The New Hacker's Dictionary, Eric S. Raymond [bill gates book recommendations .txt] 📗

about the hacker way of thought. "When you have learned

to snatch the error code from the trap frame, it will be time for you

to leave."

Hackers

Steven Levy

Anchor/Doubleday 1984

ISBN 0-385-19195-2

Levy's book is at its best in describing the early MIT hackers at the

Model Railroad Club and the early days of the microcomputer

revolution. He never understood Unix or the networks, though, and his

enshrinement of Richard Stallman as "the last true hacker" turns out

(thankfully) to have been quite misleading. Despite being a bit dated

and containing some minor errors (many fixed in the paperback

edition), this remains a useful and stimulating book that captures the

feel of several important hacker subcultures.

The Computer Contradictionary

Stan Kelly-Bootle

MIT Press, 1995

ISBN 0-262-61112-0

This pastiche of Ambrose Bierce's famous work is similar in format to

the Jargon File (and quotes several entries from TNHD-2) but somewhat

different in tone and intent. It is more satirical and less

anthropological, and is largely a product of the author's literate and

quirky imagination. For example, it defines `computer science' as "a

study akin to numerology and astrology, but lacking the precision of

the former and the success of the latter" and `implementation' as "The

fruitless struggle by the talented and underpaid to fulfill promises

made by the rich and ignorant"; `flowchart' becomes "to obfuscate a

problem with esoteric cartoons". Revised and expanded from "The

Devil's DP Dictionary", McGraw-Hill 1981, ISBN 0-07-034022-6; that

work had some stylistic influence on TNHD-1.

The Devouring Fungus: Tales from the Computer Age

Karla Jennings

Norton, 1990

ISBN 0-393-30732-8

The author of this pioneering compendium knits together a great deal

of computer- and hacker-related folklore with good writing and a few

well-chosen cartoons. She has a keen eye for the human aspects of the

lore and is very good at illuminating the psychology and evolution of

hackerdom. Unfortunately, a number of small errors and awkwardnesses

suggest that she didn't have the final manuscript checked over by a

native speaker; the glossary in the back is particularly embarrassing,

and at least one classic tale (the Magic Switch story, retold here

under [15329]A Story About Magic in Appendix A is given in incomplete

and badly mangled form. Nevertheless, this book is a win overall and

can be enjoyed by hacker and non-hacker alike.

The Soul of a New Machine

Tracy Kidder

Little, Brown, 1981

(paperback: Avon, 1982

ISBN 0-380-59931-7)

This book (a 1982 Pulitzer Prize winner) documents the adventure of

the design of a new Data General computer, the MV-8000 Eagle. It is an

amazingly well-done portrait of the hacker mindset -- although largely

the hardware hacker -- done by a complete outsider. It is a bit thin

in spots, but with enough technical information to be entertaining to

the serious hacker while providing non-technical people a view of what

day-to-day life can be like -- the fun, the excitement, the disasters.

During one period, when the microcode and logic were glitching at the

nanosecond level, one of the overworked engineers departed the

company, leaving behind a note on his terminal as his letter of

resignation: "I am going to a commune in Vermont and will deal with no

unit of time shorter than a season."

Life with UNIX: a Guide for Everyone

Don Libes and Sandy Ressler

Prentice-Hall, 1989

ISBN 0-13-536657-7

The authors of this book set out to tell you all the things about Unix

that tutorials and technical books won't. The result is gossipy,

funny, opinionated, downright weird in spots, and invaluable. Along

the way they expose you to enough of Unix's history, folklore and

humor to qualify as a first-class source for these things. Because so

much of today's hackerdom is involved with Unix, this in turn

illuminates many of its in-jokes and preoccupations.

True Names ... and Other Dangers

Vernor Vinge

Baen Books, 1987

ISBN 0-671-65363-6

Hacker demigod Richard Stallman used to say that the title story of

this book "expresses the spirit of hacking best". Until the subject of

the next entry came out, it was hard to even nominate another

contender. The other stories in this collection are also fine work by

an author who has since won multiple Hugos and is one of today's very

best practitioners of hard SF.

Snow Crash

Neal Stephenson

Bantam, 1992

ISBN 0-553-56261-4

Stephenson's epic, comic cyberpunk novel is deeply knowing about the

hacker psychology and its foibles in a way no other author of fiction

has ever even approached. His imagination, his grasp of the relevant

technical details, and his ability to communicate the excitement of

hacking and its results are astonishing, delightful, and (so far)

unsurpassed.

Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier

Katie Hafner & John Markoff

Simon & Schuster 1991

ISBN 0-671-68322-5

This book gathers narratives about the careers of three notorious

crackers into a clear-eyed but sympathetic portrait of hackerdom's

dark side. The principals are Kevin Mitnick, "Pengo" and "Hagbard" of

the Chaos Computer Club, and Robert T. Morris (see [15330]RTM, sense

2) . Markoff and Hafner focus as much on their psychologies and

motivations as on the details of their exploits, but don't slight the

latter. The result is a balanced and fascinating account, particularly

useful when read immediately before or after Cliff Stoll's [15331]The

Cuckoo's Egg. It is especially instructive to compare RTM, a true

hacker who blundered, with the sociopathic phone-freak Mitnick and the

alienated, drug-addled crackers who made the Chaos Club notorious. The

gulf between [15332]wizard and [15333]wannabee has seldom been made

more obvious.

Technobabble

John Barry

MIT Press 1991

ISBN 0-262-02333-4

Barry's book takes a critical and humorous look at the `technobabble'

of acronyms, neologisms, hyperbole, and metaphor spawned by the

computer industry. Though he discusses some of the same mechanisms of

jargon formation that occur in hackish, most of what he chronicles is

actually suit-speak -- the obfuscatory language of press releases,

marketroids, and Silicon Valley CEOs rather than the playful jargon of

hackers (most of whom wouldn't be caught dead uttering the kind of

pompous, passive-voiced word salad he deplores).

The Cuckoo's Egg

Clifford Stoll

Doubleday 1989

ISBN 0-385-24946-2

Clifford Stoll's absorbing tale of how he tracked Markus Hess and the

Chaos Club cracking ring nicely illustrates the difference between

hacker' andcracker'. Stoll's portrait of himself, his lady Martha,

and his friends at Berkeley and on the Internet paints a marvelously

vivid picture of how hackers and the people around them like to live

and how they think.

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