1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
|
.TH GURU 8 "" "UNIX Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
guru \- System administration
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B guru
[
.B -e
.I program
] [
.B -f
] [
.B -p
.I target
]
.SH DESCRIPTION
guru is a sophisticated program synthesis and system
maintenance tool developed after midnight in numerous
university computing labs.
It is based on the famous LISP Hacker system, used to develop AI
programs on TENEX.
guru reads a problem description from the standard input.
An innovative and occasionally correct solution is generated and
written to the standard output.
Typically, guru is invoked repeatedly until an acceptable solution is
generated or the user community has learned to live with the problem.
.PP
The bugreport mechanism sometimes invokes guru.
In this case guru executes at a priority inversely proportional to the
reported urgency of the bug.
Feature enhancements run at high priority whereas critical problems are
fixed only when the machine would otherwise be idle.
.PP
If the standard input is empty, guru uses its program synthesis
capabilities to generate a selection of screen editors, X widgets,
compilers, sundry games and the occasional diatribe.
.PP
.SH OPTIONS
.TP 8
.BI \-e " program"
New features are added to an existing program.
This option should be used with caution as the enhanced program may
behave unpredictably or not at all.
.TP 8
.B -f
Reconstructs filesystems after a crash.
.TP 8
.BI \-p " target"
Ports the entire system on which guru is executing to target, preferably
a RISC machine.
This is an extremely time consuming operation and is not guaranteed to
terminate.
.PP
If more than one option is specified, guru may thrash.
Each copy of guru has its own set of unique, additional and
undocumented options.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
YAPS: Yet another Program Synthesiser by S C Johnson.
.SH NOTES
Inherent design limitations prevent guru from synthesising comments.
The programs generated are undocumented.
The lucidity, politeness, relevance and language of the occasional
diatribe vary considerably.
.PP
The only diagnostic is an occasional ``I deserve a raise'' \-
which may be ignored albeit doing so may provoke ``I resign'' \-
an unrecoverable error.
.PP
Sending the output of one guru into another can produce quite
startling results.
|
