Hacker's Wisdom
A collection of links, articles, USENET posts and personalities related to hacking compiled around the start of the millenium and updated occasionally.
«If one man asks another what a Hacker is
And the other man answers him,
Neither of them knows it.»
—Borrowed Zen Proverb
Do you have what it takes to become a hacker?
Answers questions that are invariably asked when people without previous experience with the hacker community, hire a hacker.
aka. SICP aka. the Wizard Book.
The comprehensive compendium of hacker slang illuminating many aspects of hackish tradition, folklore, and humor; the appendix includes a profile of a typical hacker.
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 critiqued this essay.]
Contribute your hacking skills to the GNU Project.
Learn the truth about NASA's Mariner I space-probe failure and why the letter "i" is frequently chosen as a loop counter.
« 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
The most creative follow-up to the infamous "Jesus is Coming" USENET spam, c. 1994.
«There is a clear need to point out the differences between the typical high-school junior Pac-Man player and a Real Programmer.»
«Thou shalt not follow the NULL pointer, for chaos and madness await thee at its end.»
A compilation of epigrams from the novel, Wizardry Compiled.
This handy guide helps identify 20 types of programmers.
«Unix is like sex: if you don't know it, you don't miss it. But if you know it, you'll need it.»
This is a tiny collection of people's signature files from USENET posts c.2000
Two very different approaches to designing a toaster.
Jesus and Satan have an argument as to who is the better programmer.
The differences between Kernighan, Ritchie and Thompson are real but very subtle.
Doctor Fun is a single-panel, gag webcomic by David Farley. It began in September 1993, and ran until June 2006.
«If you understand them,
Things are as they are;
If you do not understand them,
Things are as they are.»
—Gensha
A single program that will print "Hello world!" when compiled with gcc, or run through the Perl, Tcl, and/or sh interpreters.
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 it doesn't work;
c) read this post.
«Most people who have spent any time on any version of Unix know that rm -rf / is about the worst mistake you can make on any given machine.»
«"We can't send mail more than 500 miles," the chairman explained.»
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 post-mortem on the program that, in 1988, wreaked havoc on the Internet.
Providing a safe forum for poor C code.
Download the file, print it out (edit the date of the calendar), cut, glue and enjoy.
«Office of the Future.»
«Preserving History One Page at a Time.»
EMACS: The Extensible, Customizable Self-Documenting Display Editor.
«In spite of all distractions generated by technology, may all of you succeed in turning information into knowledge, knowledge into understanding, and understanding into wisdom.»
— Edsger W. Dijkstra
a.k.a. Cap'n Crunch.
Papa Java.
«The best way to predict the future is to invent it.»
K&R.
TAOCP.
ping.
We must resist the temptation to believe that all thinking follows the computational model.
X marks the spot.
The Unix Programming Environment.
Unix.
The Enigma.
Lazy, impatient and full of hubris.
Father of the Apple ][.
«Magic is real unless declared integer.»
— the collected sayings of Wiz Zumwalt, "Wizardry Compiled"
A formidable site with a multitude of very cool & interesting hacking topics (including The Hacker's Diet). Plan to make several trips.
On the aesthetic aspects of hacking.
This fictitious dialogue in four parts provides an account of the design of an open-network authentication system called "Charon."
An enumeration of the different types of heroes in the software development/maintenance processes.
A programming language specifically designed to be difficult to program.
Hacker's Wisdom · luis fernandes | Last Modified: Tue Oct 15 08:47:51 2024