Funny Acronyms in Computer Science
Did you know that "GNU" is a recursive acronym?
As I’m studying comp sci I keep coming across the meaning of acronyms, and wanted to share some of the more playful ones that make me chuckle a bit.
GNU = “GNU’s Not Unix.” It’s recursive because the first word is GNU itself, so if you try to expand it it’s like a recursive function that keeps calling itself.
The GNU Project is a free software movement started in 1983 by Richard Stallman, with the goal to create a Unix-like operating system that anyone could use, study, modify, share. In 1991 Linux Tovalds created the Linux kernel, eventually combining it with GNU software.
GNU’s mascot is a wildebeest, also known as a gnu.
PHP = “PHP: Hyptertext Preprocessor.”
WINE = “Wine Is Not an Emulator”
WINE is a compatibility that lets Windows programs runs on Linux and other Unix-like systems. It gets mistaken as an emulator, but actually translates Windows API calls to Linux API calls.
PINE = “Pine Is Not Elm”
This was a popular email program in the 1990s, and the joke is directed at older email program called Elm, which is also funny because they are both trees.
YAML = “YAML Ain’t Markup Language”
The command grep comes from an old editor command g/re/p meaning “globally search for a regular expression and print.”
YACC = “Yet Another Compiler Compiler”
A compiler compiler generates compilers.
BOGOMIPS = “Bogus Millions of Instructions Per Seconds”
Linux prints it during bootup.
RFC 2324 = “Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol”
TWAIN = Was originally called TWAIN as a reference to a Rudyard Kipling poem, The Ballad of East and West, which has the line …and never the twain shall meet…“ because of the idea of connecting “east and west,” as at the time connecting a scanner to a personal computer was dificult (1992). It was capitilized as TWAIN to help it look more distinct, which caused people to confuse it for an acronym. A competition was held to find an acronym, and “Technology Without An Interesting Name” won. So this “acronym” has still stuck around.
A technology used in compute scanners.
TLA = “Three Letter Acronym”
ETLA = “Extended Three Letter Acronym”
Funny Rewrites:
EULA = “End User License Agreement” or “Extremely Unclear, Lengthy Anachronism”
COBOL = “Common Business-Oriented Language” or “Crazy Old But Operational Language”
RFTM = “Read the Freaking Manual”
When a developer asks a question that can found in documentation.
In Bash:
There a lot of funny things yu can find in Bash, such as running sl (Steam Locomotive), meant for if you accidentally mistype the ls (list file) comamnd, an ASCII-art train will chug across your terminal. Will have to get into more Bash stuff in a later post!
BASH = “Bourne-Again SHell"
A pun on the Bourne shell.
AWK = Named after the creators (Aho, Weinberger, and Kernighan), also known as “Awfully Weird Keywords.”
In IT:
PICNIC = “Problem in Chair, Not in Computer”
Issue is caused by user error.
ID10T = “eye dee ten tea” but looks like Idiot.
BSoD = “Blue Screen of Death”
Any I’m missing? Feel free to contribute some in the comments.