Re: [MacPerl] Totally off-topic - bits and pieces

[Andy Berkvam <aberkvam@coredcs.com>]

On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, Vicki Brown wrote:

> At 11:12 -0800 1/28/99, Brian McNett wrote:
> >
> > "Real Soon Now" is who's trademark exactly? AFAIK, Jerry Pournelle 
> > originated this in the pages of BYTE (rip) nearly two decades ago 
> > or more.
> 
> I think it's also (originally?) a variant on "Real Soon" which comes 
> from the movie "Buckaroo Bonzai, Across the 5th Dimension."
> 
> "When are we going?  Real Soon!"
> 
  This is what the on-line hacker Jargon File, version 4.0.0
<http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/> has to say about it.  (I am also
including a couple of other definitions to try and keep this vaguely
on-topic....  ;-)

Real Soon Now /adv./ 
[orig. from SF's fanzine community, popularized by Jerry Pournelle's
column in "BYTE"] 1. Supposed to be available (or fixed, or cheap, or
whatever) real soon now according to somebody, but the speaker is quite
skeptical. 2. When one's gods, fates, or other time commitments permit one
to get to it (in other words, don't hold your breath). Often abbreviated
RSN. Compare copious free time. 

Perl /perl/ /n./ 
[Practical Extraction and Report Language, a.k.a. Pathologically Eclectic
Rubbish Lister] An interpreted language developed by Larry Wall
(<lwall@jpl.nasa.gov>, author of patch(1) and rn(1)) and distributed over
Usenet. Superficially resembles awk, but is much hairier, including many
facilities reminiscent of sed(1) and shells and a comprehensive Unix
system-call interface. Unix sysadmins, who are almost always incorrigible
hackers, increasingly consider it one of the languages of choice. Perl has
been described, in a parody of a famous remark about lex(1), as the
"Swiss-Army chainsaw" of Unix programming. See also Camel Book. 

Macintrash /mak'in-trash`/ /n./ 
The Apple Macintosh, as described by a hacker who doesn't appreciate being
kept away from the real computer by the interface. The term maggotbox has
been reported in regular use in the Research Triangle area of North
Carolina. Compare Macintoy. See also beige toaster, WIMP environment,
point-and-drool interface, drool-proof paper, user-friendly. 


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