brace
<character> left brace or right brace.
Nearby terms:
bps « BQS « br « brace » bracket » bracket
abstraction » braille
bracket
<character> (Or square bracket) A left bracket or right bracket.
Often used loosely for parentheses, square brackets, braces, angle brackets, or
any other kind of unequal paired delimiters.
(1996-09-08)
Nearby terms:
BQS « br « brace « bracket » bracket
abstraction » braille » braille display
bracket abstraction
<compiler> An algorithm which turns a term into a function of some
variable. The result of using bracket abstraction on T with respect to variable
v, written as [v]T, is a term containing no occurrences of v and denoting a
function f such that f v = T. This defines the function f = (\ v . T). Using
bracket abstraction and currying we can define a language without bound
variables in which the only operation is monadic function application.
See combinator.
(1995-03-07)
Nearby terms:
br « brace « bracket « bracket abstraction »
braille » braille display » Braille embosser
braille
<human language> /breyl/ (Often capitalised) A class of writing systems,
intended for use by blind and low-vision users, which express glyphs as raised
dots. Currently employed braille standards use eight dots per cell, where a cell
is a glyph-space two dots across by four dots high; most glyphs use only the top
six dots.
Braille was developed by Louis Braille (pronounced /looy bray/) in France in the
1820s. Braille systems for most languages can be fairly trivially converted to
and from the usual script.
Braille has several totally coincidental parallels with digital computing: it is
binary, it is based on groups of eight bits/dots and its development began in
the 1820s, at the same time Charles Babbage proposed the Difference Engine.
Computers output Braille on braille displays and braille printers for hard copy.
British Royal National Institute for the Blind.
(1998-10-19)
Nearby terms:
brace « bracket « bracket abstraction « braille
» braille display » Braille embosser » Braille
printer
braille display
<hardware> (Or "refreshable braille display", "refreshable display") An
electromechanical device that renders braille with tiny, independently
controlled pins used to represent the state of dots in braille cells. Each pin,
in its "on" state, raises above the top of its hole in the screen; in its "off"
state, it drops below the top of its hole. Older systems used tiny solenoids to
control the state of the pins; modern systems are piezoelectric.
Typical dimensions of a braille display are 1 line of 40 cells, each cell of
two-by-eight dots.
(1998-10-19)
Nearby terms:
bracket « bracket abstraction « braille « braille
display
» Braille embosser » Braille printer » Brain Aid
Prolog
Braille embosser
Braille printer
Nearby terms:
bracket abstraction « braille « braille display «
Braille embosser » Braille printer » Brain Aid
Prolog » brain-damaged
Braille printer
<printer> (Or "(Braille) embosser") A printer, necessarily an impact
printer, that renders text as Braille. Blind users call other printers ink
printers.
(1999-02-26)
Nearby terms:
braille « braille display « Braille embosser «
Braille printer » Brain Aid Prolog »
brain-damaged » brain-dead
Brain Aid Prolog
<language> (BAP) A parallel Prolog environment for transputer systems by
Frank Bergmann <fraber@fraber.de>, Martin Ostermann
<ost@xan.dfv.rwth-aachen.de>, and Guido von Walter <guido@parsytec.de>
of Brain Aid Systems GbR. BAP is based on a model of communicating sequential
Prolog processes. The run-time system consists of a multi-process operating
system with support for several applications running concurrently.
Home.
(2002-11-12)
Nearby terms:
braille display « Braille embosser « Braille printer
«
Brain Aid Prolog » brain-damaged » brain-dead »
brain dump
brain-damaged
1. [generalisation of "Honeywell Brain Damage" (HBD), a theoretical disease
invented to explain certain utter cretinisms in Honeywell Multics] Obviously
wrong; cretinous; demented. There is an implication that the person responsible
must have suffered brain damage, because he should have known better. Calling
something brain-damaged is really bad; it also implies it is unusable, and that
its failure to work is due to poor design rather than some accident. "Only six
monocase characters per file name? Now *that's* brain-damaged!"
2. [especially in the Mac world] May refer to free demonstration software that
has been deliberately crippled in some way so as not to compete with the
commercial product it is intended to sell. Synonym crippleware.
[Jargon File]
Nearby terms:
Braille embosser « Braille printer « Brain Aid
Prolog «
brain-damaged » brain-dead » brain dump » brain
fart
brain-dead
Brain-damaged in the extreme. It tends to imply terminal design failure rather
than malfunction or simple stupidity.
Nearby terms:
Braille printer « Brain Aid Prolog « brain-damaged «
brain-dead » brain dump » brain fart » Brainfuck
brain dump
(The act of telling someone) everything one knows about a particular topic.
Typically used when someone is going to let a new party maintain a piece of
code. Conceptually analogous to an operating system core dump in that it saves a
lot of useful state before an exit. "You'll have to give me a brain dump on
FOOBAR before you start your new job at HackerCorp." At Sun, this is also known
as "TOI" (transfer of information).
