Improve Your Computer Vocabulary -------------------------------- Analog: Hors d'oeuvre, usually made from cheese and covered with crushed nuts 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 organizing 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 rumored 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 organization 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)