innumerable puching, an infinite series of incomprehensive
answers calculated with micrometric precisions from vague assumptions
based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive documents and carried
out on instruments of problematical accuracy by person of dubious reliability
and questionable mentality for the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding
a hopelessly defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for
the information in the first place.
-- IEEE Grid Magazine
2. A red-eyed, mumbling mammal capable of conversing with inanimate objects.
3. Computer avengers. Once members of that group of high school nerds who
wore tape on their glasses, played Dungeons and Dragons, and memorized Star Trek
episodes. Now millionaires who create "user-friendly" software to get
revenge on whoever gave them noogies.
[Top Of Page]
[Back To Home]
- Reference Manual
- Objects used to raise the monitor to eye level. Also handy to compensate
for that short table leg.
Requirements Analysis- Determining what it is you can't do before failing to do it.
Requirements Engineering- Convincing the customer to want what you think you can build.
[Top Of Page]
[Back To Home]
- Software
- 1. Formal evening attire for female computer analysts.
2. Where the people in your company's hardware support section will
tell you the problem is. (Compare hardware)
Spreadsheet- A kind of program that lets you sit at your desk and ask all kinds of neat
"what if" questions and generate thousands of numbers instead of
actually working.
State-of-the-art- What we could do with enough money.
Strategy- A long-range plan whose merit cannot be evaluated until sometime after
those creating it have left the organization.
Supercomputer- A computer that can complete an endless loop in under 5 minutes.
[Top Of Page]
[Back To Home]
- Testing, Alpha
- Software undergoes alpha testing as a first step in getting user
feedback. Alpha is latin for "doesn't work".
Testing, Beta- Software undergoes beta testing shortly before it's released. Beta
is latin for "still doesn't work".
Timesharing- The use of several people by the computer.
True Multitasking- Three computers and a chair with wheels!
[Top Of Page]
[Back To Home]
- Update
- Take old bugs out, put new ones in.
Usenet- A self-replicating page engineered by the phone company to cause computers
to spend large amounts of their owner's budget on modem charges.
User- 1. A programmer who will believe anything you tell him.
2. The word that computer professionals use when they mean "idiot".
Users- Collective term for those who stare blankly at a monitor. Users are divided
into three types: novice, intermediate, and expert. Novice users are those who
are afraid that simply pressing a key might break their computer. Intermediate
users are those who don't know how to fix their computer after they've just
pressed a key that broke it. And expert users are those that can break the
computer without pressing a key.
User Friendly- Of or pertaining to any feature, device, or concept that makes
perfect sense to a programmer.
[Top Of Page]
[Back To Home]
|
