Slashdot Mirror
Jargon File v4.1.0
Stephen Williams writes "After a three-year break, Eric S. Raymond announces that a new version of the Jargon File (4.1.0) has been released. " Lots of
new terms. The Slashdot Effect is actually in this time
around, but as you old timers know, this is pretty good
stuff, and you newbies should consider it required reading.
All of ESR's writings seem to have one thing in common. He always goes one step too far in his analysis. I think he's a very intelligent, well educated, and perceptive person. He's a pretty good writer, and just about everything he's done contains some very keen observations. If he has a gift, it is in tying a disparate collection of observations into neat bundles. I think all good writers do this. For example, it probably wouldn't occur to many people to look at computer jargon as a whole, or to look at free software projects in terms of land ownership (like he did in "Noosphere"). These were all very valid and creative things to do.
But. But! BUT.....he always goes one step too far. This is a very annoying habit. He always ends up trying to tie it all together into a neat little bundle that is too neat and tied too tightly.
In the case of the Jargon file, he could have used all of those disparate chunks of knowledge to make general observations about programmers, hobbyists, and other sorts of people who are drawn to computers. Does he? Nooooo. He goes way beyond that, and posits the existance of not only a very specific personality type, but an entire subculture! This culture supposedly has its own heritage, history, leaders, enemies, political viewpoints, traditions, etc. This in itself wouldn't be such a horrible thing (like I said, I initially thought it was kind of cute and fun), but when people start taking it 100% seriously, it becomes really annoying. I've known people who completely buy into the whole thing, and have actually changed their minds about (admittedly minor) things because they think that they're "hackers" and that members of the "hacker community" are supposed to feel a particular way about something. I'm not saying this is terribly destructive or dehumanizing, just annoying enough to merit peeve status, and to deserve a rant on Slashdot. :)
The whole mythology has had the effect of encouraging a lot of groupthink and bad advocacy, while diluting the intellectual waters of public forums pretty badly. I can understand how fun it might be to pretend that you're in some group, but too many people seem to take it too far.
Likewise, in "Noosphere", he made some very interesting observations about free software projects and how they frequently work. Did he stop there? You guessed it...NO! He didn't. He took it that one extra step over the edge. He didn't just say that the free software world had a lot in common with gift cultures. He said the free software world was a gift culture. He even went so far as to claim that it was driven by the desire for peer recognition, and suggested that this ought to be publicly acknowledged and acted upon.
Like I said, this wouldn't be quite so annoying if so many people didn't buy into every bit of it, hook, line, and sinker. It's frustrating, because he's so close to being a really great writer and thinker, but he always seems to take that extra leap into silliness. The leap isn't so far that most people won't follow him, but it's far enough to be annoying to anyone who really wants to take an objective look at things.
Nope, "Open Source" is not in there at all (neither is "Free" BTW, but "Copyleft" is). All in all an excellent upgrade of an already excellent work. Regardless of your opinion of how ESR handles the whole OSI thing, this is a good lexicon.
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Open mind, insert foot.
If you've read this before, you might want to just look at the Changelog. It has the full text of the new items. Keep up the good work, esr!
This is just one of several bugs I caught in browsing the new entries (and some others). Here's the text of a message I sent to esr on the subject:
... some technical, some content, and some rather fiddly. These are listed in order of the afflicted entry, since I'm writing them as I go through it. I'm not reading every entry, so I'll probably miss more than a few ...
... the show was 'Star Trek: The Next Generation', not 'The New Generation'.
:) Thanks again for the new jargon!
It's great to see a new Jargon File out there. However, in browsing through the HTML version I found more than a few bugs
1. In the entry for 'Borg'
2. The link to the Acronymphomania FAQ, in the entry for 'C|N>K', is broken.
3. (Not a bug, but an addition) The 'dogcow' also appears in several other Mac printer drivers besides the LaserWriter, notably including the (discontinued) StyleWriters.
4. I have generally heard 'exploit' used to refer not to a security hole itself, but to a program or routine which makes use of the hole. Hence, CERT publishes information about holes; www.rootshell.com publishes exploits.
5. There is an entry for 'fandango' (between 'fan' and 'fandango on core') but no definition within it.
6. (Marginal) A 'forum' may be on the Web.
