25-letter words containing f, i, r, e, a

my favourite toy language — (jargon, language) (MFTL) Describes a talk on a programming language design that is heavy on syntax (with lots of BNF), sometimes even talks about semantics (e.g. type systems), but rarely, if ever, has any content (see content-free). More broadly applied to talks - even when the topic is not a programming language --- in which the subject matter is gone into in unnecessary and meticulous detail at the sacrifice of any conceptual content. "Well, it was a typical MFTL talk". 2. A language about which the developers are passionate (often to the point of prosyletic zeal) but no one else cares about. Applied to the language by those outside the originating group. "He cornered me about type resolution in his MFTL." The first great goal in the mind of the designer of an MFTL is usually to write a compiler for it, then bootstrap the design away from contamination by lesser languages by writing a compiler for it in itself. Thus, the standard put-down question at an MFTL talk is "Has it been used for anything besides its own compiler?". On the other hand, a language that *cannot* be used to write its own compiler is beneath contempt. See break-even point, toolsmith.
national liberation front — the name taken by nationalist insurgent groups in various countries.
non-uniform memory access — (architecture) (NUMA) A memory architecture, used in multiprocessors, where the access time depends on the memory location. A processor can access its own local memory faster than non-local memory (memory which is local to another processor or shared between processors).
northern corn-leaf blight — northern leaf blight.
not for the faint-hearted — If you say that something is not for the faint-hearted, you mean that it is an extreme or very unusual example of its kind, and is not suitable for people who like only safe and familiar things.
nuffield teaching project — (in Britain) a complete school programme in mathematics, science, languages, etc, with suggested complementary theory and practical work
office of war information — OWI.
on the horns of a dilemma — one of the bony, permanent, hollow paired growths, often curved and pointed, that project from the upper part of the head of certain ungulate mammals, as cattle, sheep, goats, or antelopes.
personal flotation device — a life preserver, life jacket, or other device for keeping a person afloat in the water. Abbreviation: PFD.
point-and-drool interface — (abuse) (Or "point-and-grunt interface") A parody of "point-and-shoot interface", describing a windows, icons, and mouse-based (WIMP) graphical user interface. The implication, of course, is that such an interface is only suitable for idiots. See for the rest of us, WIMP, drool-proof paper.
point-and-grunt interface — point-and-drool interface
preferred ordinary shares — shares issued by a company that rank between preference shares and ordinary shares in the payment of dividends
principal nursing officer — a grade of nurse concerned with administration in the British National Health Service
principle of least action — the principle that motion between any two points in a conservative dynamical system is such that the action has a minimum value with respect to all paths between the points that correspond to the same energy
principle of virtual work — the principle that the total work done by all forces on a system in static equilibrium is zero for a set of infinitesimally small displacements.
profit and loss statement — A profit and loss statement is a statement that is compiled at the end of a financial year showing that year's revenue and expense items and indicating gross and net profit or loss.
progressive federal party — a political party, formed in 1977 by a merger between the Progressive Party and members of the United Party, supporting qualified franchise for all South Africans irrespective of race, colour, or creed; merged with other parties in 1989 to form the Democratic Party
public key infrastructure — (cryptography, communications) (PKI) A system of public key encryption using digital certificates from Certificate Authorities and other registration authorities that verify and authenticate the validity of each party involved in an electronic transaction. PKIs are currently evolving and there is no single PKI nor even a single agreed-upon standard for setting up a PKI. However, nearly everyone agrees that reliable PKIs are necessary before electronic commerce can become widespread.
qualified majority voting — a voting system, used by the EU Council of Ministers, enabling certain resolutions to be passed without unanimity
referentially transparent — referential transparency
run-time type information — (compiler) (RTTI) Facilities included in C++ compilers to allow the type of an object to be determined at run time. This facility, found in good C++ compilers and some other high level languages, adds type information to memory resident objects (i.e. type name or unique type-id). This allows the run-time system to determine if an object is of a specific type, for example, to ensure that a cast of an object is valid.
