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[acronym, `Do What I Mean'] 1. adj. Able
to guess, sometimes even correctly, the result intended when bogus
input was provided. 2. n. obs. 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, esp. when one senses one
might be tripping over legalisms (see legalese). 4. Of a
person, someone whose directions are incomprehensible and vague,
but who nevertheless has the expectation that you will solve the
problem using the specific method he/she has in mind.
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.