7. (More marginal) 'Gweep' is still very live jargon. One vector for its spread out of WPI is the anime fanfic saga "Undocumented Features", written by a group of WPI students and their friends. http://www.eyrie.net/uf/
8. (Not sure if this is a bug or intentional self-reference) The index to the 'I' section is indexed within itself, under 'index'.
9. The links from 'intro' to 'screen' aren't.
10. The index listing for 'M' references the entry for 'M$'.
11. There is a stray <p> in the entry for 'patch pumpkin'.
12. The link to Slashdot in the entry for 'slashdot effect' is broken in the same way as the link to Acronymphomania. Slashdot itself might someday deserve an entry.
13. Same with the 'tracking spamhausen' link on 'spamhaus'. This seems to be a common problem with external links.
14. '404 compliant' should be under [^A-Za-z], not Z. Though at least it is self-documenting.
Okay, enough bugs for now.
Is there a reason that character entities aren't getting translated in preview (and possibly in posting)? < > should be angle brackets.
Even if he might not be doing much right now. He's done a lot of significant work on Emacs, ncurses, and I believe nethack. Take a look at http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/software.html to see some of the stuff he's done (mostly the stuff he distributes... it doesn't mention the Emacs stuff, for instance).
Meow usenet?
Gee, I've been reading ~30-50 usenet groups daily over the past 5 years, and I never noticed it. It seems to be a very localized phenomenom.
ESR bashes the GPL in this new version. Not
impressed. How many other instances can we find of
his self-aggrandizement or subtle manipulations?
The more explicit Microsoft bashing, and the
assumption that most hackers are libertarians
are worrying too.
Is open source in there? Does it say who owns the "trademark"?
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I think that the stereotypes, even when untrue, lend something. They describe a certain mentality, if nothing else, that while one doesn't quite share in, one is still associated with by being in the culture. And if nothing else, it gives you an idea of what stereotypes people will expect you to fulfill. :-)
Did you do work in artificial intelligence? I'd like to talk more about your sig, if you'd like. my real email address should be in the heading of this.
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
You forgot fetchmail. He's done an awful lot. it's sort of like how people forget that Bruce Perens wrote electric fence, as well as some other things. These people are in the positions that they are in for a good reason.
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
Well, i tried to, at least. If anyone wants to test it out, download it from http://anomie.dyn.cx/JFF.tar.gz, at least until my computer gets slashdotted. Feel free to mirror it, or at least send comments or suggestions.
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perl -e'$_=shift;die eval' '"$^X $0\047\$_=shift;die eval\047 \047$_\047"' at -e line 1.
Not thinking completely straight. i should have said that i have a script available to convert the framed version (download the tarball) into a format similar to the old version's. Although it wouldn't be hard to change the script to make one huge HTML file... Maybe tomorrow. If my computer still works ;)
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perl -e'$_=shift;die eval' '"$^X $0\047\$_=shift;die eval\047 \047$_\047"' at -e line 1.
Hey, I discovered kung pao chicken because of this entry in the jargon file. Decided to try it next time I had chinese food after reading that, and it's been a favorite of mine ever since.
Bascially my default chinese order.
(Then there was the time I went to a chinese restaurant with a bunch of biology grad students. "Okay, everybody order from a different phylum".)
-- Alastair
Have you read much of the Jargon File? Have a nice, long read; you'll see that most of it is really hacker slang, not tech jargon as such.
As ESR points out in the File, slang is a vital part of any subculture, used as a tool of communication, inclusion and exclusion. As Al Gore is discovering.
In some places, it's different to most of the hackers I know, but we all differ from the File in the same way. For example, ESR asserts that hackers don't watch much television. The hackers I know don't watch much mainstream television, but enjoy TV programmes which could be described as "cult TV" (Star Trek in all its incarnations, Babylon 5, The Simpsons, South Park, Doctor Who, Red Dwarf etc etc).
From reading the above comments, I see I'm not the only one who wants the Jargon File as flat ASCII, like the previous versions. Here's the plan: we all write scripts to make a flat version of the File, and decide on something to call them (e.g. "JFF"). Then, the next version of the File will have an entry something like this:
:JFF: /J-F-F/ 1. /n./ Abbreviation of "Jargon File Flattener", a script written to convert the HTML versions of the Jargon File to flat ASCII. 2 /v./ The action of applying a JFF to the File.
:-)