Buzz
1. Of a program, to run with no indication of progress and perhaps without guarantee of ever finishing; especially said of programs thought to be executing a
tight loop of code.
A program that is buzzing appears to be
catatonic, but never gets out of catatonia, while a buzzing loop may eventually end of its own accord.
"The program buzzes for about 10 seconds trying to sort all the names into order."
See
spin; see also
grovel.
2. [ETA Systems] To test a wire or printed circuit trace for continuity by applying an AC rather than DC signal.
Some wire faults will pass DC tests but fail a buzz test.
3. To process an
array or list in sequence, doing the same thing to each element.
"This loop buzzes through the tz array looking for a terminator type."
[
Jargon File]
