Backup: Opposite of go forward
Batch Processing: Making a lot of cookies at once.
Binary: Possessing the ability to have friends of both sexes.
Bit: 12 1/2 cents.
Branch: If watered, it will grow into a computer club (see computer club).
Buffer: Programmer who works in the nude.
Bug: 1. Programmer's term for a feature 2. An elusive creature living in a program which makes it incorrect. Note: the activity of "debugging" or removing bugs from a program ends when a programmer gets tired of doing it, not when all the bugs are removed.
Character density: The number of very weird people in the office, divided by the floor space.
Computer: A device designed to speed and automate errors.
Computer Club: Used to strike computer forcefully upon receiving error messages.
Coding: An addictive drug.
Compile: A heap of decomposing vegetable matter.
Compiler: Noah Webster (1758-1843).
Console: What one does to a depressed computer.
Cursor: An expert in 4-letter words.
Dump: A system programmer's work area.
Feature: Hardware limitation as described by a marketing representative.
Hardware: The parts of a computer which can be kicked.
Keyboard: An instrument used for entering errors into a system.
Language: A system of organising and defining error messages.
Loop: See loop.
Machine-independent Program: A program which will not run on any machine.
Microcomputer: One millionth of a computer.
Null String: The result of a 4-hour database search.
On-line: The idea that a human should always be accessible.
Password: The nonsense word taped to your terminal.
Performance: A statement of the speed at which a computer system works. Or rather, might work under certain circumstances. Or was rumoured to be working about a month ago.
Printer: Johann Gutenberg (1400-1468).
Quality Control: Ensuring that the quality of a product does not get out of hand and add to the cost of its manufacture or design.
Strategy: A long-range plan whose merit cannot be evaluated until sometime after those creating it have left the organisation.
User: Someone requiring drug rehabilitation.
8-bit machine: A computer selling for $1.00 (see bit).
16-bit machine: A computer selling for $2.00 (see bit).
