The Hacker's Dictionary (opens in new tab)

(hackersdictionary.com)

174 pointsderealized2y ago55 comments

55 comments

42 comments · 11 top-level

mepian2y ago· 13 in thread

The original version of this dictionary: https://www.dourish.com/goodies/jargon.html

  "This file, jargon.txt, was maintained on MIT-AI for many years, before being published by Guy Steele and others as the Hacker's Dictionary. Many years after the original book went out of print, Eric Raymond picked it up, updated it and republished it as the New Hacker's Dictionary. Unfortunately, in the process, he 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. This page, however, is pretty much the original, snarfed from MIT-AI around 1988."

reaperducer2y ago

  The -P convention: turning a word into a question by appending the syllable "P"; from the LISP convention of appending the letter "P" to denote a predicate (a Boolean-values function). The question should expect a yes/no answer, though it needn't. (See T and NIL.) At dinnertime: "Foodp?"

I'm old enough to have been active in this era, and to have sent messages on teletypes using the "P" suffix. But for us, it had nothing to do with LISP. Our machines weren't that cool.

In fact, they were so lame that many of the printing terminals lacked a question mark character. The P was used as a substitute for a ? because it was the closest visual substitution. And naturally, most of our messages were one or two words for economy. "FOODP" would print correctly on machines that couldn't print "FOOD?" Not everyone had a fancy glass terminal, so you had to assume the worst case scenario, and use "P" in case someone was on paper.

On a related note, to make it easier to count spaces in indented code, we would use a "b" character with a slash through it. So the teletype was print b, then back up a space by sending ^H, and then put a / through it.

It looked terrible, but got the job done. It used up a lot of ink, but the bosses were watching paper use, not ink.

antigonemerlin2y ago

Reminds me of "ye", pronounced and meaning "the", in English, because medieval printers imported from Germany didn't have that letter "Þ' and 'Y' was the closest substitute.

1 more reply

gumby2y ago

"Splitp soup?" "T"

We used to even use this in speech sometimes, especially when funny (say, agreeing to share Hot and Sour soup at Mary's, for which the conversation above would work well).

Note the amusing pointlessness of p in this case since when speaking you'd pronounce a question anyway.

_a_a_a_2y ago

Wirth silver(?) Pascal book used 'b' overstruck with a backslash when spaces needed to be shown explicitly.

I wonder if there's a unicode for that.

1 more reply

JdeBP2y ago

This is the problem with the Hacker's Dictionary. Some of the stuff in it turned out to be just plain not what the people involved were actually doing.

DonHopkins2y ago

Here are two versions of the original jargon file from AI:HUMOR; free of ESR's pollution:

AI:HUMOR;MITSAI JARGON (25.3 KB):

https://github.com/PDP-10/its/blob/master/doc/humor/mitsai.j...

AI:HUMOR;JARGON > (85.3 KB):

https://github.com/PDP-10/its/blob/master/doc/humor/jargon.6...

Also NASA jargon:

https://github.com/PDP-10/its/blob/master/doc/humor/nasa.jar...

Alice's PDP-10 is also a classic:

https://github.com/PDP-10/its/blob/master/doc/humor/alices.p...

    There was all kinds of mean nasty ugly people there on the bench...
    Chaosnet designers... Lisp hackers... TECO hackers.  TECO hackers
    right there on the bench with me!  And the meanest one of them, the
    hairiest TECO hacker of them all was coming over to me.  And he was
    mean and nasty and horrible and undocumented and all kinds of stuff.
    And he sat down next to me and said:

    [1:i\*^Yu14<q1&377.f"nir'q1/400.u1>^[[8
    .-z(1702117120m81869946983m8w660873337m8w1466458484m8
    )+z,.f^@fx\*[0:ft^]0^[w^\

    And I said "I didn't get nothing, I had to rebuild the bittable in
    queue six" and he said:

    [1:i\*^Yu16<q1&77.+32iq1f"l#-1/100.#-1&7777777777.'"#/100.'u1r>6c^[[6
    .(675041640067.m6w416300715765.m6w004445675045.m6
    455445440046.m6w576200535144.m6w370000000000.m6),.fx\*[0:ft^]0^[w^\

Tevo2y ago

> Alice's PDP-10 is also a classic

Reminds me, some fortunes on LAMBDA.TXT[1] seem to hint at the existence of an "Alice's LispM", seemingly a parody on the PDP-10 version, but a quick search for it doesn't seem to come up with much (I haven't looked very hard). Does anybody know anything about this?

