DWIM
/
dwim / [
acronym , "
Do What I Mean " (
not what I say )]
1 .
Able to
guess ,
sometimes even correctly ,
the result intended when
bogus input was provided .
2 .
The BBNLISP /
INTERLISP function that attempted to accomplish
this feat by correcting many of the more common errors .
See
{
hairy }.
3 .
Occasionally ,
an interjection hurled at a balky computer ,
especially when one senses one might be tripping over
legalisms (
see {
legalese }).
Warren Teitelman originally wrote DWIM to fix his typos and
spelling errors ,
so it was somewhat idiosyncratic to his
style ,
and would often make hash of anyone else '
s typos if
they were stylistically different .
Some victims of DWIM thus
claimed that the acronym stood for "
Damn Warren '
s Infernal
Machine !'.
In one notorious incident ,
Warren added a DWIM feature to the
command interpreter used at {
Xerox PARC }.
One day another
hacker there typed "
delete *$"
to free up some disk space .
(
The editor there named backup files by appending "$"
to the
original file name ,
so he was trying to delete any backup
files left over from old editing sessions .)
It happened that
there weren '
t any editor backup files ,
so DWIM helpfully
reported "*$
not found ,
assuming you meant '
delete *'".
It
then started to delete all the files on the disk !
The hacker
managed to stop it with a {
Vulcan nerve pinch }
after only a
half dozen or so files were lost .
The disgruntled victim later said he had been sorely tempted
to go to Warren '
s office ,
tie Warren down in his chair in
front of his workstation ,
and then type "
delete *$"
twice .
DWIM is often suggested in jest as a desired feature for a
complex program ;
it is also occasionally described as the
single instruction the ideal computer would have .
Back when
proofs of program correctness were in vogue ,
there were also
jokes about "
DWIMC " (
Do What I Mean ,
Correctly ).
A related
term ,
more often seen as a verb ,
is DTRT (
Do The Right Thing );
see {
Right Thing }.
[{
Jargon File }]
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