[OT] Demons flying out of my nose
Chris MacPhee
Ok, I've got to ask...where the quote "demons flying out of my nose" come
from? The quote itself means "undefined behavior," AFAIK, and seems to be
used amply here.
- Chris
Ben Pfaff
From Jargon File (4.2.3, 23 NOV 2000) [jargon]:
nasal demons n. Recognized shorthand on the Usenet group
comp.std.c for any unexpected behavior of a C compiler on
encountering an undefined construct. During a discussion on
that group in early 1992, a regular remarked "When the compiler
encounters [a given undefined construct] it is legal for it to
make demons fly out of your nose" (the implication is that the
compiler may choose any arbitrarily bizarre way to interpret
the code without violating the ANSI C standard). Someone else
followed up with a reference to "nasal demons", which quickly
became established.
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Programmer Dude
> encountering an undefined construct. During a discussion on
> that group in early 1992, a regular remarked "When the compiler
> encounters [a given undefined construct] it is legal for it to
> make demons fly out of your nose"
That "regular" was Kaz, wasn't it?
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Ben Pfaff
> Ben Pfaff wrote:
>
> > encountering an undefined construct. During a discussion on
> > that group in early 1992, a regular remarked "When the compiler
> > encounters [a given undefined construct] it is legal for it to
> > make demons fly out of your nose"
>
> That "regular" was Kaz, wasn't it?
Unfortunately deja.com only keeps archives from 1993 on IIRC, so
there's no way to know unless there's another archive or someone
around who remembers.
Kaz isn't really a frequent poster on comp.std.c, either, which
is where the Jargon File entry claims the term originated.
Kaz Kylheku
>Ben Pfaff wrote:
>
>> encountering an undefined construct. During a discussion on
>> that group in early 1992, a regular remarked "When the compiler
>> encounters [a given undefined construct] it is legal for it to
>> make demons fly out of your nose"
>
>That "regular" was Kaz, wasn't it?
Hardly at all. I think I wasn't doing much Usenetting until 1993 or 1994.
I wasn't a comp.lang.c regular until 1995, I think.
Programmer Dude
> Kaz isn't really a frequent poster on comp.std.c, either, which
> is where the Jargon File entry claims the term originated.
I'm not sure it's right about that. I remember way back when someone
discussing the origin of the phrase... wasn't there a Demon 9000 machine
involved (or somesuch)?
Ben Pfaff
> Ben Pfaff wrote:
>
> > Kaz isn't really a frequent poster on comp.std.c, either, which
> > is where the Jargon File entry claims the term originated.
>
> I'm not sure it's right about that. I remember way back when someone
> discussing the origin of the phrase... wasn't there a Demon 9000 machine
> involved (or somesuch)?
You're talking about the DeathStation 9000 (see sig). This *is*
in fact probably a Kazism. I think he's reported that it was
originally supposed to be a pun on "DECstation 9000", but a whole
mythology has now grown out of it, culminating in a webpage
constructed by Kaz and Richard H. (others?) a year or two ago on
April 1.
--
"I ran it on my DeathStation 9000 and demons flew out of my nose." --Kaz
Richard Heathfield
"Culminating" is flattering, but I think the DS9K has a long life ahead
of it yet. The April 1 in question was April 1, 2000.
In Kaz's defence, I must point out that he was not involved in the spoof
DS9K Web site. That was just Bryan Williams and myself. The "photograph
of Kaz" (which was, of course, not of Kaz at all) on that site was
actually the rather serendipitous result of a Web search for "Igor".
Incidentally, the site got quite a few hits, which was nice, and also
Bryan received quite a few "feedback form" submissions, most of which
were asking for signed Kaz photos. :-)
I just checked the URL for the site, and Bryan seems to have taken it
down. I still have a copy somewhere in my archives, though.
> --
> "I ran it on my DeathStation 9000 and demons flew out of my nose." --Kaz
Right. :-)
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Programmer Dude
> I just checked the URL for the site, and Bryan seems to have taken it
> down.
WHAH!!!
> I still have a copy somewhere in my archives, though.
Richard, if you don't want to put it up on your site, I'd host it on mine!
Dave Vandervies
Richard Heathfield <bin...@eton.powernet.co.uk> wrote:
>Ben Pfaff wrote:
>> You're talking about the DeathStation 9000 (see sig). This *is*
>> in fact probably a Kazism. I think he's reported that it was
>> originally supposed to be a pun on "DECstation 9000", but a whole
>> mythology has now grown out of it, culminating in a webpage
>> constructed by Kaz and Richard H. (others?) a year or two ago on
>> April 1.
>
>"Culminating" is flattering, but I think the DS9K has a long life ahead
>of it yet. The April 1 in question was April 1, 2000.
