/dwim/ [acronym, "Do What I Mean" (not what I say)] 1. A
Ble 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 descri
Bed as the single instruction the ideal computer would have.
Back when proofs of program correctness were in vogue, there were also jokes a
Bout "DWIMC" (Do What I Mean, Correctly). A related term, more often seen as a ver
B, is DTRT (Do The Right Thing) see
Right Thing. [
Jargon File]
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