The New Hackers Dictionary | Page 2

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solo or one of Maurits Escher's `trompe l'oeil' compositions (Escher is a
favorite of hackers), and hacker slang encodes these subtleties in many
unobvious ways. As a simple example, take the distinction between a
[27]kluge and an [28]elegant solution, and the differing connotations
attached to each. The distinction is not only of engineering significance;
it reaches right back into the nature of the generative processes in
program design and asserts something important about two different
kinds of relationship between the hacker and the hack. Hacker slang is
unusually rich in implications of this kind, of overtones and undertones
that illuminate the hackish psyche.
But there is more. Hackers, as a rule, love wordplay and are very
conscious and inventive in their use of language. These traits seem to
be common in young children, but the conformity-enforcing machine
we are pleased to call an educational system bludgeons them out of
most of us before adolescence. Thus, linguistic invention in most
subcultures of the modern West is a halting and largely unconscious
process. Hackers, by contrast, regard slang formation and use as a game
to be played for conscious pleasure. Their inventions thus display an
almost unique combination of the neotenous enjoyment of
language-play with the discrimination of educated and powerful
intelligence. Further, the electronic media which knit them together are
fluid, `hot' connections, well adapted to both the dissemination of new
slang and the ruthless culling of weak and superannuated specimens.
The results of this process give us perhaps a uniquely intense and
accelerated view of linguistic evolution in action.
Hacker slang also challenges some common linguistic and
anthropological assumptions. For example, it has recently become
fashionable to speak of `low-context' versus `high-context'
communication, and to classify cultures by the preferred context level
of their languages and art forms. It is usually claimed that low-context
communication (characterized by precision, clarity, and completeness
of self-contained utterances) is typical in cultures which value logic,
objectivity, individualism, and competition; by contrast, high-context
communication (elliptical, emotive, nuance-filled, multi-modal, heavily
coded) is associated with cultures which value subjectivity, consensus,

cooperation, and tradition. What then are we to make of hackerdom,
which is themed around extremely low-context interaction with
computers and exhibits primarily "low-context" values, but cultivates
an almost absurdly high-context slang style?
The intensity and consciousness of hackish invention make a
compilation of hacker slang a particularly effective window into the
surrounding culture -- and, in fact, this one is the latest version of an
evolving compilation called the `Jargon File', maintained by hackers
themselves for over 15 years. This one (like its ancestors) is primarily a
lexicon, but also includes topic entries which collect background or
sidelight information on hacker culture that would be awkward to try to
subsume under individual slang definitions.
Though the format is that of a reference volume, it is intended that the
material be enjoyable to browse. Even a complete outsider should find
at least a chuckle on nearly every page, and much that is amusingly
thought-provoking. But it is also true that hackers use humorous
wordplay to make strong, sometimes combative statements about what
they feel. Some of these entries reflect the views of opposing sides in
disputes that have been genuinely passionate; this is deliberate. We
have not tried to moderate or pretty up these disputes; rather we have
attempted to ensure that everyone's sacred cows get gored, impartially.
Compromise is not particularly a hackish virtue, but the honest
presentation of divergent viewpoints is.
The reader with minimal computer background who finds some
references incomprehensibly technical can safely ignore them. We have
not felt it either necessary or desirable to eliminate all such; they, too,
contribute flavor, and one of this document's major intended audiences
-- fledgling hackers already partway inside the culture -- will benefit
from them.
A selection of longer items of hacker folklore and humor is included in
[29]Appendix A. The `outside' reader's attention is particularly directed
to the Portrait of J. Random Hacker in [30]Appendix B. Appendix C,
the [31]Bibliography, lists some non-technical works which have either
influenced or described the hacker culture.

Because hackerdom is an intentional culture (one each individual must
choose by action to join), one should not be surprised that the line
between description and influence can become more than a little
blurred. Earlier versions of the Jargon File have played a central role in
spreading hacker language and the culture that goes with it to
successively larger populations, and we hope and expect that this one
will do likewise.
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Of Slang, Jargon, and Techspeak
Linguists usually refer to informal language as `slang' and reserve the
term `jargon' for the technical vocabularies of various occupations.
However, the ancestor of this collection was called the `Jargon File',
and hacker slang is traditionally `the jargon'. When