Contents page

Index (83KB)

RTFS

   Source'.  Variant form of RTFM, used when the problem at hand
   is not necessarily obvious and not answerable from the manuals ---
   or the manuals are not yet written and maybe never will be.  For
   even trickier situations, see RTFB.  Unlike RTFM, the anger
   inherent in RTFS is not usually directed at the person asking the
   question, but rather at the people who failed to provide adequate
   documentation.  2. imp. `Read The Fucking Standard'; this oath can
   only be used when the problem area (e.g., a language or operating
   system interface) has actually been codified in a ratified
   standards document.  The existence of these standards documents
   (and the technically inappropriate but politically mandated
   compromises that they inevitably contain, and the impenetrable
   legalese in which they are invariably written, and the
   unbelievably tedious bureaucratic process by which they are
   produced) can be unnerving to hackers, who are used to a certain
   amount of ambiguity in the specifications of the systems they use.
   (Hackers feel that such ambiguities are acceptable as long as the
   Right Thing to do is obvious to any thinking observer; sadly,
   this casual attitude towards specifications becomes unworkable when
   a system becomes popular in the Real World.)  Since a hacker
   is likely to feel that a standards document is both unnecessary and
   technically deficient, the deprecation inherent in this term may be
   directed as much against the standard as against the person who
   ought to read it.