Unit #19 Objectives: IT Slang: Part 1

The objective of unit IT Slang: Part 1 is to learn to recognize and understand the 15 key unit vocabulary terms. This is accomplished by completing the readings and other activities.

Unit Vocabulary

Below is a list of key vocabulary terms in this unit. You can also Print out the vocabulary list.

someone who sits and programs all day; someone who is only valued for their programming skills

The bad software architect said, "Tell the developers to stop thinking and start typing like good little code monkeys!"

a person who likes new things and often buys them before they are proven

A geek is a typical early adopter, often trying the latest and greatest technology before their peers have even heard of it.

the point when something is no longer useful or relevant

Do you think compiled languages have reached their EOL?

someone obsessed or devoted to a particular item or genre

Tom is such a fanboy he still uses his old Commodore Amiga as his main computer.

to write an intentionally abusive reply to a comment or forum post

Joe the sysadmin got sent to counseling because he started too many flame wars on the company intranet.

an individual with a passion for computers, to the exclusion of other normal human interests

The geek did not have a girlfriend, but he had a computer named Lisa that he programmed to sing love songs to him before bed.

completely broken in some mysterious way; corrupted

The web sites crashed because the server was completely horked.

a piece of software which redefines the industry, often causing people to rush out and buy new hardware so they can use it

Email was the first killer app of the web.

at the forefront of a new technology; also referred to as "state-of-the-art"

Kyle's company is so leading edge they buy everyone new computers every six months.

This is nerd slang for anything annoying

Installing and configuring a Linux wireless network card can be a real pita.

This is a derogatory reference to a stereotypical IT manager who choose their technology platforms based on the latest TV commercial and have no knowledge at all of what their employees actually do

This is how the PHB is described on the Dilbert web site: "He's every employee's worst nightmare. He wasn't born mean and unscrupulous, he worked hard at it. And succeeded. As for stupidity, well, some things are inborn."

a derogatory term for poorly organized programming code.

The lead programmer threw his hands up in the air and screamed when he saw the 10,000 lines long file of spaghetti code that management asked him to debug.

someone who successfully defines a path for the rest of the industry to follow

Apple Inc. is a company of trendsetters. Everyone else is just following them now.

a person who writes intentionally controversial posts on a user forum in order to start a flame war.

The forum's popularity among serious users went down when the system operator refused to banish the trolls.

something sarcastic you can say to non-technical people when they tell repeatedly give you misguided technical instructions that are impossible, impractical, dangerous, or overly time-consuming

"Whatever, dude," replied the programmer when the middle manager asked him drop everything and recover some files he accidentally deleted from the network drive.