[1]: http://www.gotlisp.com/lambda/lambda.txt

1 more reply

bear86422y ago

Are these meant to just be incomprehensible, or is there some translation possible?

Haven't heard the song for awhile.

2 more replies

deepspace2y ago

> in the process, he essentially destroyed what held it together

Not only that, but the man's disgusting political and social views tarnished everything he touched.

detourdog2y ago

He definitely grabbed headlines. Once I looked I found nothing there. I wondered about his community because he always seemed isolated and or armed.

1 more reply

detourdog2y ago

Wow, thanks for the clarification. I try be scholarly in my cultural understanding of computing development and I hadnt heard this perspective.

This is such an interesting group dynamic where a work product of one group gets twisted by another group and claims ownership.

The embrace and extend method.

smileykenziekv2y ago

I didn't realize there was another version of this. I will look at both and get my own personal comparison

jejones31412y ago

Perhaps the thing to do is put it in a git repository, so people can retrieve the version they want.

idlewords2y ago· 6 in thread

It would be great if someone with appropriate "back in the day" credentials would take over membership of this document and powerwash the gratuitous Eric Raymond edits and insertions off of it.

EarlKing2y ago

Better solution: Just make your own for whatever project you're working with. AIWORD was originally a product of Stanford's AI community. Let it rest and make a dictionary that reflects the usage of your own group.

..........and mercilessly mock Eric Raymond for his pretensions. :D

WesolyKubeczek2y ago

1) these people are not young and getting older every day, so priorities might change too

2) after a while if person A takes this on, there will be a request to powerwash the gratuitous A’s edits and insertions off of it

3) if the purpose is to have it in pristine state and do no edits, it’s not like old versions have disappeared, just mirror them away

fragmede2y ago

So in order for the document to evolve, we need a system to determine consensus. Everyone who cares runs a program on their computer that joins the network and registers their intent. With each proposed change, a query goes out to the network, and it's up to everyone on the network to say yea or nay to the proposal. With enough "yea"s, the document is updated.

...this is starting to sound like a blockchain, isn't it.

dtaht2y ago

Not enough people born after 1980 have read either version of the dictionary, which is a shame in having a unified vocabulary across more of the internet. A companion volume with new terms, events, and foci would help.

I am glad Monty Python, at least, remains popular across old hackers and new.

ghaff2y ago

Without having a real opinion on Esr’s eedits, a snapshot of earlyish hacker culture (whether or not conflating LISP and UNIX) is historically interesting. With tech today so mainstream and with so many subcultures and branches one could of course a glossary but it wouldn’t be the same.

dylan6042y ago

even when it is written down, things don't stick across the internet. we're still having gif vs jif pronunciation debates

1 more reply

ranting-moth2y ago· 4 in thread

Interesting stuff. Perhaps add an alias hashbang for shebang.

tgv2y ago

No true hacker will say hashbang.

ranting-moth2y ago

"As for the name: probably something descriptive like "hash-bang" though this has a specifically British flavor, but in any event I don't recall particularly using a pet name for the construction."

‐ Dennis Ritchie

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shebang_(Unix)

ralferoo2y ago

In the UK ! was (maybe still is) pronounced as "pling". I know I've definitely said hashpling.

Actually surprised the American's weren't calling # "pound" then, but maybe that evilness showed up later. But whatever, it's never been a pound symbol in any country that uses pounds!

Another interesting fact about # is that in the late 90s or early 2000s, British Telecom tried to gaslight the British public into thinking that # was pronounced "octothorpe". Fortunately, everybody realised this was idiocy, and we all carried on calling it "hash" like we always had.

dylan6042y ago

here here. "hashbang that script will ya?" is something no self respecting hacker would ever say.

WesolyKubeczek2y ago· 3 in thread

If the spirit of the original Jargon file was to be a living document, alas, it failed to keep with the times.

Hackers at large have moved away from Lisp despite Paul Graham and other evangelists, Linux ate Unix, and there have been several bright subcultures which have no meaningful presence in either edition of the Jargon file. Considering self-professed tribalism of the original authors, it’s hardly surprising.

Hackers also have moved away from academia at large, and 9-5 jobs at tech behemoths are more natural habitats for them, which also shaped the lingo. I mean, there’s a whole layer of slang usually pertinent to outsourcing agencies and to cubicle farms.

It would be interesting to have a compilation of jargon as it evolved through the 1990s and 2000s too.

mepian2y ago

Originally it was a document for MIT and Stanford University's AI labs, it was not supposed to keep up with the "hackers at large". Eric Raymond, who was not one of the original authors of the jargon file, decided to appropriate it as his definition of the whole existing hackerdom, which is rather controversial. People from later communities could have written their own jargon files.

jonjacky2y ago

> People from later communities could have written their own jargon files.

