Unit 19: Vocabulary

Please study the 15 vocabulary terms below. Then press the Mark Complete button to continue.
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code monkey
someone who sits and programs all day; someone who is only valued for their programming skills
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The bad software architect said, "Tell the developers to stop thinking and start typing like good little code monkeys!"
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early adopter
a person who likes new things and often buys them before they are proven
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A geek is a typical early adopter, often trying the latest and greatest technology before their peers have even heard of it.
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EOL (end of life)
the point when something is no longer useful or relevant
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Do you think compiled languages have reached their EOL?
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fanboy
someone obsessed or devoted to a particular item or genre
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Tom is such a fanboy, he still uses his old Commodore Amiga as his main computer.
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flame
to write an intentionally abusive reply to a comment or forum post
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Joe, the sysadmin, got sent to counseling because he started too many flame wars on the company intranet.
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geek
an individual with a passion for computers, to the exclusion of other normal human interests
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The geek did not have a girlfriend, but he did have a computer named Lisa which he programmed to sing him love songs before bedtime.
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horked
completely broken in some mysterious way; corrupted
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The websites crashed because the server was completely horked.
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killer app
a piece of software which redefines the industry, often causing people to rush out and buy new hardware so they can use it
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Email was the first killer app of the Internet.
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leading edge
at the forefront of a new technology; also referred to as "state-of-the-art"
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Kyle's company is so leading edge that they buy everyone new computers every six months.
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pita (pain in the ass)
this is nerd slang for anything annoying
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Installing and configuring a Linux wireless network card can be a real pita.
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PHB (pointy haired boss)
a derogatory reference to a stereotypical IT manager who chooses their technology platforms based on the latest TV commercial and have no knowledge at all of what their employees actually do
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This is how the PHB is described on the Dilbert website: "He wasn't born mean and unscrupulous, he worked hard at it."
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spaghetti code
a derogatory term for poorly organized programming code
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The lead programmer threw his hands up in the air and screamed when he saw the 10,000 lines of spaghetti code that management asked him to debug by tomorrow.
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trendsetter
someone who successfully defines a path for the rest of the industry to follow
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Apple is a company of trendsetters, whom everyone else is just following like lemmings.
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troll
a person who writes intentionally controversial posts on a user forum in order to start a flame wa
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The forum's popularity among serious users went down when the system operator refused to banish the trolls.
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whatever
something sarcastic you can say to non-technical people when they repeatedly give you misguided technical instructions that are impossible, impractical, dangerous, or overly time-consuming
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"Whatever, dude," replied the programmer when his manager asked him to work overtime to recover his deleted files.
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