The JargonFile is a hacker lexicon. That's hacker in the original sense, of course. - http://jargon.publication.org.uk/ a decent mirror _now defunct! Please redirect to catb.org or something..._ -- http://jargon.publication.org.uk/html/Appendix-A.html 'several legends and fables'; well worth reading (in particular, TheStoryOfMel is a true epic, although you'll need to know a bit about machine code to understand it; the KoanOfKnight is also particularly fine) - http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/ EricRaymond's latest version The JargonFile began in 1975 as a single file on a mainframe at the Stanford A__I Lab; a copy spread to M__I__T, and for many years, it grew and prospered as the hacker culture that was focused at these two sites (consisting mainly of A__I researchers using P__D__P-10 computers and homebrew operating systems). However, the 'A__I winter' of the late '70s and early '80s spelled the death knell for this culture, and the file lapsed into stagnation. In 1983, the 'final' version of the file was published as a book, 'TheHackersDictionary', as a monument to the once-great A__I culture that was now naught but moss-covered ruins. However, as is always the way, fragments of the A__I culture persisted, and were assimilated as part of the heritage of the new hackerdom which was growing up around the ARPANet. In 1990, the JargonFile burst back into life, with a new edition edited by EricRaymond (E__S__R), which incorporated swathes of the then-new internet jargon alongside the classical A__I terms. Since then, E__S__R has continued to edit the file, keeping it up to date with the ever-shifting language of the global hacker culture. In summer 2003, with internet-centric hackerdom stronger than ever, a new, more surprising, threat to the file emerged: its editor. EricRaymond added and revised a number of entries in rather suprising ways: some of them were terms he had coined, and which have so far been used only by him, whilst others are terms in general use only in certain very small regions of hackerdom which E__S__R himself happens to inhabit; the revisions tend to adjust previously balanced entries to reflect E__S__R's (really quite unbalanced) own opinions. Hackerdom being an anarchy, these changes have not simply been accepted; there are mutterings of a fork in the file, with someone less nuts taking over the helm. Nobody really knows what's going to happen. But it's a safe bet that the JargonFile will continue, past the controversy, past E__S__R, past the internet itself. CategoryGeekery