agrot.
pain in the net

flamer
page in

What a paging system does when it copies part of a task's working memory from swap space on disk to RAM. (1995-01-23)
outside-in testing

A strategy for integration testing where units handling program inputs and outputs are tested first, and units that process the inputs to produce output are incrementally included as the system is integrated. A form of hybrid testing. (1997-01-07)
lock-in

When an existing standard becomes almost impossible to supercede because of the cost or logistical difficulties involved in convincing all its users to switch something different and, typically, incompatible. The common implication is that the existing standard is notably inferior to other comparable standards developed before or since. Things which have been accused of benefiting from lock-in in the absence of being truly worthwhile include: the QWERTY keyboard; any well-known operating system or programming language you don't like (e.g., see "Unix conspiracy"); every product ever made by Microsoft Corporation; and most currently deployed formats for transmitting or storing data of any kind (especially the Internet Protocol, 7-bit (or even 8-bit) character sets, analog video or audio broadcast formats and nearly any file format). Because of network effects outside of just computer networks, Real World examples of lock-in include the current spelling conventions for writing English (or French, Japanese, Hebrew, Arabic, etc.); the design of American money; the imperial (feet, inches, ounces, etc.) system of measurement; and the various and anachronistic aspects of the internal organisation of any government (e.g., the American Electoral College). Compare with cruft, flag day. (1998-01-15)
lost in the noise

Synonym lost in the underflow. This term is from signal processing, where signals of very small amplitude cannot be separated from low-intensity noise in the system. Though popular among hackers, it is not confined to hackerdom; physicists, engineers, astronomers, and statisticians all use it.
lost in the underflow

Too small to be worth considering; more specifically, small beyond the limits of accuracy or measurement. This is a reference to "floating point underflow". The Hacker's Jargon File claimed that it is also a pun on "undertow" (a kind of fast, cold current that sometimes runs just offshore and can be dangerous to swimmers). "Well, sure, photon pressure from the stadium lights alters the path of a thrown baseball, but that effect gets lost in the underflow". Compare epsilon, epsilon squared; see also overflow bit. (1997-09-05)
Mathematics in Recognizable Form Automatically Compiled

(MIRFAC) An early interactive system resembling BASIC using typewriter output with special mathematical symbols. [Sammet 1969, pp. 281-284]. (1997-08-01)
KL-ONE

A frame language. Not to be confused with KL1. ["An Overview of the KL-ONE Knowledge Representation System", R.J. Brachman and J. Schmolze, Cognitive Sci 9(2), 1985]. (1994-11-18)
level one cache

primary cache
two-binary, one-quaternary

(2B1Q) A physical layer encoding used for Integrated Services Digital Network basic rate interface. 2B1Q uses four signal levels (1Q), equivalent to two bits (2B). (1998-10-22)
One Time Programmable Read Only Memory

(OTPROM, EPROM OTP) A kind of storage device like an EPROM but with no quartz glass window in the package for erasing the contents. This reduces the packaging cost but means the device cannot be erased with UV and so can only be written once. Erasure is possible, but expensive, with X-rays. (1995-04-22)
one-way hash function

(Or "message digest function") A function which takes a variable-length message and produces a fixed-length hash. Given the hash it is computationally impossible to find a message with that hash; in fact one can't determine any usable information about a message with that hash, not even a single bit. For some one-way hash functions it's also computationally impossible to determine two messages which produce the same hash. A one-way hash function can be private or public, just like an encryption function. MD5 and Snefru are examples of public one-way hash functions. A public one-way hash function can be used to speed up a public-key digital signature system. Rather than sign a long message which can take a long time, compute the one-way hash of the message, and sign the hash. {}. (1995-02-16)
one-banana problem

At mainframe shops, where the computers have operators for routine administrivia, the programmers and hardware people tend to look down on the operators and claim that a trained monkey could do their job. It is frequently observed that the incentives that would be offered said monkeys can be used as a scale to describe the difficulty of a task. A one-banana problem is simple; hence, "It's only a one-banana job at the most; what's taking them so long?" At IBM, folklore divides the world into one-, two-, and three-banana problems. Other cultures have different hierarchies and may divide them more finely; at ICL, for example, five grapes (a bunch) equals a banana. Their upper limit for the in-house sysapes is said to be two bananas and three grapes (another source claims it's three bananas and one grape, but observes "However, this is subject to local variations, cosmic rays and ISO"). At a complication level any higher than that, one asks the manufacturers to send someone around to check things. See also Infinite-Monkey Theorem.
one-line fix

Used (often sarcastically) of a change to a program that is thought to be trivial or insignificant right up to the moment it crashes the system. Usually "cured" by another one-line fix. See also I didn't change anything!
one-liner wars

A game popular among hackers who code in the language APL (see write-only language and line noise). The objective is to see who can code the most interesting and/or useful routine in one line of operators chosen from APL's exceedingly hairy primitive set. A similar amusement was practiced among TECO hackers and is now popular among Perl aficionados. Ken Iverson, the inventor of APL, has been credited with a one-liner that, given a number N, produces a list of the prime numbers from 1 to N inclusive. It looks like this: (2 = 0 +.= T o.| T) / T <- iN where "o" is the APL null character, the assignment arrow is a single character, and "i" represents the APL iota.
ACT ONE

A specification language. ["An Algebraic Specification Language with Two Levels of Semantics", H. Ehrig et al, Tech U Berlin 83-1983-02-03]. (1994-11-08)
off-by-one error

An exceedingly common error induced in many ways, such as by starting at zero when you should have started at one or vice-versa, or by writing "< N" instead of "<= N" or vice-versa. Often confounded with fencepost error, which is properly a particular subtype of it. (1998-09-21)