juggling eggs

( vi.)

   Keeping  a  lot  of  {state}  in your head while modifying a program.
   "Don't  bother me now, I'm juggling eggs", means that an interrupt is
   likely  to  result  in  the program's being scrambled. In the classic
   1975 first-contact SF novel The Mote in God's Eye, by Larry Niven and
   Jerry  Pournelle,  an alien describes a very difficult task by saying
   "We  juggle  priceless eggs in variable gravity." It is possible that
   this was intended as tribute to a less colorful use of the same image
   in  Robert  Heinlein's  influential  1961 novel Stranger in a Strange
   Land. See also {hack mode} and {on the gripping hand}.

[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {hack mode}{on the gripping hand}]