>
>In Kaz's defence, I must point out that he was not involved in the spoof
>DS9K Web site. That was just Bryan Williams and myself. The "photograph
>of Kaz" (which was, of course, not of Kaz at all) on that site was
>actually the rather serendipitous result of a Web search for "Igor".
>
>Incidentally, the site got quite a few hits, which was nice, and also
>Bryan received quite a few "feedback form" submissions, most of which
>were asking for signed Kaz photos. :-)
Are any still available? I wouldn't mind having one, and if I asked
for one (I remember filling out the feedback form, but I don't remember
whether I asked for a signed Kaz photo) I never got it.
>I just checked the URL for the site, and Bryan seems to have taken it
>down. I still have a copy somewhere in my archives, though.
I just looked at it this afternoon, and it still seems to be up... I
think the URL posted did get redirected to somewhere else (perhaps the
server hosting it got shuffled around?), though.
Let's see... the original URL, <http://www.gfd34.dial.pipex.com/art>,
now appears to redirect to
<http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/town/green/gfd34/art/>. I'll have to
remember to make a mirror of it sometime before it disappears...
dave
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Dave Vandervies dj3v...@student.math.uwaterloo.ca
Fights are how we establish the truth. Most of the time it's civilised.
Sometimes not.
--Richard Heathfield in comp.lang.c
Richard Heathfield
Thanks for digging out the URL.
I still can't get over that "Kaz" photo.
(Sorry, Kaz...)
Jeff Jacoby
[snip]
> You're talking about the DeathStation 9000 (see sig). This *is*
> in fact probably a Kazism. I think he's reported that it was
> originally supposed to be a pun on "DECstation 9000", but a whole
If I'm not mistaken, DeathStation 9000 -- or something very
similar -- comes from the "Bloom County" comic strip
during the '80s.
Jeff
Ben Pfaff
> If I'm not mistaken, DeathStation 9000 -- or something very
> similar -- comes from the "Bloom County" comic strip
> during the '80s.
All I remember from Bloom County that's at all similar is the
heavy metal band "DeathTongue", in which Bill the Cat strummed on
his tongue. I suspect that "DeathTongue" and "DeathStation" are
unrelated.
Programmer Dude
> > If I'm not mistaken, DeathStation 9000 -- or something very
> > similar -- comes from the "Bloom County" comic strip
> > during the '80s.
>
> All I remember from Bloom County that's at all similar is the
> heavy metal band "DeathTongue", in which Bill the Cat strummed on
> his tongue. I suspect that "DeathTongue" and "DeathStation" are
> unrelated.
That hacker kid had, IIRC, a Banana Jr, 9000 I think (parody of Apple).
Kaz Kylheku
That would be the Banana Junior 6000.
Here is something: http://www-i5.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/mbp/bloom/
Kevin D. Quitt
<bin...@eton.powernet.co.uk> wrote:
>I still can't get over that "Kaz" photo.
Good old Marty Feldman. I wonder what he'd be doing now if he were alive.
Probably trying to get out of his coffin.
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Nishad PRAKASH
>> discussing the origin of the phrase... wasn't there a Demon 9000 machine
>> involved (or somesuch)?
>
>You're talking about the DeathStation 9000 (see sig). This *is*
>in fact probably a Kazism. I think he's reported that it was
>originally supposed to be a pun on "DECstation 9000", but a whole
>mythology has now grown out of it, culminating in a webpage
>constructed by Kaz and Richard H. (others?) a year or two ago on
>April 1.
>
Given that nasal demons have made it into the Jargon File, I wonder if the
DeathStation 9000 should also claim a place in there?
Nishad
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Dan Pop
Yup, it was either '95 or '96. I still remember when you explained me
in great detail why it is perfectly OK to replace the implementation
provided malloc (and friends) with your own and how the linker will
pick your implementation instead of the one from the standard library.
The follow-ups to that post convinced you that it's time to pick a
copy of the C standard and study it, if you want to continue posting
advice in this newsgroup :-)
Dan
--
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CERN, IT Division
Email: Dan...@cern.ch
Mail: CERN - IT, Bat. 31 1-014, CH-1211 Geneve 23, Switzerland
Ben Pfaff
> In <gG_57.1350$GR.2...@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com> k...@ashi.footprints.net (Kaz Kylheku) writes:
> >Hardly at all. I think I wasn't doing much Usenetting until 1993 or 1994.
> >I wasn't a comp.lang.c regular until 1995, I think.
>
> Yup, it was either '95 or '96. I still remember when you explained me
> in great detail why it is perfectly OK to replace the implementation
> provided malloc (and friends) with your own and how the linker will
> pick your implementation instead of the one from the standard library.
Er, does anyone remember my own entry to the group? I have a
feeling it was equally awful, but seem to have forgotten the
details, and Deja isn't helping out any.
