user n.
1. Someone doing `real work' with the computer, using it as a
means rather than an end. Someone who pays to use a computer. See
real user. 2. A programmer who
will believe anything you tell him. One who asks silly questions.
[GLS observes: This is slightly unfair. It is true that users ask
questions (of necessity). Sometimes they are thoughtful or deep.
Very often they are annoying or downright stupid, apparently
because the user failed to think for two seconds or look in the
documentation before bothering the maintainer.] See luser. 3. Someone who uses a program from the
outside, however skillfully, without getting into the internals
of the program. One who reports bugs instead of just going ahead
and fixing them.
The general theory behind this term is that there are two
classes of people who work with a program: there are implementors
(hackers) and lusers. The users are
looked down on by hackers to some extent because they don't
understand the full ramifications of the system in all its glory.
(The few users who do are known as `real winners'.) The term is a
relative one: a skilled hacker may be a user with respect to some
program he himself does not hack. A LISP hacker might be one who
maintains LISP or one who uses LISP (but with the skill of a
hacker). A LISP user is one who uses LISP, whether skillfully or
not. Thus there is some overlap between the two terms; the subtle
distinctions must be resolved by context.