Small matter of programming: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:55, 22 March 2019

Revision as of 13:56, 22 March 2019

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The 1983 [[Jargon File]] describes an SMOP as follows:<ref>{{cite web|url=http://jargon-file.org/archive/jargon-1.5.0.dos.txt |title=The Hacker's Dictionary [Jargon File, version 1.5.0] |access-date=2019-03-17}}</ref>

:''A piece of program code, not yet written, whose anticipated length is significantly greater than its intellectual complexity''.

:This term is used to refer to a program that could obviously be written but is not worth the trouble. It is also used ironically to imply that a difficult problem can be easily solved because a program can be written to do it. The irony is that it is very clear that writing such a program will be a great deal of work. Example: "It's easy to change a FORTRAN compiler to compile COBOL as well; it's just a small matter of programming."

The IBM Jargon DictionarydefinesDictionary itdefines SMOP as:<ref>{{cite web|url=https://comlay.net/ibmjarg.pdf|quote=SMOP|title=''IBM Jargon Dictionary, Tenth Edition''|publisher=[[IBM]]||year=1990|page=5653|accessdate=22 March 2019}}</ref>

:'''SMOP''' (''smop'') ''n.'' Something quite possible, but requiring unavailable resources to achieve. "Why isn't that function available in the program?" − "It's just a Simple Matter Of Programming". (The implication being that, given a few person-centuries, all things are possible.) Also '''SMOUP''' (''smoop''), a Simple Matter Of Micro-Programming (if handwritten, using a Greek mu). See also ''how hard would it be.''