Kaz Kylheku
>In <gG_57.1350$GR.2...@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com> k...@ashi.footprints.net (Kaz Kylheku) writes:
>
>>In article <3B58703F...@mmm.com>, Programmer Dude wrote:
>>>Ben Pfaff wrote:
>>>
>>>> encountering an undefined construct. During a discussion on
>>>> that group in early 1992, a regular remarked "When the compiler
>>>> encounters [a given undefined construct] it is legal for it to
>>>> make demons fly out of your nose"
>>>
>>>That "regular" was Kaz, wasn't it?
>>
>>Hardly at all. I think I wasn't doing much Usenetting until 1993 or 1994.
>>I wasn't a comp.lang.c regular until 1995, I think.
>
>Yup, it was either '95 or '96. I still remember when you explained me
>in great detail why it is perfectly OK to replace the implementation
>provided malloc (and friends) with your own and how the linker will
>pick your implementation instead of the one from the standard library.
Is that so? I don't remember that, but I do remember a void main
discussion, in which I hope I wasn't *quite* as dumb as most of
the others, in that I at least had respect for the type system and
understdood the general implications of mismatched calls. What did
I say? Something like that if you understand the calling conventions,
and it works, you can get away with it on a given compiler or platform,
and gave the example of int being returned in a register, which will
just contain garbage if the function returns nothing. Saying something
like that alone can make you irritating to comp.lang.c, as I found
out. But I don't think that I argued against it being not well-defined,
nonportable, and a bad idea. Looking at some code I had written, I found
that I had consistently used int, even though my first exposure to
C was an instructor who wrote void main(void) on the blackboard on day 1
of the course.
I recall that I also mistakenly referred to a <malloc.h> as being the
source for the prototype of malloc, which you said was a misspelling
of <stdlib.h>. That was pretty embarassing.
>The follow-ups to that post convinced you that it's time to pick a
>copy of the C standard and study it, if you want to continue posting
>advice in this newsgroup :-)
I think it didn't take long for me to realize that there is much more to
C than meets the eye, so to speak. I remember that within a short time
of reading the standard, I realized I was very glad I did it, because I
found it fascinating, and my programming started to improve too. Plus I
was already very interested in writing code that is as highly portable
as possible, but just didn't know how to be certain of it without the
annoyance of always having some group of familiar machines in mind,
and not being certain of what C looks like on the others. So this was
like discovering a holy grail. It had other benefits, like changing
the way I approach other programming languages. Reading and discussing
the standard over time also taught me to absorb specifications faster,
and to write much better ones.
Dann Corbit
news:87ofqfh...@pfaffben.user.msu.edu...
I only remember the abject horror I felt when I found out you were 19 and
already knew as much as you did right off the bat. I had a big mess of
stuff to unlearn when I first started posting here.
The oldest posts I could find were from 1998:
"From: Ben Pfaff (pfaf...@pilot.msu.edu)
Subject: Re: data structures
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
View complete thread (37 articles)
Date: 1998/04/25
Can anyone tell me how to count the total path length and deepest node
length in a binary tree using recursive functions?
I suggest you consult a good data structures and algorithms
reference, such as Knuth's _Art of Computer Programming, Vol. 1_ or
equivalent.
This sounds like a homework problem, BTW."
"From: Ben Pfaff (pfaf...@pilot.msu.edu)
Subject: Re: string
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
View complete thread (7 articles)
Date: 1998/04/25
Made a program that reads a line from a file.. "SHOW ON"
then i check what is being said:
if (msg=="SHOW ON") show=true;
...
You want the strcmp function."
I think you were posting before then, maybe with a different user name?
Anyway, my first post to comp.lang.c (that I can remember) was an argument
with Dan Pop where I said you can always get the program name from argv[0].
Live and learn. Or is that "live and burn?" It was well before 1995, so
fortunately, it's hard to come by.
;-)
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I don't think you munge your address so maybe you should check
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Dave Vandervies
>The follow-ups to that post convinced you that it's time to pick a
>copy of the C standard and study it, if you want to continue posting
>advice in this newsgroup :-)
Am I the only regular who *didn't* start out by annoying the wizards?
(Or is it just selectively volatile memory that's making me think I
didn't?) The first run-in I remember is when I claimed that `insults
the user and causes the program to die horribly' was an acceptable
definition of implementation-defined behavior, and I'd been posting (or
at least reading) for quite some time before that.
dave
--
Dave Vandervies dj3v...@student.math.uwaterloo.ca
(Of course, this kind of diagnostic suggests the compiler-writer had too much
free time on his hands. :-) )
--Chris Torek in comp.lang.c
pete
> > > I still remember when you explained me
> > Er, does anyone remember my own entry to the group?
I remember trying to explain to Dann Corbit how printf didn't
require a prototype, because it returned an int.
