In 1979, Brian Kernighan modified troff so that it could drive phototypesetters other than the Graphic Systems CAT. His paper describing that work ("A Typesetter-independent troff," AT&T CSTR #97) explains troff's durability. After discussing the program's "obvious deficiencies — a rebarbative input syntax, mysterious and undocumented properties in some areas, and a voracious appetite for computer resources" and noting the ugliness and extreme hairiness of the code and internals, Kernighan concludes:
None of these remarks should be taken as denigrating Ossanna's accomplishment with TROFF. It has proven a remarkably robust tool, taking unbelievable abuse from a variety of preprocessors and being forced into uses that were never conceived of in the original design, all with considerable grace under fire.
The success of {{TeX}} and desktop publishing systems have reduced `troff''s relative importance, but this tribute perfectly captures the strengths that secured `troff' a place in hacker folklore; indeed, it could be taken more generally as an indication of those qualities of good programs that, in the long run, hackers most admire.
:troglodyte: /n./ [Commodore] 1. A hacker who never leaves his cubicle. The term `Gnoll' (from Dungeons & Dragons) is also reported. 2. A curmudgeon attached to an obsolescent computing environment. The combination `ITS troglodyte' was flung around some during the Usenet and email wringle-wrangle attending the 2.x.x revision of the Jargon File; at least one of the people it was intended to describe adopted it with pride.
:troglodyte mode: /n./ [Rice University] Programming with the
lights turned off, sunglasses on, and the terminal inverted (black
on white) because you've been up for so many days straight that
your eyes hurt (see {raster burn}). Loud music blaring from a
stereo stacked in the corner is optional but recommended. See
{larval stage}, {hack mode}.
:Trojan horse: /n./ [coined by MIT-hacker-turned-NSA-spook Dan
Edwards] A malicious, security-breaking program that is disguised
as something benign, such as a directory lister, archiver, game, or
(in one notorious 1990 case on the Mac) a program to find and
destroy viruses! See {back door}, {virus}, {worm},
{phage}, {mockingbird}.
:troll: /v.,n./ [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on {Usenet} designed to attract predictable responses or {flame}s. Derives from the phrase "trolling for {newbie}s" which in turn comes from mainstream "trolling", a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it.
Some people claim that the troll is properly a narrower category than {flame bait}, that a troll is categorized by containing some assertion that is wrong but not overtly controversial.
:tron: /v./ [NRL, CMU; prob. fr. the movie "Tron">[ To become inaccessible except via email or `talk(1)', especially when one is normally available via telephone or in person. Frequently used in the past tense, as in: "Ran seems to have tronned on us this week" or "Gee, Ran, glad you were able to un-tron yourself". One may also speak of `tron mode'; compare {spod}.
:true-hacker: /n./ [analogy with `trufan' from SF fandom] One who exemplifies the primary values of hacker culture, esp. competence and helpfulness to other hackers. A high compliment. "He spent 6 hours helping me bring up UUCP and netnews on my FOOBAR 4000 last week — manifestly the act of a true-hacker." Compare {demigod}, oppose {munchkin}.