There is the IBM Jargon File compiled by Mike Cowlishaw at the IBM UK Laboratories in Hursley. The most recent edition is from 1990. As you might expect, it has more about company traditions and workplace politics than the Guy Steele jargon file or its successors.

https://comlay.net/ibmjarg.pdf

1 more reply

tjr2y ago

I suspect that he has not been involved in this project for a long time, but early on, Eric had the help and support of Guy Steele.

dang2y ago· 2 in thread

Related threads below. Have I missed one? Surprisingly little over the years.

Newer cohorts don't always know the classics/perennials*, so the occasional thread is a good thing - but should we change the link to one of these?

https://www.dourish.com/goodies/jargon.html

http://jargon-file.org/archive/jargon-4.4.7.dos.txt

http://catb.org/jargon/html/index.html

* https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

dang2y ago

The Jargon File - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33259797 - Oct 2022 (1 comment)

The Jargon File - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31574352 - May 2022 (1 comment)

The Jargon File - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24658797 - Oct 2020 (4 comments)

The Jargon File - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23331642 - May 2020 (2 comments)

The Jargon File - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16424833 - Feb 2018 (1 comment)

Jargon File moved to github - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6887903 - Dec 2013 (10 comments)

Jargon File moved to github - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6884756 - Dec 2013 (3 comments)

The Original Hacker's Dictionary (1988) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5269170 - Feb 2013 (24 comments)

The Jargon File - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1469112 - June 2010 (4 comments)

The Jargon File - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1295076 - April 2010 (3 comments)

On ESR's continual changing of the Jargon File.. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=239168 - July 2008 (1 comment)

The Jargon File - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=148423 - March 2008 (1 comment)

archo2y ago

Superb site Moderating and Content Curation.

JKCalhoun2y ago· 2 in thread

So fun. Some favorites:

Big Room: http://www.hackersdictionary.com/html/entry/Big-Room.html

Bogo-Sort: http://www.hackersdictionary.com/html/entry/bogo-sort.html

Bug-For-Bug Compatible: http://www.hackersdictionary.com/html/entry/bug-for-bug-comp...

Fence-post Error: http://www.hackersdictionary.com/html/entry/fencepost-error....

Magic Smoke: http://www.hackersdictionary.com/html/entry/magic-smoke.html

One-Banana Problem http://www.hackersdictionary.com/html/entry/one-banana-probl...

Tail Recursion: http://www.hackersdictionary.com/html/entry/tail-recursion.h...

unnouinceput2y ago

Bogosort is going to be the best algorithm once quantum computing is fully available. It will be the only algorithm that will be used for the rest of humanity's existence since is the only one that can be 100% parallelized, so it will have the last laugh.

dylan6042y ago

tail recursion reminds me of the "how to keep an ______ occupied" rock. being from texas, the blank is usually "aggie".

mjb2y ago· 1 in thread

There's a terrible/great genre thriller by Jeffery Deaver called 'The Blue Nowhere'. Whoever ghost wrote it seems to have set themselves the goal of using every word from the jargon file. Unintentionally hilarious.

gumby2y ago

At my book club (mostly us old farts from SU-AI and MIT-AI) someone mentioned that Harry Harrison had read the jargon file when spending time at the MIT AI lab and made a point of using them in conversation. Unfortunately by learning them that way he didn't get any of the context (and wasn't a hacker anyway) so he never used them correctly.

(The person who related this anecdote wasn't mocking him, it was just an example while talking about something else, using amusing examples that all of us would know. I don't remember Harrison, but I think I remember Robert Sheckley doing this, not that it matters).

rolph2y ago

http://catb.org/jargon/html/online-preface.html

thatxliner2y ago

Hacker Writing Style > Quotations and punctuation. That part hits hard because it really shows up in my writing (I didn’t know that it was incorrect English grammar until my teacher told me)

MrVandemar2y ago

I remember discovering this in the early 90s and gleefully reading out the COBOL definition to my COBOL lecturer.

ChrisArchitect2y ago

Just search Jargon File on here for the many similar/related posts.

