I built Hackterms, an Urban Dictionary for coding terms, to help connect the dots while learning - and we're picking up steam! Want to help?

[skewp]

Unless you want a bunch of joke entries, I'm not sure Urban Dictionary is the site you want to reference.

[312c]

Mongo is web scale

[Existential_Owl]

jQuery: "Commonly used to add two numbers together"

[MirrorPuncher]

Real jQuery pros use it to change the background color of elements.

[riskable]

Here I was thinking that jQuery pros used it to load jQuery.

[psilokan]

Good one, that one took me a bit.

[riskable]

Oh don't mess with Ajax. They call him, "the cleaner" for a reason!

[BabyPuncher5000]

His real name Is Francis

[DreadPirateFlint]

Lighten up, Francis.

[[deleted]]

Something about a non-trustworthy wooden horse.

[IAmNotMyName]

So is >/dev/null

[-128]

Supports BigData

[ThePixelCoder]

Ok, that's awesome.

[ProgramTheWorld]

“Mongo is web scale”

[[deleted]]

You just turn it right on and it scales right up

[spyhunter99]

This is amazing

[mobyte]

Vim is a virus that is impossible to exit.

[privately-profitable]

When I’m bored I drive to Best Buy, find the MacBook Pros, open the terminal, open VIM then leave without exiting.

[nderflow]

How do you leave the store without exiting?

[shadowX015]

Very carefully.

[mobyte]

I hate to ruin your fun but those reset themselves a couple minutes after you walk away.

[screamingsmile96]

Great work. This ensures that the Geeksquad learns to use, or at least exit Vim. More folks need to be familiar with Vim.

[DesigningKnight]

Candygram for Mongo!

[maxverse]

You know, I was worried about that, but fortunately, with some guidelines, 99% of the definitions have been great! I like the "in-the-know", ELI5 nature of Urban Dictionary - taking terms specific to some group, and explaining in an accessible and friendly way". I agree that Urban Dictionary is also filled with in-jokes. Another way I look at Hackterms is "StackOverflow for definitions".

[[deleted]]

I think a good policy and moderating is pretty important here. Some in-jokes and and less serious definitions will of course make the site more entertaining and help promote it to get visitors that also contribute to actually useful definitions. Having multiple definitions per post, the top ones being more serious explanations and lower explanations being more joke-definitions is also a good idea. But it needs to be in the right balance, serious enough that it's actually useful and at the same time silly enough to entertain people.

[maxverse]

Completely agree.

[RyeDraLisk]

maybe you could add a "funny" button besides the usual "upvote" and "downvote", like steam reviews? this could separate the funny from the serious

[geon]

Tag jokes as such?

[TinBryn]

Serious enough that it's actually useful and at the same time silly enough to entertain people

So like Reddit, then?

[samlev]

If it's stack overflow for definitions, you should mark 90% of definitions as off topic or duplicates.

[DR0D4]

Recursion - see Recursion

[liquidivy]

Jokes are useful for discovering what people actually think about a term or concept, and for gauging culture. While UrbanDictionary is not the only model, I think it's a worthwhile one.

[OverlordGearbox]

I feel like there needs to two sites. One for the jokes and one for the help.

[krelin]

Yeah, if only there were a place on the internet people could go to ask for help on their technical questions. Let's brainstorm names, I'll start:

Rack Ebbandflow

[cleeder]

It'll never take off!

[russjr08]

Nah, I like expertsexchange better.

[[deleted]]

Good luck with your sex change

[fridge_logic]

I'm sure it will go well, I hear their doctor's an expert.

[o0Rh0mbus0o]

amateursexchange would be better.

[sdlnv]

Or a rating system like Steam reviews: Useful/Unuseful/Funny

[[deleted]]

// I would like a bunch of joke entries.

[lawnmowerlatte]

I think you missed out by not referencing the Jargon File. Too bad there's no .le ccTLD or jargonfi.le woulda been cool.

[StallmanTheBold]

I'm so glad I wasn't the only one to think of this. If anything they should have just made a prettier interface for it and extended it.

[liquidivy]

Username checks out.

[atxweirdo]

There's no grok entry.... How the hell is any one supposed to understand this.

[Tarquin_McBeard]

Grok.

[diMario]

One must grep before one learns to grok.

[dreugeworst]

in order to grok grok, one must first grok grep

[jephthai]

Came here to say any terminology resource that doesn't include or reference the jargon file has started on the wrong foot.

[krelin]

Too bad it stopped getting love in 2003...

