May 15, 2003
YA-
abbrev.[Yet Another] In hackish acronyms this almost invariably expands to Yet Another, following the precedent set by Unix yacc1 (Yet Another Compiler-Compiler). See YABA.
YABA
/ya´b@/ n.
[Cambridge] Yet Another Bloody Acronym. Whenever some program is
being named, someone invariably suggests that it be given a name that is
acronymic. The response from those with a trace of originality is to
remark ironically that the proposed name would then be
‘YABA-compatible’. Also used in response to questions like
What is WYSIWYG?
See also TLA.
YAFIYGI
/yaf´ee·y@·gee/ adj.
[coined in response to WYSIWYG] Describes the command-oriented
ed/vi/nroff/TeX style of word processing or other user interface, the
opposite of WYSIWYG. Stands for You asked
for it, you got it
, because what you actually asked for is often
not apparent until long after it is too late to do anything about it. Used
to denote perversity (Real Programmers use YAFIYGI
tools...and like it!
) or, less often, a
necessary tradeoff (Only a YAFIYGI tool can have full programmable
flexibility in its interface.
).
This precise sense of You asked for it, you got it
seems to have first appeared in Ed Post's classic parody Real
Programmers don't use Pascal (see
Real Programmers); the acronym is a more recent invention.
yak shaving
[MIT AI Lab, after 2000: orig. probably from a Ren & Stimpy episode.] Any seemingly pointless activity which is actually necessary to solve a problem which solves a problem which, several levels of recursion later, solves the real problem you're working on.
YAUN
/yawn/ n.[Acronym for ‘Yet Another Unix Nerd’] Reported from the San Diego Computer Society (predominantly a microcomputer users' group) as a good-natured punning insult aimed at Unix zealots.
yellow wire
n.[IBM] Repair wires used when connectors (especially ribbon connectors) got broken due to some schlemiel pinching them, or to reconnect cut traces after the FE mistakenly cut one. Compare blue wire, purple wire, red wire.
Yet Another
adj.[From Unix's yacc1, ‘Yet Another Compiler-Compiler’, a LALR parser generator]
1. Of your own work: A humorous allusion often used in titles to acknowledge that the topic is not original, though the content is. As in ‘Yet Another AI Group’ or ‘Yet Another Simulated Annealing Algorithm’.
2. Of others' work: Describes something of which there are already far too many. See also YA-, YABA, YAUN.
YHBT
[Usenet: very common] Abbreviation: You Have Been Trolled (see
troll, sense 1). Especially used in YHBT.
YHL. HAND.
, which is widely understood to expand to You
Have Been Trolled. You Have Lost. Have A Nice Day
. You are quite
likely to see this if you respond incautiously to a flame-provoking post
that was obviously floated as sucker bait.
YKYBHTLW
abbrev.Abbreviation of ‘You know you've been hacking too long when...’, which became established on the Usenet group alt.folklore.computers during extended discussion of the indicated entry in the Jargon File.
You are not expected to understand this
cav.[Unix] The canonical comment describing something magic or too complicated to bother explaining properly. From an infamous comment in the context-switching code of the V6 Unix kernel. Dennis Ritchie has explained this in detail.
You know you've been hacking too long when
The set-up line for a genre of one-liners told by hackers about themselves. These include the following:
not only do you check your email more often than your paper mail, but you remember your network address faster than your postal one.
your SO kisses you on the neck and the first thing
you think is Uh, oh,
priority interrupt.
you go to balance your checkbook and discover that you're doing it in octal.
your computers have a higher street value than your car.
in your universe, ‘round numbers’ are powers of 2, not 10.
more than once, you have woken up recalling a dream in some programming language.
you see the word Oxford
and mentally trip over
the fact that ‘r’ is not a hex digit.
you realize you have never seen half of your best friends.
A list of these can be found by searching for this phrase on the web.
[An early version of this entry said All but one of these have
been reliably reported as hacker traits (some of them quite often). Even
hackers may have trouble spotting the ringer.
The ringer was
balancing one's checkbook in octal, which I made up out of whole cloth.
Although more respondents picked that one out as fiction than any of the
others, I also received multiple independent reports of its actually
happening, most famously to Grace Hopper while she was working with BINAC
in 1949. —ESR]
Your mileage may vary
cav.[from the standard disclaimer attached to EPA mileage ratings by American car manufacturers]
1. A ritual warning often found in Unix freeware distributions.
Translates roughly as Hey, I tried to write this portably, but who
knows what'll happen on your system?
2. More generally, a qualifier attached to advice. I find
that sending flowers works well, but your mileage may vary.
Yow!
/yow/ interj.
[from Zippy the Pinhead
comix] A favored hacker
expression of humorous surprise or emphasis. Yow! Check out what
happens when you twiddle the foo option on this display
hack!
.
yoyo mode
n.The state in which the system is said to be when it rapidly alternates several times between being up and being down. Interestingly (and perhaps not by coincidence), many hardware vendors give out free yoyos at Usenix exhibits.
Sun Microsystems gave out logoized yoyos at SIGPLAN '88. Tourists staying at one of Atlanta's most respectable hotels were subsequently treated to the sight of 200 of the country's top computer scientists testing yo-yo algorithms in the lobby.
Yu-Shiang Whole Fish
/yoo·shyang hohl fish/ n. obs.The character gamma (extended SAIL ASCII 0001001), which with a loop in its tail looks like a little fish swimming down the page. The term is actually the name of a Chinese dish in which a fish is cooked whole (not parsed) and covered with Yu-Shiang (or Yu-Hsiang) sauce. Usage: primarily by people on the MIT LISP Machine, which could display this character on the screen. Tends to elicit incredulity from people who hear about it second-hand.