shim (software)

[Mark A. Mandel]

Heard in conversation tonight:

"... a shim between the DVD driver and the software for reading the
disk."

When asked, the speaker defined this use of "shim" as "a piece of
software that sits between two pieces of software that normally
communicate directly with each other." It usually operates
transparently, so that neither of the two other pieces of software*
"knows" that it's there, but "thinks" it's communicating with the other
one normally.

I hadn't heard this usage before. A Google search finds around 28k hits
of
"shim" and "software" in the same text, of which the first relevant one,
is #10,
http://archnet.caup.washington.edu/00Archnet%20Home/3.Software/0.default.html
(University of Washington, Department of Architecture: ARCHNET Student
Download Software):


What is the "Keyserver Client"?

The management mechanism that keeps track of the number of licenses of
each title that are in use is a "software metering" system. Most of our
software is metered by a system called "KeyServer". This "shim" software
sits between the application and the network, checking licenses in and
out as you work. "Keyserver Client" is the name of the application
(under Windows, on a Mac it is an extension) that provides the necessary
services. Therefore, you must install the Keyserver Client first, prior
to installing or running any of the other applications.

-- Mark A. Mandel
   Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania