Re: BUFFY_SIZE option
Or, from the OpenBSD man pages:
The biff command appeared in 4.0BSD. biff was Heidi Stettner's dog. He
died in August 1993, at 15.
which suggests an earlier etymology than the hacker's dictionary.
--
-e
On Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 10:12 AM, Thomas Roessler ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) typed:
On 2000-02-16 15:28:43 +0800, Sverre Slotte wrote:
I remember having read ("Life with Unix" by somebody Ressler?)
that Biff was a dog who lived with its owner in Berkeley (in the
beginning of the 1980s?). Biff used to bark at the mailman.
Further down the hall from lived some of the BSD-hackers, and
they dedided to call the mail-notification program "biff".
From the jargon file:
| :biff: /bif/ /vt./ To notify someone of incoming mail. From
|the BSD utility `biff(1)', which was in turn named after a
|friendly golden Labrador who used to chase frisbees in the halls
|at UCB while 4.2BSD was in development. There was a legend that
|it had a habit of barking whenever the mailman came, but the
|author of `biff' says this is not true. No relation to {B1FF}.
--
http://www.guug.de/~roessler/
Re: BUFFY_SIZE option
On 2000-02-16 15:28:43 +0800, Sverre Slotte wrote:
I remember having read ("Life with Unix" by somebody Ressler?)
that Biff was a dog who lived with its owner in Berkeley (in the
beginning of the 1980s?). Biff used to bark at the mailman.
Further down the hall from lived some of the BSD-hackers, and
they dedided to call the mail-notification program "biff".
From the jargon file:
| :biff: /bif/ /vt./ To notify someone of incoming mail. From
|the BSD utility `biff(1)', which was in turn named after a
|friendly golden Labrador who used to chase frisbees in the halls
|at UCB while 4.2BSD was in development. There was a legend that
|it had a habit of barking whenever the mailman came, but the
|author of `biff' says this is not true. No relation to {B1FF}.
--
http://www.guug.de/~roessler/
Re: BUFFY_SIZE option
Buffy and Biff were/are slang names for generic yuppie scum. Biff is *the* original program to notify a user about mail. Xbiff is a version for X. Xbuffy is an improved version. Buffy the vampire slayer came along after the original yuppie scum. HTH, Jeffrey Quoting Russell Hoover [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Mon 02/14/00 at 01:20 AM -0500, Russell Hoover [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Could someone explain where or how the BUFFY_SIZE option got its name? Still hoping for an answer here. Does no one the list know why BUFFY_SIZE or xbuffy were given that name? Who wrote the xbuffy patch? I mean, there isn't a DRAGON option is there? I'm actually trying to respond to someone who asked this very question, absurdly accusing mutt of being influenced by pop-culture frivolity, and I know that the original xbuffy patch had nothing to do with this, yet I don't know why it *was* called that either . . . -- // [EMAIL PROTECTED] //
Re: BUFFY_SIZE option
On Mon 02/14/00 at 01:20 AM -0500, Russell Hoover [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Could someone explain where or how the BUFFY_SIZE option got its name? Still hoping for an answer here. Does no one the list know why BUFFY_SIZE or xbuffy were given that name? Who wrote the xbuffy patch? I mean, there isn't a DRAGON option is there? I'm actually trying to respond to someone who asked this very question, absurdly accusing mutt of being influenced by pop-culture frivolity, and I know that the original xbuffy patch had nothing to do with this, yet I don't know why it *was* called that either . . . -- // [EMAIL PROTECTED] //
Re: BUFFY_SIZE option
From the xbuffy README: ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### XBuffy 08/20/97 Xbuffy was written by Bill Pemberton ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) and was based on Xmultibiff by John Reardon. Xmultibiff can be found at ftp.midnight.com. I was looking for a replacement for XBiff. I use the filter program (it comes with elm) to separate my mail into several different mailboxes. I looked at a lot of replacements for XBiff until I found Xmultibiff. Xmultibiff was very promising, but it didn't do quite what I wanted it to do, so I modified it to create XBuffy. ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### So, I would suggest contacting Bill about xbuffy. Shawn Previously, Russell Hoover wrote: : On Mon 02/14/00 at 01:20 AM -0500, Russell Hoover [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: : Could someone explain where or how the BUFFY_SIZE option got its name? : : Still hoping for an answer here. Does no one the list know why BUFFY_SIZE : or xbuffy were given that name? Who wrote the xbuffy patch? : : I mean, there isn't a DRAGON option is there? : : I'm actually trying to respond to someone who asked this very question, absurdly : accusing mutt of being influenced by pop-culture frivolity, and I know that the : original xbuffy patch had nothing to do with this, yet I don't know why it *was* : called that either . . . : : : -- : // [EMAIL PROTECTED] // -- "I'd love to go out with you, but it's my parakeet's bowling night."
Re: BUFFY_SIZE option
On Tue 02/15/00 at 10:29 PM -0500, Russell Hoover [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: there isn't a DRAGON option is there? I mean a --VAMPIRES option . . . -- // [EMAIL PROTECTED] //
Re: BUFFY_SIZE option
On 000215, at 22:29:25, Russell Hoover wrote: On Mon 02/14/00 at 01:20 AM -0500, Russell Hoover [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Could someone explain where or how the BUFFY_SIZE option got its name? Still hoping for an answer here. Does no one the list know why BUFFY_SIZE or xbuffy were given that name? Who wrote the xbuffy patch? I mean, there isn't a DRAGON option is there? I'm actually trying to respond to someone who asked this very question, absurdly accusing mutt of being influenced by pop-culture frivolity, and I know that the original xbuffy patch had nothing to do with this, yet I don't know why it *was* called that either . . . The original mailbox cycling code was introduced by Christophe Kalt as a patch perhaps as early as November 1996. The patch was named the "buffy" patch. The BUFFY_SIZE option was introduced sometime in 1997 by Michael S. Tsirkin, to allow the detection of new mail in mailboxes to be based on files size changes rather than time stamps. The xbuffy patch was written by Brandon Long in June 1998. -- David Ellement
Re: BUFFY_SIZE option
"Jeffrey L . Taylor" wrote:
Buffy and Biff were/are slang names for generic yuppie scum. Biff
is *the* original program to notify a user about mail.
I remember having read ("Life with Unix" by somebody Ressler?) that Biff
was a dog who lived with its owner in Berkeley (in the beginning of the
1980s?). Biff used to bark at the mailman. Further down the hall from
lived some of the BSD-hackers, and they dedided to call the
mail-notification program "biff".
I guess buffy is a derivation of biff.
Sverre
--
Sverre Slotte | Capital Mansion apt 3902 | Phone +86 10 64669187
| 6 Xin Yuan Nan Road |
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | Beijing, 100 004 China | Mobile +86 1370 1121458