Created a new account just to submit this? Welcome.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

55 comments

42 comments · 11 top-level

mepian2y ago· 13 in thread

The original version of this dictionary: https://www.dourish.com/goodies/jargon.html

  "This file, jargon.txt, was maintained on MIT-AI for many years, before being published by Guy Steele and others as the Hacker's Dictionary. Many years after the original book went out of print, Eric Raymond picked it up, updated it and republished it as the New Hacker's Dictionary. Unfortunately, in the process, he 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. This page, however, is pretty much the original, snarfed from MIT-AI around 1988."

reaperducer2y ago

  The -P convention: turning a word into a question by appending the syllable "P"; from the LISP convention of appending the letter "P" to denote a predicate (a Boolean-values function). The question should expect a yes/no answer, though it needn't. (See T and NIL.) At dinnertime: "Foodp?"

I'm old enough to have been active in this era, and to have sent messages on teletypes using the "P" suffix. But for us, it had nothing to do with LISP. Our machines weren't that cool.

It looked terrible, but got the job done. It used up a lot of ink, but the bosses were watching paper use, not ink.

antigonemerlin2y ago

Reminds me of "ye", pronounced and meaning "the", in English, because medieval printers imported from Germany didn't have that letter "Þ' and 'Y' was the closest substitute.

1 more reply

gumby2y ago

"Splitp soup?" "T"

We used to even use this in speech sometimes, especially when funny (say, agreeing to share Hot and Sour soup at Mary's, for which the conversation above would work well).

Note the amusing pointlessness of p in this case since when speaking you'd pronounce a question anyway.

_a_a_a_2y ago

Wirth silver(?) Pascal book used 'b' overstruck with a backslash when spaces needed to be shown explicitly.

I wonder if there's a unicode for that.

1 more reply

JdeBP2y ago

This is the problem with the Hacker's Dictionary. Some of the stuff in it turned out to be just plain not what the people involved were actually doing.

DonHopkins2y ago

Here are two versions of the original jargon file from AI:HUMOR; free of ESR's pollution:

AI:HUMOR;MITSAI JARGON (25.3 KB):

https://github.com/PDP-10/its/blob/master/doc/humor/mitsai.j...

AI:HUMOR;JARGON > (85.3 KB):

https://github.com/PDP-10/its/blob/master/doc/humor/jargon.6...

Also NASA jargon:

https://github.com/PDP-10/its/blob/master/doc/humor/nasa.jar...

Alice's PDP-10 is also a classic:

https://github.com/PDP-10/its/blob/master/doc/humor/alices.p...

    There was all kinds of mean nasty ugly people there on the bench...
    Chaosnet designers... Lisp hackers... TECO hackers.  TECO hackers
    right there on the bench with me!  And the meanest one of them, the
    hairiest TECO hacker of them all was coming over to me.  And he was
    mean and nasty and horrible and undocumented and all kinds of stuff.
    And he sat down next to me and said:

    [1:i\*^Yu14<q1&377.f"nir'q1/400.u1>^[[8
    .-z(1702117120m81869946983m8w660873337m8w1466458484m8
    )+z,.f^@fx\*[0:ft^]0^[w^\

    And I said "I didn't get nothing, I had to rebuild the bittable in
    queue six" and he said:

    [1:i\*^Yu16<q1&77.+32iq1f"l#-1/100.#-1&7777777777.'"#/100.'u1r>6c^[[6
    .(675041640067.m6w416300715765.m6w004445675045.m6
    455445440046.m6w576200535144.m6w370000000000.m6),.fx\*[0:ft^]0^[w^\

Tevo2y ago

> Alice's PDP-10 is also a classic

[1]: http://www.gotlisp.com/lambda/lambda.txt

1 more reply

bear86422y ago

Are these meant to just be incomprehensible, or is there some translation possible?

Haven't heard the song for awhile.

2 more replies

deepspace2y ago

> in the process, he essentially destroyed what held it together

Not only that, but the man's disgusting political and social views tarnished everything he touched.

detourdog2y ago

He definitely grabbed headlines. Once I looked I found nothing there. I wondered about his community because he always seemed isolated and or armed.

1 more reply

detourdog2y ago

Wow, thanks for the clarification. I try be scholarly in my cultural understanding of computing development and I hadnt heard this perspective.

This is such an interesting group dynamic where a work product of one group gets twisted by another group and claims ownership.

The embrace and extend method.

smileykenziekv2y ago

I didn't realize there was another version of this. I will look at both and get my own personal comparison

jejones31412y ago

Perhaps the thing to do is put it in a git repository, so people can retrieve the version they want.

idlewords2y ago· 6 in thread

It would be great if someone with appropriate "back in the day" credentials would take over membership of this document and powerwash the gratuitous Eric Raymond edits and insertions off of it.

