[Rd] typo in ?NotYetImplemented
Barry Rowlingson
B.Rowlingson at lancaster.ac.uk
Tue Jan 25 11:47:10 CET 2005
Torsten Hothorn wrote:
> # reference is made automagically
While not found in ordinary dictionaries, there is a reference in the
Jargon File and the Free Online Dictionary of Computing:
"""
automagically /aw-toh-maj'i-klee/ adv. Automatically, but in a way
that, for some reason (typically because it is too complicated, or too
ugly, or perhaps even too trivial), the speaker doesn't feel like
explaining to you. See magic. "The C-INTERCAL compiler generates C,
then automagically invokes `cc(1)' to produce an executable."
This term is quite old, going back at least to the mid-70s in jargon
and probably much earlier. The word `automagic' occurred in advertising
(for a shirt-ironing gadget) as far back as the late 1940s.
"""
although I've found nowadays people just using it automatically for
'automatically', probably because it sounds cooler.
At least R source code doesn't look like this:
/*
* ht3 ph0ll0w1ng c0d3 pr1ntz v3ct0rz wh1ch hav3 3v3ry 3l3m3nt nam3d.
* Pr1m1t1v3z ph0r 3ach typ3 uv v3ct0r R pr353nt3d ph1r5t, ph0ll0w3d by
* ht3 ma1n (d15patch1ng) phunct10n. 1) Th353 pr1m1t1v3z R alm05t
* 1d3nt1cal... == u53 PR1NT_N_V3CT0R macr0 2) z pr1ntz a _5pac3_ 1n ht3
* ph1r5t c0lumn ph0r nam3d v3ct0r5; w3 d0nt.
* R rox0rs!
*/
[with apologies to the authors of printvector.c]
Baz
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