Related:

• livelock /li:v'lok/ n. A situation in which some critical stage of a task is unable to finish because its clients perpetually create more work for it to do after they have been serviced but before it can clear its queue.
  Differs from deadlock in that the process is not blocked or waiting for anything, but has a virtually infinite amount of work to do and can never catch up....
• deadlock: n. 1. [techspeak] A situation wherein two or more processes are unable to proceed because each is waiting for one of the others to do something.
  A common example is a program communicating to a server, which may find itself waiting for output from the server before sending anything more to it, while the server is similarly waiting for more input from the controlling program before outputting anything....
• deadlock n. 1. [techspeak] A situation wherein two or more processes are unable to proceed because each is waiting for one of the others to do something.
  A common example is a program communicating to a server, which may find itself waiting for output from the server before sending anything more to it, while the server is similarly waiting for more input from the controlling program before outputting anything....
• background: n.,adj.,vt. To do a task `in background' is to do it whenever {foreground} matters are not claiming your undivided attentio
  and `to background' something means to relegate it to a lower priority....
• SMOP: /S-M-O-P/ [Simple (or Small) Matter of Programming] n.
  1. A piece of code, not yet written, whose anticipated length is significantly greater than its complexity....
• buried treasure: n. A surprising piece of code found in some program.
  While usually not wrong, it tends to vary from {crufty} to {bletcherous}, and has lain undiscovered only because it was functionally correct, however horrible it is....
• wedged: adj. 1. To be stuck, incapable of proceeding without help.
  This is different from having crashed. If the system has crashed, it has become totally non-functioning....
• zombie: [UNIX] n. A process that has died but has not yet relinquished its process table slot (because the parent process hasn't executed a `wait(2)' for it yet).
  These can be seen in `ps(1)' listings occasionally....
• wo-to-the-N: quant. An amount much larger than {N} but smaller than {infinity}.
  I have 2-to-the-N things to do before I can go out for lunch" means you probably won't show up....