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*                                                            *
*                         CYBERSPACE                         *
*         A biweekly column on net culture appearing         *
*                in the Toronto Sunday Sun                   *
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* Copyright 1999 Karl Mamer                                  *
* Free for online distribution                               *
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In my spare time, I collect jargon. I know that sounds strange 
but when you hit your thirties and you're still single, you 
begin to do odd things. Unlike, say, collecting stamps from 
Tonga, collecting jargon is a pursuit without end. Engineers 
and programmers can crank out jargon like no others. When 
they're trying to be cute, the gag factor can be truly 
unbearable. Consider: "Java" (not bad in itself but a font for 
far too many unbearable coffee allusions), "mouse" (see Java), 
and "nybble" (which is half a byte).

In the world of computer jargon, I've noticed "ware" (as in 
hardware/software) has proven to be a most useful suffix. Below 
are the various ware words I'm aware of use in the computer 
industry:

FREEWARE: Programmers are generous people but they are not very 
good with money. In the olden days programmers toiled away to 
create highly useful utilities and modem protocols and then 
just give them away (called "releasing into the public 
domain"). Freeware, free software, abounded. Some programmers, 
however, were lured into selling their creations or services to 
greedy corporations. These programmers found themselves driving 
fast sports cars that attracted equally fast women. Their 
friends who were still releasing their creations to the public 
domain found only respect from males aged 14-25.

SHAREWARE: Shareware, of course, is software released under a 
"try before you buy" scheme. If you wish to continue to use it 
after a certain preview period you must send in a fee to the 
author. Much shareware goes unregistered because computer 
people, having to continually buy bigger hard drives, more 
memory, and new peripherals, are permanently cash poor.

BONUSWARE: Sometimes shareware vendors are so overjoyed that 
you have actually registered their program, or so crave 
friendship, they'll send you additional software as a bonus. 

CRIPPLEWARE: Shareware with some features stripped out. You 
must register the product to get the fully functional version. 
The theory is to allow the user to get a good idea of what the 
program can do without actually allowing the user to do 
anything with it. In reality, crippleware is so irritating the 
last thing a user would ever consider is ordering a registered 
version. 

SHELFWARE: Hardware or software that never really had a purpose 
in the first place but killer "brochureware" convinced 
management of its utility.

SHOVELWARE: Shovelware is cheap, nearly useless software that 
many vendors bundle in quantity with their hardware. 
Shovelware's sole function is to allow the marketing people to 
slap "includes $500 worth of free software" on the side of the 
box. They never say exactly who would be cretinous enough pay 
to $500 for the software.

VAPOURWARE: Vaporware is hardware or software that is heavily 
advertised or repeatedly promised but fails to materialize, 
disappearing into the vapor. Computer magazines have a 
notorious track record of promoting vaporware. Years ago one 
computer magazine gave a home computer its "Most Bang for the 
Buck" award, based on a mock-up of a machine the editors saw. 
The full-color, full-page ads the computer company ran in the 
magazine featuring actor Roger Moore, no doubt, helped tip the 
award in favor of this piece of vaporware. 

WETWARE: Software and hardware ultimately cannot run without 
wetware: the human user. Wetware is applied as a pejorative 
term as many programmers have a low regard for the abilities of 
the people who actually use the software. Users tend to whine a 
lot, discover obvious and/or embarrassing bugs, and generally 
behave in a fashion that cannot be factored in by any known 
algorithm. 

    Source: geocities.com/lapetitelesson/cs/text

               ( geocities.com/lapetitelesson/cs)                   ( geocities.com/lapetitelesson)