EarlKing2y ago

..........and mercilessly mock Eric Raymond for his pretensions. :D

WesolyKubeczek2y ago

1) these people are not young and getting older every day, so priorities might change too

2) after a while if person A takes this on, there will be a request to powerwash the gratuitous A’s edits and insertions off of it

3) if the purpose is to have it in pristine state and do no edits, it’s not like old versions have disappeared, just mirror them away

fragmede2y ago

...this is starting to sound like a blockchain, isn't it.

dtaht2y ago

I am glad Monty Python, at least, remains popular across old hackers and new.

ghaff2y ago

dylan6042y ago

even when it is written down, things don't stick across the internet. we're still having gif vs jif pronunciation debates

1 more reply

ranting-moth2y ago· 4 in thread

Interesting stuff. Perhaps add an alias hashbang for shebang.

tgv2y ago

No true hacker will say hashbang.

ranting-moth2y ago

"As for the name: probably something descriptive like "hash-bang" though this has a specifically British flavor, but in any event I don't recall particularly using a pet name for the construction."

‐ Dennis Ritchie

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shebang_(Unix)

ralferoo2y ago

In the UK ! was (maybe still is) pronounced as "pling". I know I've definitely said hashpling.

Actually surprised the American's weren't calling # "pound" then, but maybe that evilness showed up later. But whatever, it's never been a pound symbol in any country that uses pounds!

dylan6042y ago

here here. "hashbang that script will ya?" is something no self respecting hacker would ever say.

WesolyKubeczek2y ago· 3 in thread

If the spirit of the original Jargon file was to be a living document, alas, it failed to keep with the times.

It would be interesting to have a compilation of jargon as it evolved through the 1990s and 2000s too.

mepian2y ago

jonjacky2y ago

> People from later communities could have written their own jargon files.

https://comlay.net/ibmjarg.pdf

1 more reply

tjr2y ago

I suspect that he has not been involved in this project for a long time, but early on, Eric had the help and support of Guy Steele.

dang2y ago· 2 in thread

Related threads below. Have I missed one? Surprisingly little over the years.

Newer cohorts don't always know the classics/perennials*, so the occasional thread is a good thing - but should we change the link to one of these?

https://www.dourish.com/goodies/jargon.html

http://jargon-file.org/archive/jargon-4.4.7.dos.txt

http://catb.org/jargon/html/index.html

* https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

dang2y ago

The Jargon File - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33259797 - Oct 2022 (1 comment)

The Jargon File - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31574352 - May 2022 (1 comment)

The Jargon File - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24658797 - Oct 2020 (4 comments)

The Jargon File - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23331642 - May 2020 (2 comments)

The Jargon File - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16424833 - Feb 2018 (1 comment)

Jargon File moved to github - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6887903 - Dec 2013 (10 comments)

Jargon File moved to github - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6884756 - Dec 2013 (3 comments)

The Original Hacker's Dictionary (1988) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5269170 - Feb 2013 (24 comments)

The Jargon File - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1469112 - June 2010 (4 comments)

The Jargon File - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1295076 - April 2010 (3 comments)

On ESR's continual changing of the Jargon File.. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=239168 - July 2008 (1 comment)

The Jargon File - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=148423 - March 2008 (1 comment)

archo2y ago

Superb site Moderating and Content Curation.

JKCalhoun2y ago· 2 in thread

So fun. Some favorites:

Big Room: http://www.hackersdictionary.com/html/entry/Big-Room.html

Bogo-Sort: http://www.hackersdictionary.com/html/entry/bogo-sort.html

Bug-For-Bug Compatible: http://www.hackersdictionary.com/html/entry/bug-for-bug-comp...

Fence-post Error: http://www.hackersdictionary.com/html/entry/fencepost-error....

Magic Smoke: http://www.hackersdictionary.com/html/entry/magic-smoke.html

One-Banana Problem http://www.hackersdictionary.com/html/entry/one-banana-probl...

Tail Recursion: http://www.hackersdictionary.com/html/entry/tail-recursion.h...

unnouinceput2y ago

dylan6042y ago

tail recursion reminds me of the "how to keep an ______ occupied" rock. being from texas, the blank is usually "aggie".

mjb2y ago· 1 in thread

gumby2y ago

rolph2y ago

http://catb.org/jargon/html/online-preface.html

thatxliner2y ago

Hacker Writing Style > Quotations and punctuation. That part hits hard because it really shows up in my writing (I didn’t know that it was incorrect English grammar until my teacher told me)

MrVandemar2y ago

I remember discovering this in the early 90s and gleefully reading out the COBOL definition to my COBOL lecturer.

ChrisArchitect2y ago

Just search Jargon File on here for the many similar/related posts.

Created a new account just to submit this? Welcome.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse