The New Hacker's Dictionary

toy language // n.

A language useful for instructional purposes or as a proof-of-concept for some aspect of computer-science theory, but inadequate for general-purpose programming. Bad Things can result when a toy language is promoted as a general purpose solution for programming (see bondage-and-discipline language); the classic example is Pascal. Several moderately well-known formalisms for conceptual tasks such as programming Turing machines also qualify as toy languages in a less negative sense. See also MFTL.

toy problem // n.

[AI] A deliberately oversimplified case of a challenging problem used to investigate, prototype, or test algorithms for a real problem. Sometimes used pejoratively. See also gedanken, toy program.

toy program // n.

1. One that can be readily comprehended; hence, a trivial program (compare noddy).

2. One for which the effort of initial coding dominates the costs through its life cycle. See also noddy.

trampoline // n.

An incredibly hairy technique, found in some HLL and program-overlay implementations (e.g., on the Macintosh), that involves on-the-fly generation of small executable (and, likely as not, self-modifying) code objects to do indirection between code sections. Under BSD and possibly in other Unixes, trampoline code is used to transfer control from the kernel back to user mode when a signal (which has had a handler installed) is sent to a process. These pieces of live data are called 'trampolines'. Trampolines are notoriously difficult to understand in action; in fact, it is said by those who use this term that the trampoline that doesn't bend your brain is not the true trampoline. See also snap.

trap //

1. n. A program interrupt, usually an interrupt caused by some exceptional situation in the user program. In most cases, the OS performs some action, then returns control to the program.

2. vi. To cause a trap. "These instructions trap to the monitor." Also used transitively to indicate the cause of the trap. "The monitor traps all input/output instructions."

This term is associated with assembler programming ('interrupt' or 'exception' is more common among HLL programmers) and appears to be fading into history among programmers as the role of assembler continues to shrink. However, it is still important to computer architects and systems hackers (see system, sense 1), who use it to distinguish deterministically repeatable exceptions from timing-dependent ones (such as I/O interrupts).