The Jargon File

[zeno]

Item Description: A collection of hacker slang by Eric S. Raymond (originally by Raphael Finkel says esr)

Review Synopsis: Two high bits for this gem of Hacker-nature

This brilliant piece of work is available both in printed book form and in HTML (at http://tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon.)

The book has accurate++ definitions and origins of hundreds of hacker terms such as kluge, zen, and of course, Perl. Raymond gives an excellent accounting of the differences between Hackers and Crackers, Wizards and Wannabees, and an excellent overall feel for this culture that most of us like to feel we're part of.

I have this downloaded to my Visor (converted to Plucker format), and end up reading this every night next to my lovely Spanish wife (well, not every night ;) ).

Raymond is also author of the widely read and acclaimed The Cathedral and The Bazaar.

This one is so good that I'm considering buying the hard copy (as soon as we recover financially from the surprise birth of our beautiful son Daniel!)

[mr_mischief]

The tuxedo.org URL used to work, and probably did when the review was written. Now, though, you'll want http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon instead. I'd recommend a read of other parts of ESR's site, too. Predictably, http://www.catb.org/~esr works for that. ESR has many fine writings and many fine software projects under his belt.