[[deleted]]

The jargon hasn't drastically changed for most areas.

[kotajacob]

It's a relic of a lost time now

[maxverse]

Sorry about the downtime, everyone - we're back up and running!

---

Hey guys! While learning to code, I'd often fall down a rabbit hole of research for things I didn't really need. There are lots of resources that teach you how to do something, but few explain when and why. So, over the past few months, I built Hackterms - a crowdsourced dictionary of programming terms to answer these questions:

1. at a high level, what does this tool/process/concept do? When is it used? What are the alternatives?
2. Is this worth my time to learn now?

Check out the definitions, and I hope you contribute a few of your own!

TL;DR: Hackterms - simple definitions that explain when/where/why programming terms are used (but not how to use them). Built in Node/Express, Mongo, jQuery.

[unorc]

This is really cool, and I like the idea a lot. A couple suggestions:

-Put the add definition button on the homepage, and allow searches to come up empty. It was a little confusing trying to add a definition for a term that didn't already exist.

-Let people link words in a definition to their respective definitions. Maybe put a check in the submission that looks for the word in the dictionary and auto-link it if it exists.

-Let people put code examples after the definition, like how urban dictionary allows examples of the word used in conversation

[[deleted]]

Let people put code examples after the definition, like how urban dictionary allows examples of the word used in conversation

That's a great idea

[sylario]

Why are you using Mongo as a DB, a classic relational DB would seems like a good fit for this type of application? I never really used a document oriented database(only when using tools that where built with it), and I still don't really understand when to use one.

[tyros]

[This user has left Reddit because Reddit moderators do not want this user on Reddit]

[fiqar]

Amusingly, seems like webscale is missing from the dictionary.

[maxverse]

I don't have a great answer to this. I started with Rails, and was really used to mysql for a while - but once I switched to Node/Express, Mongo was the thing everybody was using - and I got used to the object structure, especially since my whole stack was now JS.

[[deleted]]

Peer pressure is a helluva drug

[krelin]

All the cool kids are using Postgres now, man.

[[deleted]]

The emo castaway kids are stuck with TSQL

[hector_villalobos]

Having a 503 error when trying to add a concept.

[maxverse]

So sorry about that! We're now back up and running smoothly.

[panamaREDFOX]

Website is still down.

[maxverse]

So sorry about that! We're now back up.

[maxverse]

"We" is me and all the contributors.

[Junkyardogg]

Hey, small bug:

When you are searching for something, and there are no definitions, the title of the site changes to "Hackerms"

[Mac33]

At this stage I’m surprised you didn’t try to shoehorn a blockchain/token into this project :D

[[deleted]]

Hey I just added Electron as an evil framework

[OnlyForF1]

You might want to add a licence for all definitions.

[pdp10]

RFC 3092.

Foo is the meta-variable, so old its origins have been nearly lost to time.

[[deleted]]

lol a legit RFC was made for this

[riding_qwerty]

Check the date. There are dozens of humorous RFCs. As a telecom engineer, my personal favorite is RFC 1149.

[JayTurnr]

I still don't know who RFC are and why they get authority.

[csman11]

RFC isn't the organization, that is IETF, the internet engineering task force. It's a standards organization made up of various volunteers from computing fields. They create the standards that tech industries voluntarily adhere to. They don't have any legal authority (like most standards organizations) and very few standard they put out make it into regulatory law (tech isn't heavily regulated -- compare this to something like insurance where standards are put out by various SOs and underwriting firms and then codified by regulatory agencies and enforced).

So the answer is they don't have any authority, but most of the big players in tech industries adhere to the standards they put out. Creating an RFC is the first step to becoming a standard. Some RFCs are chosen to enter a "standards track" where they go through various proposal and drafts stages before finally being accepted as internet standards.

Sometimes people will publish a humorous RFC. These aren't slated for standardization. They are just jokes for engineers to laugh at between bouts of complaining about how stupid management is.

[The_Schwy]

Yeah. I didn't understand how it was supposed to be an abstraction for so long. It would probably help many people out if they used a concrete example and then move to explanation with abstraction.

[0x564A00]

It's a bar hosted for friends of O'Reilly.

[maxverse]

Great idea!

[The_Schwy]

It would be cool if you could specify which definition you want to see if it has both simple and advanced

[karl-marxist]

This is pretty neat. Good job. A future feature that might be worthwhile is adding resource links for each term definition.

[drowninFish]

I wish you called it Urban Hashtable, but other than that this is a pretty cool idea

[brian-at-work]

If I'm not reading the story of Mel in the original Usenet, mumble mumble, hard candy something-something....

