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}]