A group G is a non-empty {set} upon which a {binary} operator
	* is defined with the following properties for all a,b,c in G:

	  Closure:     G is closed under *,  a*b in G
	  Associative: * is associative on G, (a*b)*c = a*(b*c)
	  Identity:    There is an identity element  e  such that
		       a*e = e*a = a.
	  Inverse:     Every element has a unique inverse a' such that
		       a * a' = a' * a = e.  The inverse is usually
		       written with a superscript -1.

	(1998-10-03)

<messaging> To rant, to speak or write incessantly and/or
	rabidly on some relatively uninteresting subject or with a
	patently ridiculous attitude or with hostility toward a
	particular person or group of people.  "Flame" is used as a
	verb ("Don't flame me for this, but..."), a flame is a single
	flaming message, and "flamage" /flay'm*j/ the content.

	Flamage may occur in any medium (e.g. spoken, {electronic
	mail}, {Usenet} news, {World-Wide Web}).  Sometimes a flame
	will be delimited in text by marks such as "<flame
	on>...<flame off>".

	The term was probably independently invented at several
	different places.

	Mark L. Levinson says, "When I joined the Harvard student
	radio station (WHRB) in 1966, the terms flame and flamer were
	already well established there to refer to impolite ranting
	and to those who performed it.  Communication among the
	students who worked at the station was by means of what today
	you might call a paper-based Usenet group.  Everyone wrote
	comments to one another in a large ledger.  Documentary
	evidence for the early use of flame/flamer is probably still
	there for anyone fanatical enough to research it."

	It is reported that "flaming" was in use to mean something
	like "interminably drawn-out semi-serious discussions"
	(late-night bull sessions) at Carleton College during
	1968-1971.

	{Usenetter} Marc Ramsey, who was at {WPI} from 1972 to 1976,
	says: "I am 99% certain that the use of "flame" originated at
	WPI.  Those who made a nuisance of themselves insisting that
	they needed to use a {TTY} for "real work" came to be known as
	"flaming asshole lusers".  Other particularly annoying people
	became "flaming asshole ravers", which shortened to "flaming
	ravers", and ultimately "flamers".  I remember someone picking
	up on the Human Torch pun, but I don't think "flame on/off"
	was ever much used at WPI."  See also {asbestos}.

	It is possible that the hackish sense of "flame" is much older
	than that.  The poet Chaucer was also what passed for a wizard
	hacker in his time; he wrote a treatise on the astrolabe, the
	most advanced computing device of the day.  In Chaucer's
	"Troilus and Cressida", Cressida laments her inability to
	grasp the proof of a particular mathematical theorem; her
	uncle Pandarus then observes that it's called "the fleminge of
	wrecches."  This phrase seems to have been intended in context
	as "that which puts the wretches to flight" but was probably
	just as ambiguous in Middle English as "the flaming of
	wretches" would be today.  One suspects that Chaucer would
	feel right at home on {Usenet}.

	[{Jargon File}]

	(2001-03-11)

A message sent to a {newsgroup} or {mailing list} (may also be
	called "a post") or the act of sending it.  Distinguished from
	a "letter" or ordinary {electronic mail} message by the fact
	that it is broadcast rather than point-to-point.  It is not
	clear whether messages sent to a small mailing list are
	postings or e-mail; perhaps the best dividing line is that if
	you don't know the names of all the potential recipients, it
	is a posting.

	[{Jargon File}]

<language, text> (XML) An initiative from the {W3C} defining
	an "extremely simple" dialect of {SGML} suitable for use on
	the {World-Wide Web}.

	{(http://www.w3.org/XML/)}.

	[Relationship to the {XSL} forthcoming subset of {DSSSL}?]

	(1997-11-20)

<operating system> (GUI) The use of pictures rather than just
	words to represent the input and output of a program.  A
	program with a GUI runs under some {windowing system}
	(e.g. The {X Window System}, {MacOS}, {Microsoft Windows},
	{Acorn} {RISC OS}, {NEXTSTEP}).  The program displays certain
	{icons}, {buttons}, {dialogue boxes}, etc. in its {windows} on
	the screen and the user controls it mainly by moving a
	{pointer} on the screen (typically controlled by a {mouse})
	and selecting certain objects by pressing buttons on the mouse
	while the pointer is pointing at them.  This contrasts with a
	{command line interface} where communication is by exchange of
	strings of text.

	Windowing systems started with the first {real}-time graphic
	display systems for computers, namely the {SAGE} Project
	[Dates?] and {Ivan Sutherland}'s {Sketchpad} (1963).  {Douglas
	Engelbart}'s {Augmentation of Human Intellect} project at
	{SRI} in the 1960s developed the {On-Line System}, which
	incorporated a mouse-driven cursor and multiple windows.
	Several people from Engelbart's project went to Xerox PARC in
	the early 1970s, most importantly his senior engineer, {Bill
	English}.  The Xerox PARC team established the {WIMP} concept,
	which appeared commercially in the {Xerox 8010} (Star) system
	in 1981.

	Beginning in 1980(?), led by {Jef Raskin}, the {Macintosh}
	team at {Apple Computer} (which included former members of the
	Xerox PARC group) continued to develop such ideas in the first
	commercially successful product to use a GUI, the Apple
	Macintosh, released in January 1984.  In 2001 Apple introduced
	{Mac OS X}.

	{Microsoft} modeled the first version of {Windows}, released
	in 1985, on Mac OS.  Windows was a GUI for {MS-DOS} that had
	been shipped with {IBM PC} and compatible computers since
	1981.  Apple sued Microsoft over infringement of the
	look-and-feel of the MacOS.  The court case ran for many
	years.

	[Wikipedia].

