GURU(8)                                                GURU(8)


NAME

    guru - System administration


SYNOPSIS

    guru [ -e program ] [ -f ] [ -p target ]


DESCRIPTION

    guru is a sophisticated program synthesis and system main-
    tenance tool developed after midnight in numerous  univer-
    sity  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  gener-
    ated  or  the  user community has learned to live with the
    problem.

    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.

    If the standard input is empty, guru uses its program syn-
    thesis capabilities to generate a selection of screen edi-
    tors, X widgets, compilers, sundry  games  and  the  occa-
    sional diatribe.


OPTIONS

    -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.

    -f      Reconstructs filesystems after a crash.

    -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.

    If  more  than  one  option is specified, guru may thrash.
    Each copy of guru has its own set  of  unique,  additional
    and undocumented options.


SEE ALSO

    YAPS: Yet another Program Synthesiser by S C Johnson.


NOTES

    Inherent design limitations prevent guru from synthesising
    comments.  The programs generated are  undocumented.   The
    lucidity,  politeness, relevance and language of the occa-
    sional diatribe vary considerably.

    The only diagnostic is an occasional ``I deserve a raise''
    -  which  may  be  ignored albeit doing so may provoke ``I
    resign'' - an unrecoverable error.

    Sending the output of one guru into  another  can  produce
    quite startling results.