Hacker Dictionary
 
Browse the Dictionary...
All A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Navigation Random Term
  • crash
    1. n. A sudden, usually drastic failure. Most often said of the {system} (q.v., sense 1), esp. of magnetic disk drives (the term... VIEW ENTIRE DEFINITION


    •  View Definition: fontology 

    fontology

    [XEROX PARC] n. The body of knowledge dealing with the construction and use of new fonts (e.g. for window systems and typesetting software). It has been said that fontology recapitulates file-ogeny.

    [Unfortunately, this reference to the embryological dictum that "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" is not merely a joke. On the Macintosh, for example, System 7 has to go through contortions to compensate for an earlier design error that created a whole different set of abstractions for fonts parallel to `files' and `folders' --- ESR]