alt.: NOP /nop/ [no operation]
1. A machine instruction that does nothing (sometimes used in assembler-level programming as filler for data or patch areas, or to overwrite code to be removed in binaries).
2. A person who contributes nothing to a project, or has nothing
going on upstairs, or both. As in He's a no-op.
3. Any operation or sequence of operations with no effect, such as
circling the block without finding a parking space, or putting money into a
vending machine and having it fall immediately into the coin-return box, or
asking someone for help and being told to go away. Oh, well, that
was a no-op.
Hot-and-sour soup (see
great-wall) that is insufficiently either is
no-op soup; so is wonton soup if
everybody else is having hot-and-sour.