push
1. <programming> To put something onto a stack or pdl.
Opposite: "pop".
2. <communications> push media.
[Jargon File]
(1997-04-10)
Nearby terms:
Purple Book « purple wire « Purveyor « push »
push-button » Push Down List » push media
push-button
<electronics> A roughly fingertip-sized plastic cover attached to a
spring-loaded, normally-open switch, which, when pressed, closes the switch.
Typical examples are the keys on a computer or calculator keyboard and mouse
buttons.
(1997-07-07)
Nearby terms:
purple wire « Purveyor « push « push-button »
Push Down List » push media » PVC
Push Down List
<programming> (PDL) In ITS days, the preferred MITism for stack.
See overflow pdl.
(1995-12-21)
Nearby terms:
Purveyor « push « push-button « Push Down List
» push media » PVC » PVM
push media
<messaging> A model of media distribution where items of content are sent
to the user (viewer, listener, etc.) in a sequence, and at a rate, determined by
a server to which the user has connected. This contrasts with pull media where
the user requests each item individually. Push media usually entail some notion
of a "channel" which the user selects and which delivers a particular kind of
content.
Broadcast television is (for the most part) the prototypical example of push
media: you turn on the TV set, select a channel and shows and commercials stream
out until you turn the set off.
By contrast, the World-Wide Web is (mostly) the prototypical example of pull
media: each "page", each bit of content, comes to the user only if he requests
it; put down the keyboard and the mouse, and everything stops.
At the time of writing (April 1997), much effort is being put into blurring the
line between push media and pull media. Most of this is aimed at bringing more
push media to the Internet, mainly as a way to disseminate advertising, since
telling people about products they didn't know they wanted is very difficult in
a strict pull media model.
These emergent forms of push media are generally variations on targeted
advertising mixed in with bits of useful content. "At home on your computer, the
same system will run soothing screensavers underneath regular news flashes, all
while keeping track, in one corner, of press releases from companies whose
stocks you own. With frequent commercial messages, of course." (Wired, March
1997, page 12).
Pointcast is probably the best known push system on the Internet at the
time of writing.
As part of the eternal desire to apply a fun new words to boring old things,
"push" is occasionally used to mean nothing more than email spam.
(1997-04-10)
Nearby terms:
push « push-button « Push Down List « push media
» PVC » PVM » PV-WAVE
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