Torsten Hothorn wrote:
# reference is made automagically
While not found in ordinary dictionaries, there is a reference in the Jargon File and the Free Online Dictionary of Computing:
""" automagically /aw-toh-maj'i-klee/ adv. Automatically, but in a way that, for some reason (typically because it is too complicated, or too ugly, or perhaps even too trivial), the speaker doesn't feel like explaining to you. See magic. "The C-INTERCAL compiler generates C, then automagically invokes `cc(1)' to produce an executable."
This term is quite old, going back at least to the mid-70s in jargon and probably much earlier. The word `automagic' occurred in advertising (for a shirt-ironing gadget) as far back as the late 1940s. """
although I've found nowadays people just using it automatically for 'automatically', probably because it sounds cooler.
At least R source code doesn't look like this:
/* * ht3 ph0ll0w1ng c0d3 pr1ntz v3ct0rz wh1ch hav3 3v3ry 3l3m3nt nam3d. * Pr1m1t1v3z ph0r 3ach typ3 uv v3ct0r R pr353nt3d ph1r5t, ph0ll0w3d by * ht3 ma1n (d15patch1ng) phunct10n. 1) Th353 pr1m1t1v3z R alm05t * 1d3nt1cal... == u53 PR1NT_N_V3CT0R macr0 2) z pr1ntz a _5pac3_ 1n ht3 * ph1r5t c0lumn ph0r nam3d v3ct0r5; w3 d0nt. * R rox0rs! */
[with apologies to the authors of printvector.c]
Baz
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