Glossary
Glossary of Orkish Developer Terms
Words heard in Glurp's tower, the valley tavern, and the Ork Meter Discord. Spellings vary. Orks are flexible about spelling.
- Anvil
- An ork's desk. Any desk where real work is hammered out. Usually covered in mugs.
- Avalanche, the
- The Fourth Wound. A single command that returns enormous output and buries the context. "Don't cat the whole log, you'll start an Avalanche."
- Book of Wounds, the
- The long scroll pinned beside Glurp's desk, listing the five ways tokens go missing. Not really a book. A bit theatrical, and earned.
- Bug jar
- A container for bugs that have been caught and pardoned. Glurp's is labelled BUGS (FRIENDLY).
- Circle, the
- The Second Wound. An agent repeating the same failing step, hoping for a different ending.
- Cold Hearth, the
- The Fifth Wound. When the cache cools while you are away and an expensive resume must be warmed up again at full price.
- Conductin'
- Running many agents at once, in time, with Orkestera. What cousin Glorp does, with a baton. Not a wand. See also horde.
- Doorframe notch
- A mark carved for each green-up or finished feature. An old developer's doorframe tells their whole history. Glurp's ran out of room, so the notches carried on up the door.
- Flood, the
- The First Wound. Test and build logs pouring into the context and drowning the one line that matters.
- Forgetful Read, the
- The Third Wound. Reading the same unchanged file again and again.
- Glimmerstone
- An old valley word for a seeing stone. Glurp's crystal ball is a glimmerstone that shows where everything goes, including tokens.
- Green-up
- The moment a test suite passes. Celebrated with a small triumphant grunt.
- Hand-forged
- Code written one keystroke at a time, without an agent. Not better or worse, just made differently, like bread.
- Horde
- A crowd of agents working together. Properly conducted, a symphony. Improperly conducted, an expensive racket.
- Inner ring
- The smallest, brightest ring in the crystal ball, the one that shows cost. When it spins fast, something is leaking.
- Load-bearin' loop
- A loop nobody understands that the whole program depends on. Do not touch.
- Me pouch
- Where an ork keeps their tokens, in spirit. A light pouch is a sad pouch; a heavy one after a whole feature is cause for a new notch.
- Oi-moment
- The instant you notice tokens are missing. Named for the first word anyone says.
- Pull up a stool
- Welcome. You are not the only one who is lost. Said often in the Ork Meter Discord, usually very late.
- Quackin' it out
- Explaining a problem aloud to a rubber duck until the answer becomes obvious. Glurp's duck is Sir Quackington.
- Token
- The little coin of agent magic. Every word read or written costs some.
- Token-poor
- The state of having spent far more tokens than expected, usually without knowing where.
- Wounds, the Five
- The Flood, the Circle, the Forgetful Read, the Avalanche and the Cold Hearth. Ork Meter shows them; Ork Meter Plus heals them.
Tip: use the ← and → arrow keys to turn the page.