The Original Hacker's Dictionary (1988)
dourish.com
The Original Hacker's Dictionary (1988)
1–10 of 25 posts
Re: The Original Hacker's Dictionary (1988)
#2The modern version of this jargon file is maintained by esr here: http://www.catb.org/jargon/
Re: The Original Hacker's Dictionary (1988)
#3There are people who haven't heard of the Jargon File?
Re: The Original Hacker's Dictionary (1988)
#4There are people who haven't heard of the Jargon File?
That depends.
Do you mean this version of the Jargon File or the one on ESR's website?
As the intro points out, there's a difference.
Re: The Original Hacker's Dictionary (1988)
#5Meh. A record that doesn't evolve is dead; ESR gets a lot of criticism for his stewardship but I'll take a Jargon File that updates over one that doesn't any day
Re: The Original Hacker's Dictionary (1988)
#6There are people who haven't heard of the Jargon File?
Yes!
Re: The Original Hacker's Dictionary (1988)
#7Meh. A record that doesn't evolve is dead; ESR gets a lot of criticism for his stewardship but I'll take a Jargon File that updates over one that doesn't any day
I disagree. Yes, this record is out of date and that limits its utility today as a decoding tool. However, its historical value is high because it is out of date.
I found it interesting to go through it and look at which usages had survived and which hadn't.
Re: The Original Hacker's Dictionary (1988)
#8There are people who haven't heard of the Jargon File?
A part of me has this initial reaction as well: "Who has not heard of the Jargon File?!" But then I remember that there was a time once (long ago now) when I hadn't heard of it either -- and I remember my own delight in discovering and inhaling it. At the risk of sounding patronizing, discovering the Jargon File is practically a rite of passage for nerdy youth. So to anyone reading the Jargon File for the first time: enjoy it, and (as long as you're learning about our shared history and culture) take a moment to also read the Story of Mel, the Last Real Programmer.[1]
Re: The Original Hacker's Dictionary (1988)
#9Meh. A record that doesn't evolve is dead; ESR gets a lot of criticism for his stewardship but I'll take a Jargon File that updates over one that doesn't any day
The site maintainer for the 1988 verion, Paul Dourish, gives a counterargument in his preface ('...Unfortunately, in the process, [Raymond] essentially destroyed what held it together, in various ways: first, by changing its emphasis from Lisp-based to UNIX-based (blithely ignoring the distinctly anti-UNIX aspects of the LISP culture celebrated in the original); second, by watering down what was otherwise the fairly undiluted record of a single cultural group through this kind of mixing; and third, by adding in all sorts of terms which are "jargon" only in the sense that they're technical...'). At the very least, the 1988 version is livelier.
For more amusing grumpiness, see The Unix Hater's Handbook:
Re: The Original Hacker's Dictionary (1988)
#10Meh. A record that doesn't evolve is dead; ESR gets a lot of criticism for his stewardship but I'll take a Jargon File that updates over one that doesn't any day
The site maintainer for the 1988 verion, Paul Dourish, gives a counterargument in his preface ('...Unfortunately, in the process, [Raymond] essentially destroyed what held it together, in various ways: first, by changing its emphasis from Lisp-based to UNIX-based (blithely ignoring the distinctly anti-UNIX aspects of the LISP culture celebrated in the original); second, by watering down what was otherwise the fairly…
I'm torn, because while ESR did add a lot of emphasis on Unix/C culture (which is very important in hacker history), the last five or ten years he's really taken it off the rails, adding terms from war blogging and other sources that really have nothing to do with hacking at all.