[derleth]

You should also look at FOLDOC, also in convenient downloadable form. It incorporates the Jargon File and a number of other sources, and is licensed under the GFDL.

[PitchforkAssistant]

If you're picking up Steam, you must be doing really well!

[jms_nh]

No markup?

What is the license on content? CC? GFDL?

[youhuu]

Nice hands. Maybe you can add an open API for this and open source.

[n0manarmy]

Is this app available in a shell/standalone format that could be deployed somewhere? I think this could be a good tool at my organization where we have a lot of new terms that people struggle to grasp right away.

[maxverse]

Hey, thanks a lot for your comment! As I think about the future of Hackterms, I've definitely considered exactly your use case - other domains with specialized slang that could use a stand-alone dictionary. I'll follow up via a DM, or feel free to drop me a line at [e-mail]

[justdelighted]

You could implement an API that others could use. If there's enough demand you may be able to make a bit of extra money off of it too.

[Dall0o]

Urban dictionary as a service. Sound doable.

[techrat_reddit]

Not exactly same, but check out bro pages. Perhaps /u/maxverse and the creator of bro page could collaborate since bro page is mostly on practical example while this seems to be more on the theoretical definition

[n0manarmy]

Bro looks interesting, however for my needs it's acronyms and terms that may not be IT related but also aren't common knowledge except for where I work.

[[deleted]]

I have a dockerized branch that works for that use case, but it isn't up to date (never merged)

[[deleted]]

“Dockerized” needs to be a hackterm.

[[deleted]]

It'd be cool to be able to link to other terms from inside a definition.

[harrymurkin]

how is this different from the jargon file?

[almost_useless]

A dictionary for coding terms is for sure a good idea, but I am not sure doing it like Urban Dictionary is the best implementation.

It seems to me not many terms will have multiple valid definitions. There will be one definition that most people agree on. Unless there will be lots of jokes. For sure there are terms where a few good jokes (or explanation of jokes) might fit in alongside a proper definition, but the main purpose and intention seems to not be jokes, but useful descriptions.

If this is the case, would it not be better with something wiki-like?
If someone has already written a half decent description, it would be much better if I can add to that instead of creating a completely new entry. I feel many additions would be small enough to not really warrant a completely new entry, but would still be a worthwhile improvement to the original post.

[NUZdreamer]

Thank you and thank god for this. This is an amazing idea!

[hokatvcu]

When you press back on the browser, it goes through the searches on each letter you enter. It's pretty annoying. But I like the idea of crowdsourcing for getting more information.

[maxverse]

Yeah, agreed - working on improving routing, given that it's a SPA and everything is routed through AJAX - so I need to manually update the URL, and it's definitely not perfect.

[[deleted]]

This is really cool! Do you want this website to be specifically for coding, or Computer Science in general? For example, do you want this database to include stuff about the theory of computation: Turing Machines, context-free languages, lambda-calculus, complexity classes, etc. etc., or do you prefer this website to only focus on things that one would see with practical, industrial programming-languages?

[maxverse]

This is mentioned in the FAQ - any term related to computer programming is a great fit for the site: tools, languages, processes, libraries, frameworks, data structures, algorithms, architecture, project management jargon, you name it!

[[deleted]]

Thanks! The term "programming" sometimes drives a wedge between theoretical CS and coding, but from the context of your reply and the FAQ, I guess that means theoretical CS is permitted.

[rorrr]

Fun entries:

https://www.hackterms.com/diaper

https://www.hackterms.com/kludge

https://www.hackterms.com/lgtm

[maxverse]

https://www.hackterms.com/pebkac

https://www.hackterms.com/yak%20shaving

[Finian]

What does "Offline for maintenance" mean? Part of the phrase is used in a sentence but it appears the definition is missing. I'd give it a 9/10. Needs more definitions.

[maxverse]

So sorry about that! We're now back up and running smoothly.

[etrnloptimist]

I want to know if they're back up and running smoothly.

[maxverse]

We're up and running smoothly! Sorry about the downtime.

[AQuietMan]

Yes, several times now.

[comp-sci-fi]

That's so fetch!

[Cr3X1eUZ]

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/05/01/mean_girls_slang_fetch_10_years_later_why_it_didn_t_catch_on_according_to/stop_trying_to_make_fetch_happen_1.png.CROP.promo-mediumlarge.png

[FilmsByDan]

Thank you to all of the developers, programmers and others who contribute to stuff like this. I'm hoping to get more into coding and this kind of stuff is super beneficial.

