[acronym, from Robert Heinlein's classic SF novel The Moon is a Harsh
Mistress.] "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch", often invoked
when someone is balking at the prospect of using an unpleasantly
{heavyweight} technique, or at the poor quality of some piece of
software, or at the {signal-to-noise ratio} of unmoderated Usenet
newsgroups. "What? Don't tell me I have to implement a database back
end to get my address book program to work!" "Well, TANSTAAFL you
know." This phrase owes some of its popularity to the high
concentration of science-fiction fans and political libertarians in
hackerdom (see Appendix B for discussion).
Outside hacker circles the variant TINSTAAFL ("There is No Such
Thing...") is apparently more common, and can be traced back to 1952
in the writings of ethicist Alvin Hansen. TANSTAAFL may well have
arisen from it by mutation.
[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {on the gripping hand}]