The New Hacker's Dictionary
brochureware // n.
Planned but non-existent product like vaporware, but with the added implication that marketing is actively selling and promoting it (they've printed brochures). Brochureware is often deployed as a strategic weapon; the idea is to con customers into not committing to an existing product of the competition's. It is a safe bet that when a brochureware product finally becomes real, it will be more expensive than and inferior to the alternatives that had been available for years.
broken // adj.
1. Not working properly (of programs).
2. Behaving strangely; especially (when used of people) exhibiting extreme depression.
broken arrow // n.
[IBM] The error code displayed on line 25 of a 3270 terminal (or a PC emulating a 3270) for various kinds of protocol violations and "unexpected" error conditions (including connection to a down computer). On a PC, simulated with '->/_', with the two center characters overstruck.
Note: to appreciate this term fully, it helps to know that 'broken arrow' is also military jargon for an accident involving nuclear weapons....
BrokenWindows // n.
Abusive hackerism for the crufty and elephantine X environment on Sun machines; properly called 'OpenWindows'.
broket /broh'k*t/ or /broh'ket'/ n.
[rare; by analogy with 'bracket': a 'broken bracket'] Either of the characters < and >, when used as paired enclosing delimiters. This word originated as a contraction of the phrase 'broken bracket', that is, a bracket that is bent in the middle. (At MIT, and apparently in the Real World as well, these are usually called angle brackets.)
Brooks's Law // prov.
"Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later" -- a result of the fact that the expected advantage from splitting development work among N programmers is O(N) (that is, proportional to N), but the complexity and communications cost associated with coordinating and then merging their work is O(N^2) (that is, proportional to the square of N). The quote is from Fred Brooks, a manager of IBM's OS/360 project and author of "The Mythical Man-Month