This document is a collection of slang terms used by various
subcultures of computer hackers. Though some technical material
is included for background and flavor, it is not a technical
dictionary; what we describe here is the language hackers use
among themselves for fun, social communication, and technical
debate.
The `hacker culture' is actually a loosely networked
collection of subcultures that is nevertheless conscious of some
important shared experiences, shared roots, and shared values. It
has its own myths, heroes, villains, folk epics, in-jokes,
taboos, and dreams. Because hackers as a group are particularly
creative people who define themselves partly by rejection of
`normal' values and working habits, it has unusually rich and
conscious traditions for an intentional culture less than 40
years old.
As usual with slang, the special vocabulary of hackers helps
hold their culture together -- it helps hackers recognize each
other's places in the community and expresses shared values and
experiences. Also as usual, not knowing the slang (or
using it inappropriately) defines one as an outsider, a mundane,
or (worst of all in hackish vocabulary) possibly even a suit. All human cultures use slang in this
threefold way -- as a tool of communication, and of inclusion,
and of exclusion.
Among hackers, though, slang has a subtler aspect, paralleled
perhaps in the slang of jazz musicians and some kinds of fine
artists but hard to detect in most technical or scientific
cultures; parts of it are code for shared states of
consciousness. There is a whole range of altered states
and problem-solving mental stances basic to high-level hacking
which don't fit into conventional linguistic reality any better
than a Coltrane 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 kluge and an 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 Appendix A. The
`outside' reader's attention is particularly directed to the
Portrait of J. Random Hacker in Appendix B. Appendix C, the 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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