I had my Turbo C Reference Guide to back me up,
but Dann Corbit used phrases like "C standard"
and other things which I had never heard of.
--
pete
Tak-Shing Chan
When I first posted to comp.lang.c around 1999, I *always*
top-posted. Oddly enough, no one bothered to correct me... ;-)
Tak-Shing
Rick Dearman
I think I got top prize as the most touchy newbie ever! I flamed
Richard Heathfield, Stephan Wilms, Dan Corbet, Lawerance Kirby, and
that other guy who was into boats, Paul Lutus?
Anyway I took Dan Corbits advice: "If you can't grow a skin 3 inches
thick, then Usenet is probably not for you."
I grew one 4 1/2 inches just to be sure! BUT I still maintain
that it was impossible for me to know that my question was off topic!
I didn't have enough knowledge to make that judgement. However the
redirections were all correct and I'll apologize to all the above
listed individuals one more time!
---
Rick Dearman the guy who flamed:
Stephan
(initiator of the campaign against grumpiness in c.l.c)
Tak-Shing Chan
> I think I got top prize as the most touchy newbie ever! I flamed
No, that won't do. :-)
> I grew one 4 1/2 inches just to be sure! BUT I still maintain
> that it was impossible for me to know that my question was off topic!
Let's see. You posted OT *questions* unintentionally. I
top-posted OT *answers* intentionally!
Tak-Shing
Urs Beeli
> I think I got top prize as the most touchy newbie ever! I flamed
> Richard Heathfield, Stephan Wilms, Dan Corbet, Lawerance Kirby, and
> that other guy who was into boats, Paul Lutus?
Talking of Stephan, does anyone have a clue what happened to him? I haven't
seen any evidence of him posting for quite some time now...
/urs
--
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(H.Berlioz)
Dan Pop
>I remember trying to explain to Dann Corbit how printf didn't
>require a prototype, because it returned an int.
I remember when Dann Corbit himself joined the newsgroup. He got more
flaming than he deserved, because he had a microsoft.com email address :-)
fred smith
: On 23 Jul 2001 13:35:24 +0100, Rick Dearman <rd...@egomaniacs.net.nospam> wrote:
:> I think I got top prize as the most touchy newbie ever! I flamed
:> Richard Heathfield, Stephan Wilms, Dan Corbet, Lawerance Kirby, and
:> that other guy who was into boats, Paul Lutus?
: Talking of Stephan, does anyone have a clue what happened to him? I haven't
: seen any evidence of him posting for quite some time now...
Not to mention, I don't recall having seen Seebs here for a long time
either.
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keeping watch on the wicked and the good.
----------------------------- Proverbs 15:3 (niv) -----------------------------
Kevin D. Quitt
>I remember when Dann Corbit himself joined the newsgroup. He got more
>flaming than he deserved, because he had a microsoft.com email address :-)
We weren't shooting at him - we were shooting at the guy behind him!
Dann Corbit
news:GGz48...@fcshome.stoneham.ma.us...
> Urs Beeli <REMOVEu...@siemens.ch.nospam> wrote:
> : On 23 Jul 2001 13:35:24 +0100, Rick Dearman
<rd...@egomaniacs.net.nospam> wrote:
>
> :> I think I got top prize as the most touchy newbie ever! I flamed
> :> Richard Heathfield, Stephan Wilms, Dan Corbet, Lawerance Kirby, and
> :> that other guy who was into boats, Paul Lutus?
>
> : Talking of Stephan, does anyone have a clue what happened to him? I
haven't
> : seen any evidence of him posting for quite some time now...
>
> Not to mention, I don't recall having seen Seebs here for a long time
> either.
He posts in news:comp.std.c and occasionally in news:alt.religion.kibology
Joe Wright
Dan Pop was a boy. I don't think I was ever flamed. (Maybe I didn't try
hard enough :-)) But "Where is Paul Lutus?". He certainly provided a
lot of bait. Come to think of it, I've never seen Paul Lutus and
Richard Heathfield in the same room. Curious? :-)
I once wrote a short treatise on pointers and posted it here. Only Kaz
took any exception to it. Kaz was very thoughtful and not flaming.
Simply disagreeing with my "perfect" argument. The group has been
friendly (or simply unresponsive) to me.
--
Joe Wright mailto:joeww...@earthlink.net
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
--- Albert Einstein ---
Chris Kuan
>"fred smith" <fre...@fcshome.stoneham.ma.us> wrote in message
>news:GGz48...@fcshome.stoneham.ma.us...
>> Not to mention, I don't recall having seen Seebs here for a long time
>> either.
>He posts in news:comp.std.c and occasionally in news:alt.religion.kibology
And in the past week or so, in some of the Macintosh-related groups. Or maybe
those were just x-posted from alt.folklore.computers
--
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