biff
Question: Where did the UNIX program ‘biff’ get its name?
- from Binary Interchange File Format
- from the name of the programmers dog
- from the name of the programmers boyfriend
- from the Doonsbury character of the same name
Answer: from the name of the programmers dog
biff is a UNIX program that alerts the user when new e-mail arrives. The story has it that whenever the mailman delivered mail at the programmer’s home, her dog Biff would bark. Since the program has the same functionality, it was a logical name.
Add comment April 15th, 2007