	(2002-03-25)

<operating system> (BSD) A family of {Unix} versions developed
	by {Bill Joy} and others at the {University of California at
	Berkeley}, originally for the {DEC} {VAX} and {PDP-11}
	computers, and subsequently ported to almost all modern
	general-purpose computers.  BSD Unix incorporates {paged}
	{virtual memory}, {TCP/IP} networking enhancements and many
	other features.

	BSD UNIX 4.0 was released on 1980-10-19.  The BSD versions
	(4.1, 4.2, and 4.3) and the commercial versions derived from
	them ({SunOS}, {ULTRIX}, {Mt. Xinu}, {Dynix}) held the
	technical lead in the Unix world until {AT&T}'s successful
	standardisation efforts after about 1986, and are still widely
	popular.

	See also {Berzerkeley}, {USG Unix}.

	(2005-01-20)

See also {complete graph}, {complete inference system},
	{complete lattice}, {complete metric space}, {complete partial
	ordering}, {complete theory}.

	[1. or 2. or both?]

	(1996-04-24)

<language, programming> (Or "source", or rarely "source
	language") The form in which a computer program is written by
	the programmer.  Source code is written in some formal
	programming language which can be compiled automatically into
	{object code} or {machine code} or executed by an
	{interpreter}.

	(1995-01-05)

<graphics> (AWT) {Java}'s {platform}-independent {windowing},
	graphics, and user-interface {toolkit}.  The AWT is part of
	the {Java Foundation Classes} (JFC) - the standard {API} for
	providing a {graphical user interface} (GUI) for a Java
	program.

	Compare: {SWING}.

	["Java in a Nutshell", O'Reilly].

	{Home (http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/awt/)}.

	(2000-07-26)

After-sale handholding; something many software vendors
	promise but few deliver.  To hackers, most support people are
	useless - because by the time a hacker calls support he or she
	will usually know the software and the relevant manuals better
	than the support people (sadly, this is *not* a joke or
	exaggeration).  A hacker's idea of "support" is a tte--tte
	or exchange of {electronic mail} with the software's designer.

	[{Jargon File}]

	(1995-02-15)

1. <filename extension> {filename extension}.

	2. <programming> A {feature} or piece of {code} which
	{extends} a program's {functionality}, e.g. a {plug-in}.

	(1997-06-21)

<programming, library> A collection of {subroutines} and
	{functions} stored in one or more files, usually in compiled
	form, for linking with other programs.  Libraries are one of
	the earliest forms of organised {code reuse}.  They are often
	supplied by the {operating system} or {software development
	environment} developer to be used in many different programs.
	The routines in a library may be general purpose or designed
	for some specific function such as three dimensional animated
	graphics.

	Libraries are linked with the user's program to form a
	complete {executable}.  The linking may be {static linking}
	or, in some systems, {dynamic linking}.

	(1998-11-21)

<jargon> 1. A piece of {hardware} that encapsulates some
	function but can't be used without some kind of {front end}.
	Today we have, especially, "{print engine}": the guts of a
	{laser printer}.

	2. An analogous piece of software; notionally, one that does a
	lot of noisy {crunching}, such as a "database engine", or
	"{search engine}".

	The hackish senses of "engine" are actually close to its
	original, pre-Industrial-Revolution sense of a skill, clever
	device, or instrument (the word is cognate to "ingenuity").
	This sense had not been completely eclipsed by the modern
	connotation of power-transducing machinery in {Charles
	Babbage}'s time, which explains why he named the
	stored-program computer that he designed in 1844 the
	"{Analytical Engine}".

	[{Jargon File}]

	(1996-05-31)

<messaging> 1. {electronic mail}.

	2. The {Berkeley Unix} program for composing and reading
	{electronic mail}.  It normally uses {sendmail} to handle
	delivery.

	{Unix manual page}: mail(1)

	(1997-12-03)

<security> (By analogy with biological viruses, via SF) A
	program or piece of code written by a {cracker} that "infects"
	one or more other programs by embedding a copy of itself in
	them, so that they become {Trojan horses}.  When these
	programs are executed, the embedded virus is executed too,
	thus propagating the "infection".  This normally happens
	invisibly to the user.

	A virus has an "engine" - code that enables it to propagate
	and optionally a "payload" - what it does apart from
	propagating.  It needs a "host" - the particular hardware and
	software environment on which it can run and a "trigger" - the
	event that starts it running.

	Unlike a {worm}, a virus cannot infect other computers without
	assistance.  It is propagated by vectors such as humans
	trading programs with their friends (see {SEX}).  The virus
	may do nothing but propagate itself and then allow the program
	to run normally.  Usually, however, after propagating silently
	for a while, it starts doing things like writing "cute"
	messages on the terminal or playing strange tricks with the
	display (some viruses include {display hacks}).  Viruses
	written by particularly antisocial {crackers} may do
	irreversible damage, like deleting files.

	By the 1990s, viruses had become a serious problem, especially
	among {IBM PC} and {Macintosh} users (the lack of security on
	these machines enables viruses to spread easily, even
	infecting the operating system).  The production of special
	{antivirus software} has become an industry, and a number of
	exaggerated media reports have caused outbreaks of near
	hysteria among users.  Many {lusers} tend to blame
	*everything* that doesn't work as they had expected on virus
	attacks.  Accordingly, this sense of "virus" has passed into
	popular usage where it is often incorrectly used for a {worm}
	or {Trojan horse}.

	See {boot virus}, {phage}.  Compare {back door}.  See also
	{Unix conspiracy}.

	[{Jargon File}]

	(2003-06-20)

1. The {supervisor} program or {operating system} on a
	computer.

	2. The entire computer system, including input/output devices,
	the {supervisor} program or {operating system} and possibly
	other {software}.

	3. Any large program.

	4. Any method or {algorithm}.

	[{Jargon File}]