From B.Rowlingson at lancaster.ac.uk  Tue Jan 25 11:47:10 2005
From: B.Rowlingson at lancaster.ac.uk (Barry Rowlingson)
Date: Tue Jan 25 11:47:14 2005
Subject: [Rd] typo in ?NotYetImplemented
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.51.0501251126160.27846@artemis.imbe.med.uni-erlangen.de>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.51.0501251126160.27846@artemis.imbe.med.uni-erlangen.de>
Message-ID: <41F623AE.1030906@lancaster.ac.uk>

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


[Rd] typo in ?NotYetImplemented
Barry Rowlingson