[Zope] Giving up in frustration

Andrew M. Kuchling akuchlin@mems-exchange.org
Wed, 18 Aug 1999 10:18:37 -0400 (EDT)


Thaxter, Jason M. writes:
>I've come across the use of 'Zen' in Python contexts: this is the likely
>origin, I would guess...

	 It's of more general hackish origin.  
From http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/zen.html:

zen vt. 

To figure out something by meditation or by a sudden flash of
enlightenment. Originally applied to bugs, but occasionally applied to
problems of life in general. "How'd you figure out the buffer
allocation problem?" "Oh, I zenned it." Contrast grok, which connotes
a time-extended version of zenning a system. Compare hack mode. See
also guru.

The section on religion in appendix B of the Jargon File is also worth
reading.

-- 
A.M. Kuchling			http://starship.python.net/crew/amk/
Predicting the future, as we all know, is risky. Predicting the evolution of
new technology is downright hazardous.
    -- Leon Cooper