cookbook

programming (From amateur electronics and radio) A book of

small code segments that the reader can use to do various

magic things in programs.

One current example is the "PostScript Language Tutorial and

Cookbook" by Adobe Systems, Inc (Addison-Wesley, ISBN

0-201-10179-3), also known as the Blue Book which has

recipes for things like wrapping text around arbitrary curves

and making 3D fonts.

Cookbooks, slavishly followed, can lead one into voodooprogramming, but are useful for hackers trying to monkey up

small programs in unknown languages. This function is

analogous to the role of phrasebooks in human languages.

[Jargon File]

(1994-11-04)