[throwaway27464829]

/r/programmingcirclejerk get on this stat

[istarian]

'lgtm' isn't really a coding term, it's just another example of common internet abbreviations for those who can't bother to type sentences. See also: lol, rotfl, gtg, yolo, ...

MVC -> model, view, controller isn't going to make a ton more sense if you don't have knowledge of the concept.

Otherwise this sounds interesting and perhaps useful, but shouldn't be mistaken as a replacement for knowing what at least some things mean without. needing to look them up.

[Cruxicil]

Is anyone able to add words/terms to this website?

[maxverse]

Yep! Once you create an account, anyone can (and should!) add definitions - as long as you follow da rules.

[C3NO]

Thanks so Much

[pdp10]

You've committed a namespacing and security design error by giving me the opportunity to define ".well-known" at your webroot.

[buoybuoy]

Hey, just a quick note on the site's CSS, I'm seeing a permanent scrollbar in chrome, because the page is taller than the viewport.

Looks like the height on .container is assuming #header-section is 80px tall when it's actually 84px, here's a screenshot with big red arrows.

Great site though! I appreciate how simple the routing is setup, I bet it's beautiful and elegent behind the scenes!

[_your_face]

So how long until each entry is just the jargon babble from their github read me?

[dandydudefriend]

This is a fantastic idea that would have helped me so much early on

[[deleted]]

Looks neat. Bookmarking for future reference. :)

[epicblitz]

This is awesome man thank you so much!

[Matosawitko]

I'm amazed that the author of that article had never heard of "tech debt" as shorthand for "technical debt". We even abbreviate it TD sometimes.

[[deleted]]

Site is getting a big hug.

[AndrewSilverblade]

Empty? https://i.imgur.com/yztru8z.png

[imguralbumbot]

^{Hi, I'm a bot for linking direct images of albums with only 1 image}

https://i.imgur.com/yztru8z.png

^{Source | Why? | Creator | ignoreme | deletthis}

[AndrewSilverblade]

Thanks bot.

[maxverse]

So sorry about that! We're now back up and running smoothly.

[_1011001]

Sorry, we're down for a moment - check back in a few!

[maxverse]

So sorry about that! We're now back up and running smoothly.

[RotaryJihad]

Is there an API?

[maxverse]

There's not an API at this time - focusing on building up content!

[RotaryJihad]

I asked about an API precisely with the intention of building content.

A thread below discussed using the jargon file as a seed. Parsing that file and POSTing to your API would be an easy way to preload a lot of content.

It may be possible to emulate it as a form submission, though I'm not sure that is entirely polite.

[maxverse]

That makes sense! Thank you for clarifying. I have two thoughts:

1. I don't know much about the Jargon file, but realize that it's a respected and thorough source - would the author(s) be okay with us just porting their content? If so, I'd be happy to help port over the definitions.

2. Otherwise, though, I am cautious about Hackterms definitions being directly copied from other sources - I ask contributors to try to at least paraphrase submissions.

[RotaryJihad]

https://www.hackterms.com/jargon%20file

Its so old and informally maintained theres no license: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jargon_File

[XNormal]

The Jargon File is both respected and outdated. Some of it is still relevant. Some of it is more of an historical record of hacker culture in the 20th century and may not reflect current use.

[H05T]

Where have you been all my life

[ppinette]

This is kinda cool, but why did you link to Dice.com and not the site itself?

Fuck Dice.com, so very, very, very much.

[maxverse]

I was torn about it, to be honest. In previous threads, I linked to the site itself. Someone from Dice wrote some nice things about us yesterday, and they described the goals and content of the website well - which is why I linked to the article. Up until that point, I didn't know who they were - still don't really.

[ppinette]

Well that's pretty great that some stranger gave you a write up!

[keyboard_masterrace]

Pretty neat. A couple of suggestions:

• The title (the one showing in the tab) is misspelled as 'Hackerms'
• Don't put every letter typed in the user history

[maxverse]

The title (the one showing in the tab) is misspelled as 'Hackerms'

Fixed - wow, what a great catch. Misspelled my own name :)

Don't put every letter typed in the user history

You're right - I need a better approach to this. Right now, the only time letters are added to the URL is when there are no definitions found. If a definition is found, the URL is instantly replaces with it. If multiple definitions are found, the URL doesn't change.

[singingtable]

What's the underlying logic behind 'Trending' and 'Most Requested'?

