In some circles of EMACS users this is called `programming by Meta-W', because Meta-W is the EMACS command for copying a block of text to a kill buffer in preparation to pasting it in elsewhere. The term is condescending, implying that the programmer is acting mindlessly rather than thinking carefully about what is required to integrate the code for two similar cases.
At DEC, this is sometimes called `clone-and-hack' coding.
:casters-up mode: /n./ [IBM, prob. fr. slang belly up] Yet
another synonym for `broken' or `down'. Usually connotes a
major failure. A system (hardware or software) which is `down'
may be already being restarted before the failure is noticed,
whereas one which is `casters up' is usually a good excuse to
take the rest of the day off (as long as you're not responsible for
fixing it).
:casting the runes: /n./ What a {guru} does when you ask him
or her to run a particular program and type at it because it never
works for anyone else; esp. used when nobody can ever see what
the guru is doing different from what J. Random Luser does.
Compare {incantation}, {runes}, {examining the entrails};
also see the AI koan about Tom Knight in "{AI Koans}"
(Appendix A).
A correspondent from England tells us that one of ICL's most talented systems designers used to be called out occasionally to service machines which the {field circus} had given up on. Since he knew the design inside out, he could often find faults simply by listening to a quick outline of the symptoms. He used to play on this by going to some site where the field circus had just spent the last two weeks solid trying to find a fault, and spreading a diagram of the system out on a table top. He'd then shake some chicken bones and cast them over the diagram, peer at the bones intently for a minute, and then tell them that a certain module needed replacing. The system would start working again immediately upon the replacement.
:cat: [from `catenate' via {{Unix}} `cat(1)'] /vt./ 1. [techspeak] To spew an entire file to the screen or some other output sink without pause. 2. By extension, to dump large amounts of data at an unprepared target or with no intention of browsing it carefully. Usage: considered silly. Rare outside Unix sites. See also {dd}, {BLT}.
Among Unix fans, `cat(1)' is considered an excellent example of user-interface design, because it delivers the file contents without such verbosity as spacing or headers between the files, and because it does not require the files to consist of lines of text, but works with any sort of data.
Among Unix haters, `cat(1)' is considered the {canonical} example of *bad* user-interface design, because of its woefully unobvious name. It is far more often used to {blast} a file to standard output than to concatenate two files. The name `cat' for the former operation is just as unintuitive as, say, LISP's {cdr}.
Of such oppositions are {holy wars} made….
:catatonic: /adj./ Describes a condition of suspended animation in which something is so {wedged} or {hung} that it makes no response. If you are typing on a terminal and suddenly the computer doesn't even echo the letters back to the screen as you type, let alone do what you're asking it to do, then the computer is suffering from catatonia (possibly because it has crashed). "There I was in the middle of a winning game of {nethack} and it went catatonic on me! Aaargh!" Compare {buzz}.