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]