Re: Ada is almost useless in embedded systems

[kst@thomsoft.com (Keith Thompson)]

In <4g54r5$57j@toads.pgh.pa.us> tore@lis.pitt.edu (Tore Joergensen) writes:
> Off topic: I'm just a little curious about this use of 'troll'...
> Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English (1984) lists
> two interpretations; "(in Scandinavian myth) supernatural being, a giant,
> or, in later tales, a mischievous but friendly dwarf" and "fish with rod
> and line by pulling bait through the water behind a boat". Even a 'Current
> English'-dictionary from 1984 isn't current anymore :-), so I'm wondering:
> Is this a common use of 'troll', and if it is, is it a noun made from the
> 'fishing' verb?

Still off topic:

Quoting The Jargon File, version 3.3.0:

> :troll: v.,n.  To utter a posting on {Usenet} designed to
>    attract stupid responses or {flame}s.  May derive from the
>    phrase "trolling for {newbie}s" or some similar construction.
>    The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies
>    and flamers to make themselves look even more like idiots than they
>    already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and
>    experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll.  If you don't
>    fall for the joke, you get to be in on it.
>  
>    Some people claim that the troll is properly a narrower category
>    than {flame bait}, that a troll is categorized by containing
>    some assertion that is wrong but not overtly controversial.

(I'm not commenting on whether the article that started this thread was
a deliberate troll.)

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst@thomsoft.com
TeleSoft^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Alsys^H^H^H^H^H Thomson Software Products
10251 Vista Sorrento Parkway, Suite 300, San Diego, CA, USA, 92121-2718
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." -- Arthur Carlson, WKRP