Hacker's Wisdom

«If one man asks another what a Hacker is
And the other man answers him,
Neither of them knows it.
»
—Borrowed Zen Proverb

«If you understand them,
Things are as they are;
If you do not understand them,
Things are as they are.
»
—Gensha


Hacking

 

How To Become A Hacker, Eric S. Raymond.
Do you have what it takes to become a hacker?
Hackers: Taking a Byte Out of Computer Crime, Wade Roush.
Hacker v.s. Cracker, two common terms greatly mis-used by the mainstream media. This article appeared in the April 1995 issue of Technology Review.
[Note:This article is no longer available online at techreview.com]
The Jargon File, Eric S. Raymond, ed.
The comprehensive compendium of hacker slang illuminating many aspects of hackish tradition, folklore, and humor; the appendix includes a profile of a typical hacker.
The 10 Commandments for C Programmers, Henry Spencer.
«The Lord said to Moses, "Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and commands I have written for their instruction."» —Exodus 24:12
The Hacker FAQ,Peter Seebach.
Answers questions that are invariably asked when people without previous experience with the hacker community, hire a hacker.
Gnu's not Unix,
Why not join and contribute to the GNU Project?
Technology and Pleasure: Considering Hacking Constructive, Gisle Hannemyr.
Hackers are a specific subgroup of computer workers; hacking may, under certain circumstances, yield superior software.
Hackers and Painters, Paul Graham.
«Hacking and painting have a lot in common. In fact, of all the different types of people I've known, hackers and painters are among the most alike.»
[Maciej Ceglowski wrote a critique about this essay.]

Twenty Years of Berkeley Unix, Marshall Kirk McKusick.
A brief history of BSD.


Humour

 

God vs. K&R, Alan Morgan
The most creative follow-up to the infamous "Jesus is Coming" spam, c. 1994.

Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal, Ed Post.
The differences between the typical high-school junior Pac-Man player and a Real Programmer.

"Wizardry Compiled", Rick Cook.
A compilation of epigrams from the novel, Wizardry Compiled.

A Spotter's Guide to Academic Programmers, Pete Fenelon.
This handy guide helps identify 20 types of programmers.

Unix Guru's View of Sex, Anonymous.
«UNIX is like Sex: If you don't know it, you don't miss it. But if you know it, you'll need it.»

The King's Toaster, Anonymous.
Two very different approaches to designing a toaster.

Hacker's in Heaven, Anonymous.
Jesus and Satan have an argument as to who is the better programmer.

3 Wise Men, Dennis Ritchie.
The differences between Kernighan, Ritchie and Thompson are real but very subtle.

Dr. Fun, David Farley.
Some cartoon samples: Clusenix · Long Flight · Knuth.


Hacks

 

Multi-language program hack, Jeremy Todd Dilatush.
A single program that will print "Hello world!" when compiled with gcc, or run through the Perl, Tcl, and/or sh interpreters.

Unix Recovery Legend, Mario Wolczko.
What do you do when root accidently types "rm -rf /"?
a) Panic and re-boot the workstation;
b) Do (a), then cry like a little girl when that doesn't work;
c) Read this post.

HAKMEM
AI Memo 239: the legendary collection of neat mathematical and programming hacks contributed by many people at MIT and elsewhere. ("HAKMEM", is a 6-letterism for `hacks memo'.)

A Report on The Internet Worm, Bob Page.
A post-mortem on the program that, in 1988, wreaked havoc on the Internet.

The International Obfuscated C Code Contest
Providing a safe forum for poor C code. :-)

Perl
«There's more than one way to do it. Easy things should be easy and hard things should be possible.»

3D Desk Calendar, Andrew Rogers.
Download the file, edit the date, print it out, cut, glue and enjoy (PDF version for the lazy).

Xerox Alto, Alan Kay, Chuck Thacker, Butler Lampson.
«Office of the Future.»

Distributed Proofreaders, Charles Franks
«Preserving History One Page at a Time.»

AI Memo 519A, Richard M. Stallman
EMACS: The Extensible, Customizable Self-Documenting Display Editor.


Hacker Demigods

 

« Richard M. Stallman, Linus Thorvalds [sic], and Donald E. Knuth engage in a discussion on whose impact on the computerized world was the greatest.

Stallman: "God told me I have programmed the best editor in the world!"
Thorvalds: "Well, God told *me* that I have programmed the best operating system in the world!"
Knuth: "Wait, wait - I never said that."
»

—Erik Meltzer, rec.humor.funny

Keith Bostic,
One of the "Berkeley Daemons".

John Draper,
a.k.a. Cap'n Crunch.

Edsger W. Dijkstra, 1930 - 2002
«May, in spite of all distractions generated by technology, all of you succeed in turning information into knowledge, knowledge into understanding, and understanding into wisdom.»

GNU Friends,
A community site for friends of the GNU project. Good interviews.

James Gosling,
Papa Java.

Alan Kay,
«The best way to predict the future is to invent it.»

Brian W. Kernighan,
The "K" in K&R.

Donald E. Knuth,
TAOCP.

Ray Kurzweil,
«The Thomas Edison of the computer age».

Marshall Kirk McKusick ,
A "Berkeley Daemon".

Mike Muus,
ping.

Peter Norvig,
We must resist the temptation to believe that all thinking follows the computational model.

Keith Packard,
X marks the spot.

Rob Pike,
«I saw a flying saucer».

Dennis M. Ritchie,
The "R" in K&R.

RMS,
Saint iGNUcius (c.f. Free as in Freedom)

Ken Thompson,
Unix.

Alan Turing,
The Enigma.

Vernor Vinge,
True Names.

Larry Wall,
Lazy, impatient and full of hubris.

The Woz ,
Father of the Apple ][.


Miscellany

 

Index Librorum Liberorum, John Walker.
A formidable site with a multitude of very cool & interesting hacking topics (including The Hacker's Diet). Plan to make several trips.
Graphica Obscura, Paul Haeberli.
On the aesthetic aspects of hacking.
alt.folklore.computers FAQ, Wilson Afonso, maintainer.
In this list of Frequently Asked Questions, learn the truth about NASA's Mariner I space-probe failure and learn why the letter "i" is frequently chosen as a loop counter.
Designing an Authentication System, Bill Bryant.
This fictitious dialogue in four parts provides an account of the design of an open-network authentication system called "Charon."
Heroes, Christopher Lott.
An enumeration of the different types of heroes in the software development/maintenance processes.
Rules of Sysadmins, Various.
If you have root, and are a systems administrator of a large network, these rules will save you countless grief.
Malbolge, Ben Olmstead
A programming language specifically designed to be difficult to program.


Hacker's Wisdom · luis fernandes

Last Modified: Mon Jun 12 19:14:51 2017