saint joseph of arimathea — a wealthy member of the Sanhedrin, who obtained the body of Jesus after the Crucifixion and laid it in his own tomb (Matthew 27:57–60). Feast day: Mar 17 or July 31
single document interface — (programming) (SDI) A limitation applying to an application program that only shows a single windows giving a view of one document at a time. The opposite is Multiple Document Interface (MDI).
single wingback formation — an offensive formation in which the wingback lines up outside of and about one yard behind an end, the quarterback lines up lateral to the wingback but about midway between the same end and the center, the fullback is three or four yards behind the middle of the line, and the tailback lines up one yard behind the fullback on the other side of the line from the wingback and quarterback.
single-lens reflex camera — a camera in which the image appears on a ground-glass viewer (focusing screen) after being reflected by a mirror or after passing through a prism or semitransparent glass; in one type (single-lens reflex camera) light passes through the same lens to both the ground glass and the film, while in another type (twin-lens reflex camera) light passes through one lens (viewing lens) to the ground glass and through a second lens (taking lens) to the film, the lenses being mechanically coupled for focusing.
slip/fall through the net — You use slip through the net or fall through the net to describe a situation where people are not properly cared for by the system that is intended to help them.
software through pictures — (programming, tool) (StP) A set of CASE tools distributed by Aonix.
the knives are out for sb — If a lot of people want something unpleasant to happen to someone, for example if they want them to lose their job, you can say that the knives are out for that person.
the leaning tower of pisa — the bell tower of Pisa Cathedral
the meteorological office — a British Government department supplying weather forecasts
the mother of parliaments — the British Parliament: the model and creator of many other Parliaments
the scholastic profession — the profession of teaching
the trash heap of history — a figurative or imaginative place where forgotten things or people go
there are no flies on him — he is no fool
time domain reflectometer — (hardware, networking) (TDR) An electronic device for detecting and locating short- or open-circuits in an Ethernet cable. TDRs can also measure how the characteristic impedance of a line varies along its length.
to be living proof that … — to show that
to be on first-name terms — (of two people) knowing each other well enough to call each other by their first names, rather than having to use a more formal title.
to have irons in the fire — If someone has a lot of irons in the fire, they are involved in several different activities or have several different plans.
total internal reflection — the effect that occurs when light meets the interface between the medium in which it is traveling and a medium of smaller refractive index at an angle of incidence greater than the critical angle, all light being reflected back to the first medium.
track and field athletics — a collection of sporting events that involve running, sprinting, throwing, jumping and walking
trading standards officer — a person who works for a trading standards office
transport layer interface — (networking, programming) (TLI, or "Transport Level Interface") A protocol-independent interface for accessing network facilities, modelled after the ISO transport layer (level 4), that first appeared in Unix SVR3. TLI is defined by SVID as transport mechanism for networking interfaces, in preference to sockets, which are biased toward IP and friends. A disavantage is that a process cannot use read/write directly, but has to use backends using stdin and stdout to communicate with the network connection. TLI is implemented in SVR4 using the STREAMS interface. It adds no new system calls, just a library, libnsl_s.a. The major functions are t_open, t_bind, t_connect, t_listen, t_accept, t_snd, t_rcv, read, write. According to the Solaris t_open man page, XTI (X/OPEN Transport Interface) evolved from TLI, and supports the TLI API for compatibility, with some variations on semantics.
transport level interface — Transport Layer Interface
under the aegis of sb/sth — Something that is done under the aegis of a person or organization is done with their official support and backing.
uniform naming convention — Universal Naming Convention
uniform resource citation — (web) (URC) A set of attribute/value pairs describing an object. Some of the values may be URIs of various kinds. Others may include, for example, athorship, publisher, datatype, date, copyright status and shoe size. A URC is not normally considered as a string, but a set of fields and values with some defined free formatting.
university of east london — (body, education) (UEL) A UK University with six academic Faculties: Design and The Built Environment, East London Business School, Institute Of Health and Rehabilitation, Faculty Of Science, Social Sciences and Technology.
war of the grand alliance — the war (1689–97) in which England, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the Holy Roman Empire in league with Bavaria, Brandenburg, Savoy, and the Palatinate opposed France.

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