[Jargon File]
Nearby terms:
Brain Aid Prolog « brain-damaged « brain-dead «
brain dump » brain fart » Brainfuck » braino
brain fart
<jargon, humour> 1. The actual result of a braino, as opposed to the
mental glitch that is the braino itself. E.g. typing "dir" on a Unix box after a
session with MS-DOS.
2. A biproduct of a bloated mind producing information effortlessly. A burst of
useful information. "I know you're busy on the Microsoft story, but can you give
us a brain fart on the Mitnik bust?"
(1997-04-29)
Nearby terms:
brain-damaged « brain-dead « brain dump « brain
fart
» Brainfuck » braino » branch
Brainfuck
<language> An eight-instruction programming language created by Urban
Müller. His goal was apparently to create a Turing-complete language with the
smallest compiler ever, for the Amiga OS 2.0. He eventually reduced his compiler
to under 200 bytes.
A Brainfuck program has a pointer that moves within an array of 30000 bytes,
initially all set to zero. The pointer initially points to the beginning of this
array. The language has eight commands, each of which is represented as a single
character, and which can be expressed in terms of C as follows:
> ==> ++p;
< ==> --p;
+ ==> ++*p;
- ==> --*p;
. ==> putchar(*p);
, ==> *p = getchar();
[ ==> while (*p) {
] ==> }
Brian Raiter's Brainfuck page.
(2003-11-18)
Nearby terms:
brain-dead « brain dump « brain fart « Brainfuck
» braino » branch » Branch and Hang
braino
thinko
Nearby terms:
brain dump « brain fart « Brainfuck « braino
» branch » Branch and Hang » branch coverage testing
branch
1. <mathematics> An edge in a tree.
2. <programming> A jump.
Nearby terms:
brain fart « Brainfuck « braino « branch »
Branch and Hang » branch coverage testing » branch
delay slot
Branch and Hang
<humour> (BRH) Originally a mythical instruction for the IBM 1130 at
Indiana University.
Later some real examples were discovered. The Texas Instruments TI-980 allowed
all addressing modes with all instructions, including Store Immediate Extended
(stores the value into the extension word of the instruction) and Branch and
Link Immediate (makes a subroutine call to the same instruction -- Branch and
Hang).
Compare HCF.
(1997-02-12)
Nearby terms:
Brainfuck « braino « branch « Branch and Hang
» branch coverage testing » branch delay slot »
Branch on Chip Box Full
branch coverage testing
<programming> A test method which aims to ensure that each possible
branch from each decision point (e.g. "if" statement) is executed at least once,
thus ensuring that all reachable code is executed.
(1996-05-10)
Nearby terms:
braino « branch « Branch and Hang « branch
coverage testing » branch delay slot » Branch on
Chip Box Full » branch prediction
branch delay slot
delayed control-transfer
Nearby terms:
branch « Branch and Hang « branch coverage testing «
branch delay slot » Branch on Chip Box Full »
branch prediction » Branch Target Buffer
Branch on Chip Box Full
<humour> (BCBF) A mythical IBM 1130 instruction whose action depended on
the contents of the chip box. This was one of a long list of fake assembly
language instructions that went around Indiana University in the 1970s.
(1997-02-12)
Nearby terms:
Branch and Hang « branch coverage testing « branch
delay slot « Branch on Chip Box Full » branch
prediction » Branch Target Buffer » branch to
Fishkill
branch prediction
<processor, algorithm> A technique used in some processors with
instruction prefetch to guess whether a conditional branch will be taken or not
and prefetch code from the appropriate location.
When a branch instruction is executed, its address and that of the next
instruction executed (the chosen destination of the branch) are stored in the
Branch Target Buffer. This information is used to predict which way the
instruction will branch the next time it is executed so that instruction
prefetch can continue. When the prediction is correct (and it is over 90% of the
time), executing a branch does not cause a pipeline break.
Some later CPUs simply prefetch both paths instead of trying to predict which
way the branch will go.
An extension of the idea of branch prediction is speculative execution.
(1998-03-14)
Nearby terms:
branch coverage testing « branch delay slot « Branch
on Chip Box Full « branch prediction » Branch
Target Buffer » branch to Fishkill » Brazil
Branch Target Buffer
<processor> (BTB) A register used to store the predicted destination of a
branch in a processor using branch prediction?
[Is this correct? Examples?]
(1995-05-05)
Nearby terms:
branch delay slot « Branch on Chip Box Full « branch
prediction « Branch Target Buffer » branch to
Fishkill » Brazil » BRB
branch to Fishkill
(IBM: from the location of one of the corporation's facilities) Any unexpected
jump in a program that produces catastrophic or just plain weird results.
See jump off into never-never land, hyperspace.
[Jargon File]
Nearby terms:
Branch on Chip Box Full « branch prediction « Branch
Target Buffer « branch to Fishkill » Brazil »
BRB » bread crumbs
Brazil
An operating system from Acorn Computers used on an ARM card which could be
fitted to an IBM PC. There was also an ARM second processor for the BBC
Microcomputer which used Brazil. Never used on the Archimedes(?).
(1994-12-05)
Nearby terms:
branch prediction « Branch Target Buffer « branch to
Fishkill « Brazil » BRB » bread crumbs »
breadth first search
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