cookbook
(From amateur electronics and radio) A book of small code segments that the reader can use to do various
{magic} things in programs.
One current example is the "{PostScript} Language Tutorial and
Cookbook" by Adobe Systems, Inc (Addison-Wesley, ISBN
0-201-10179-3), also known as the {Blue Book} which has
recipes for things like wrapping text around arbitrary curves
and making 3D fonts.
Cookbooks, slavishly followed, can lead one into {voodoo
programming}, but are useful for hackers trying to {monkey up}
small programs in unknown languages. This function is
analogous to the role of phrasebooks in human languages.
[{Jargon File}]
(1994-11-04)