>> On Fri, 21 Mar 2003 11:02:20 -0800,
>> Chris Waters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> On Fri, Mar 21, 2003 at 11:55:52AM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>> Firstly, this is not broad enough, saying that communicating to
>> the user by hand encompoassed all possible means of communicating,
> No, it's simply technically meaningless. To me, "by hand" implies,
> "without the use of a computer" (as in, "I balance my checkbook by
> hand").
>> not just stdio.
> Well, I'm sorry - obviously I don't know what "by hand" is supposed
> to mean.
> Why don't you tell me what it *does* mean (or what you think it's
> supposed to mean), and I'll see if I can come up with some decent
> wording for that.
*sigh*.
======================================================================
>From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (12 Sep 2002) [foldoc]:
by hand
1. Said of an operation (especially a repetitive, trivial,
and/or tedious one) that ought to be performed automatically
by the computer, but which a hacker instead has to step
tediously through. "My mailer doesn't have a command to
include the text of the message I'm replying to, so I have to
do it by hand." This does not necessarily mean the speaker
has to retype a copy of the message; it might refer to, say,
dropping into a subshell from the mailer, making a copy of
one's mailbox file, reading that into an editor, locating the
top and bottom of the message in question, deleting the rest
of the file, inserting ">" characters on each line, writing
the file, leaving the editor, returning to the mailer, reading
the file in, and later remembering to delete the file.
Compare {eyeball search}.
2. By extension, writing code which does something in an
explicit or low-level way for which a presupplied library
routine ought to have been available. "This cretinous
{B-tree} library doesn't supply a decent iterator, so I'm
having to walk the trees by hand."
======================================================================
(I don't think walking a tree by hand requires you to go
outside and climb something made out of wood)
" writing code which does something in an explicit or
low-level way for which a presupplied mechanism exists".
OK?
manoj
--
"An organization dries up if you don't challenge it with growth." Mark
Shepherd, former President and CEO of Texas Instruments
Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
