marble

n 1: a hard crystalline metamorphic rock that takes a high

polish; used for sculpture and as building material

2: a small ball of glass that is used in various games

3: a sculpture carved from marble

v : paint or stain like marble; of paper

marbles

(From the mainstream "lost his marbles") The minimum

needed to build your way further up some hierarchy of tools or

abstractions. After a bad system {crash}, you need to

determine if the machine has enough marbles to come up on its

own, or enough marbles to allow a rebuild from {backups}, or

if you need to rebuild from scratch. "This {compiler} doesn't

even have enough marbles to compile {hello, world}."

[{Jargon File}]

(1998-05-21)