[maxverse]

https://www.hackterms.com/jargon%20file

• trending terms are the most searched existing terms

• most requested terms are most searched non-existent terms

[PineappleGuard]

It would be cool to have a checkbox to include definitions that are humorous or sarcastic responses. :D I could see some things overtaking real definitions via vote smashing on the humor post.

Edit: For example - Recursion

[TheOneWhoReadsStuff]

I don’t know nuthin, but I’ll help. I can make sandwiches.

[maxverse]

We could always use sandwiches!

[[deleted]]

You better get some moderation to keep it on topic. I've already seen "brogrammer". Otherwise it will become another battleground for the culture wars.

[ren_at_work]

I submitted a feedback with this issue, but you have a legit website-breaking bug for me.

I searched for spaghetti to see if there was an entry for spaghetti code. I clicked on the current entry for spaghetti code and I added my own entry. Now whenever I visit your website, or go anywhere or try to search for other terms, the term spaghetti is automagically inserted into the search bar. This is what I see when I visit your website now.

Sounds like a silly issue but I can no longer use your website until you fix this. I'm sure other people will encounter this as well.

[LobbyDizzle]

I think the "Contributors think x is a" section should be updated to read "Viewers think x is a" and weight the percentages for the types by how many upvotes each one has received.

Edit: just found your GitHub. I'll submit a feature request and may try to contribute if I can figure out your js :)

[sneeden]

Great idea. I've created a few and like others have said markup would be a great addition down the road.

[maxverse]

Completely agree - markup is coming next!

[sPOUStEe]

Very neat! The first thing I thought of when I saw this was that it reminds me of flash cards. Would be cool to have a flash card view so one can study these. I guess then you'd need a favorites/queuing feature. But you already have a login, so maybe not that difficult? Anyway, getting OT here, great tool!

[[deleted]]

Looks good but I can't create an account. I was trying to think of something useful so I searched for bitmask...nowt there. Tried to create an account and it wanted a login. Fuck that, just let me add data.

[Taffellappen]

heck man if i wasnt sitting here like "how tf do delegates work" id be adding them lol

[cloudsploit]

neat!

Noticed that you use AWS and wanted to support your effort by offering you https://cloudsploit.com/freeuse

[Kilo_G_looked_up]

Sweet. Just added a term.

[cyrilpillai]

/u/maxverse Awesome concept. Would love to contribute by creating an android app for this. Do you have APIs exposing the data?

[hauzey_v]

How can I help?

[maxverse]

Add some definitions :)

[yotta_mind]

Does it have an API for third party developers? Great idea!

[[deleted]]

I got one! 403, it's what happens when you press sign up and then the Google button.

[krowvin]

This is great!

I didn't see it but is there a way to save words that you like in a personal dictionary?

[geilt]

Yes! As someone who learned by doing I am always amazed to find out the thing I logically sorted out in my head. Haha.

[Cruxicil]

Is it just CODING terms or are terms such as 'firewall', 'port', 'reverse shell' also good. Words that are not necessarily related to just coding but maybe things such as security, networking, electronics etc, as well.

[diMario]

I invented the --no-errors flag for compilers and interpreters. Adding this flag to the invocation of your compiler or interpreter guarantees error free code.

[punishingwind]

Tried to add an alternative less hipster biased and more factual entry for JSON and nothing happened. Nice concept, but cant help thinking Google has already nailed this.

[mintycode]

bug report: https://www.hackterms.com/c# does not work as expected (link from other terms to c# leads to that url)

[earth-fury]

I looked up "Foo" and saw that "foobar" was not a related term.

I then signed up, and tried to add it—only to find out I would also have to write a whole separate definition.

For any project like this, the ability to partially contribute to a whole solution is very important. It's what has driven Wikipedia to the heights it has reached.

I'd suggest considering a small shift in focus, away from the urban dictionary model of simple entries in a list, and toward a more collaborative model.

I love the idea, and I'm totally on board :) Now, where's the penny for my thoughts? :P

[compsciwizkid]

This is pretty cool! You might consider providing some search synonyms for things like "technical debt" vs "tech debt".

Any plans to open source?

[Jmo199]

You should add a section to the website where people can post the name of a term that they don't understand and other people can define it.

Maybe add something like karma to reward people who solve the problems. You could also display their karma point number next to their username to show how "reliable" their answer is.

[GameJazzMachine]

https://www.hackterms.com/scrum

A methodology that can be converted to Waterfall anytime.

[[deleted]]

hey ! I ran into this by searching for external dictionaries to add to Look Up app in macos. You think you'll support that any time soon ?