`Foo index' and `coefficient of foo' both tend to imply that foo is, if not strictly measurable, at least something that can be larger or smaller. Thus, you might refer to a paper or person as having a `high bogosity index', whereas you would be less likely to speak of a `high bogosity factor'. `Foo index' suggests that foo is a condensation of many quantities, as in the mundane cost-of-living index; `coefficient of foo' suggests that foo is a fundamental quantity, as in a coefficient of friction. The choice between these terms is often one of personal preference; e.g., some people might feel that bogosity is a fundamental attribute and thus say `coefficient of bogosity', whereas others might feel it is a combination of factors and thus say `bogosity index'.

:cokebottle: /kohk'bot-l/ /n./ Any very unusual character, particularly one you can't type because it it isn't on your keyboard. MIT people used to complain about the `control-meta-cokebottle' commands at SAIL, and SAIL people complained right back about the `{altmode}-altmode-cokebottle' commands at MIT. After the demise of the {space-cadet keyboard}, `cokebottle' faded away as serious usage, but was often invoked humorously to describe an (unspecified) weird or non-intuitive keystroke command. It may be due for a second inning, however. The OSF/Motif window manager, `mwm(1)', has a reserved keystroke for switching to the default set of keybindings and behavior. This keystroke is (believe it or not) `control-meta-bang' (see {bang}). Since the exclamation point looks a lot like an upside down Coke bottle, Motif hackers have begun referring to this keystroke as `cokebottle'. See also {quadruple bucky}.

:cold boot: /n./ See {boot}.

:COME FROM: /n./ A semi-mythical language construct dual to the `go to'; `COME FROM' <label> would cause the referenced label to act as a sort of trapdoor, so that if the program ever reached it control would quietly and {automagically} be transferred to the statement following the `COME FROM'. `COME FROM' was first proposed in R. Lawrence Clark's "A Linguistic Contribution to GOTO-less programming", which appeared in a 1973 {Datamation} issue (and was reprinted in the April 1984 issue of "Communications of the ACM"). This parodied the then-raging `structured programming' {holy wars} (see {considered harmful}). Mythically, some variants are the `assigned COME FROM' and the `computed COME FROM' (parodying some nasty control constructs in FORTRAN and some extended BASICs). Of course, multi-tasking (or non-determinism) could be implemented by having more than one `COME FROM' statement coming from the same label.

In some ways the FORTRAN `DO' looks like a `COME FROM'
statement. After the terminating statement number/`CONTINUE'
is reached, control continues at the statement following the DO.
Some generous FORTRANs would allow arbitrary statements (other than
`CONTINUE') for the statement, leading to examples like:

DO 10 I=1,LIMIT
C imagine many lines of code here, leaving the
C original DO statement lost in the spaghetti…
WRITE(6,10) I,FROB(I)
10 FORMAT(1X,I5,G10.4)

in which the trapdoor is just after the statement labeled 10. (This is particularly surprising because the label doesn't appear to have anything to do with the flow of control at all!)

While sufficiently astonishing to the unsuspecting reader, this form of `COME FROM' statement isn't completely general. After all, control will eventually pass to the following statement. The implementation of the general form was left to Univac FORTRAN, ca. 1975 (though a roughly similar feature existed on the IBM 7040 ten years earlier). The statement `AT 100' would perform a `COME FROM 100'. It was intended strictly as a debugging aid, with dire consequences promised to anyone so deranged as to use it in production code. More horrible things had already been perpetrated in production languages, however; doubters need only contemplate the `ALTER' verb in {COBOL}.

`COME FROM' was supported under its own name for the first time 15 years later, in C-INTERCAL (see {INTERCAL}, {retrocomputing}); knowledgeable observers are still reeling from the shock.

:comm mode: /kom mohd/ /n./ [ITS: from the feature supporting on-line chat; the term may spelled with one or two m's] Syn. for {talk mode}.