RTFS
<jargon> 1. Read The Fucking Source. Variant form of RTFM, used when the
problem at hand is not necessarily obvious and not answerable from the manuals -
or the manuals are not yet written and maybe never will be. For even trickier
situations, see RTFB. Unlike RTFM, the anger inherent in RTFS is not usually
directed at the person asking the question, but rather at the people who failed
to provide adequate documentation.
2. Read The Fucking Standard; this oath can only be used when the problem area
(e.g. a language or operating system interface) has actually been codified in a
ratified standards document. The existence of these standards documents (and the
technically inappropriate but politically mandated compromises that they
inevitably contain, and the impenetrable legalese in which they are invariably
written, and the unbelievably tedious bureaucratic process by which they are
produced) can be unnerving to hackers, who are used to a certain amount of
ambiguity in the specifications of the systems they use. (Hackers feel that such
ambiguities are acceptable as long as the Right Thing to do is obvious to any
thinking observer; sadly, this casual attitude toward specifications becomes
unworkable when a system becomes popular in the Real World.) Since a hacker is
likely to feel that a standards document is both unnecessary and technically
deficient, the deprecation inherent in this term may be directed as much against
the standard as against the person who ought to read it.
[Jargon File]
Nearby terms:
RTFAQ « RTFB « RTFM « RTFS » RTI » RTL »
RTL/1
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