Bibliography
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When managers hold endless meetings, the programmers write
games. When accountants talk of quarterly profits, the development
budget is about to be cut. When senior scientists talk blue sky,
the clouds are about to roll in.
Truly, this is not the Tao of Programming.
When managers make commitments, game programs are ignored.
When accountants make long-range plans, harmony and order are about
to be restored. When senior scientists address the problems at hand,
the problems will soon be solved.
Truly, this is the Tao of Programming.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
Here are some other books you can read to help you understand
the hacker mindset.
:G"odel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid:
Douglas Hofstadter
Basic Books, 1979
ISBN 0-394-74502-7
This book reads like an intellectual Grand Tour of hacker
preoccupations. Music, mathematical logic, programming,
speculations on the nature of intelligence, biology, and Zen are
woven into a brilliant tapestry themed on the concept of encoded
self-reference. The perfect left-brain companion to "Illuminatus".
:Illuminatus!:
I. "The Eye in the Pyramid"
II. "The Golden Apple"
III. "Leviathan".
Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
Dell, 1988
ISBN 0-440-53981-1
This work of alleged fiction is an incredible
berserko-surrealist rollercoaster of world-girdling conspiracies,
intelligent dolphins, the fall of Atlantis, who really killed JFK,
sex, drugs, rock'n'roll, and the Cosmic Giggle Factor. First
published in three volumes, but there is now a one-volume trade
paperback, carried by most chain bookstores under SF. The perfect
right-brain companion to Hofstadter's "G"odel, Escher, Bach".
See {Eris}, {Discordianism}, {random numbers}, {Church of the
SubGenius}.
:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
Douglas Adams
Pocket Books, 1981
ISBN 0-671-46149-4
This 'Monty Python in Space' spoof of SF genre traditions has
been popular among hackers ever since the original British radio
show. Read it if only to learn about Vogons (see {bogon}) and the
significance of the number 42 (see {random numbers}) -- and why the
winningest chess program of 1990 was called 'Deep Thought'.
:The Tao of Programming:
James Geoffrey
Infobooks, 1987
ISBN 0-931137-07-1
This gentle, funny spoof of the "Tao Te Ching" contains much
that is illuminating about the hacker way of thought. "When you have
learned to snatch the error code from the trap frame, it will be
time for you to leave."
:Hackers:
Steven Levy
Anchor/Doubleday 1984
ISBN 0-385-19195-2
Levy's book is at its best in describing the early MIT hackers
at the Model Railroad Club and the early days of the microcomputer
revolution. He never understood Unix or the networks, though,
and his enshrinement of Richard Stallman as "the last true hacker"
turns out (thankfully) to have been quite misleading. Numerous
minor factual errors also mar the text; for example, Levy's claim
that the original Jargon File derived from the TMRC Dictionary
(the File originated at Stanford and was brought to MIT in 1976;
the co-authors of the first edition had never seen the dictionary
in question). There are also numerous misspellings in the book
that inflame the passions of old-timers; as Dan Murphy, the author
of TECO, once said: "You would have thought he'd take the trouble
to spell the name of a winning editor right." Nevertheless,
this remains a useful and stimulating book that captures the feel
of several important hackish subcultures.
:The Computer Contradictionary:
Stan Kelly-Bootle
MIT Press, 1995
ISBN 0-262-61112-0
This pastiche of Ambrose Bierce's famous work is similar
in format to the Jargon File (and quotes several entries from
TNHD-2) but somewhat different in tone and intent. It is more
satirical and less anthropological, and is largely a product of the
author's literate and quirky imagination. For example, it defines
'computer science' as "a study akin to numerology and astrology, but
lacking the precision of the former and the success of the latter"
and 'implementation' as "The fruitless struggle by the talented
and underpaid to fulfill promises made by the rich and ignorant";
'flowchart' becomes "to obfuscate a problem with esoteric cartoons".
Revised and expanded from "The Devil's DP Dictionary", McGraw-Hill
1981, ISBN 0-07-034022-6.
:The Devouring Fungus: Tales from the Computer Age:
Karla Jennings
Norton, 1990
ISBN 0-393-30732-8
The author of this pioneering compendium knits together a great
deal of computer- and hacker-related folklore with good writing
and a few well-chosen cartoons. She has a keen eye for the human
aspects of the lore and is very good at illuminating the psychology
and evolution of hackerdom. Unfortunately, a number of small errors
and awkwardnesses suggest that she didn't have the final manuscript
checked over by a native speaker; the glossary in the back is
particularly embarrassing, and at least one classic tale (the Magic
Switch story, retold here under {A Story About 'Magic'} in Appendix
A is given in incomplete and badly mangled form. Nevertheless, this
book is a win overall and can be enjoyed by hacker and non-hacker
alike.
:The Soul of a New Machine:
Tracy Kidder
Little, Brown, 1981
(paperback: Avon, 1982
ISBN 0-380-59931-7)
This book (a 1982 Pulitzer Prize winner) documents the adventure
of the design of a new Data General computer, the MV-8000 Eagle.
It is an amazingly well-done portrait of the hacker mindset
-- although largely the hardware hacker -- done by a complete
outsider. It is a bit thin in spots, but with enough technical
information to be entertaining to the serious hacker while providing
non-technical people a view of what day-to-day life can be like
-- the fun, the excitement, the disasters. During one period,
when the microcode and logic were glitching at the nanosecond level,
one of the overworked engineers departed the company, leaving behind
a note on his terminal as his letter of resignation: "I am going
to a commune in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time shorter
than a season."
:Life with UNIX: a Guide for Everyone:
Don Libes and Sandy Ressler
Prentice-Hall, 1989
ISBN 0-13-536657-7
The authors of this book set out to tell you all the things
about Unix that tutorials and technical books won't. The result
is gossipy, funny, opinionated, downright weird in spots,
and invaluable. Along the way they expose you to enough of Unix's
history, folklore and humor to qualify as a first-class source for
these things. Because so much of today's hackerdom is involved
with Unix, this in turn illuminates many of its in-jokes and
preoccupations.
:True Names ... and Other Dangers:
Vernor Vinge
Baen Books, 1987
ISBN 0-671-65363-6
Hacker demigod Richard Stallman used to say that the title
story of this book "expresses the spirit of hacking best". Until the
subject of the next entry came out, it was hard to even nominate
another contender. The other stories in this collection are also
fine work by an author who has since won multiple Hugos and is one
of today's very best practitioners of hard SF.
:Snow Crash:
Neal Stephenson
Bantam, 1992
ISBN 0-553-56261-4
Stephenson's epic, comic cyberpunk novel is deeply knowing about
the hacker psychology and its foibles in a way no other author
of fiction has ever even approached. His imagination, his grasp
of the relevant technical details, and his ability to communicate
the excitement of hacking and its results are astonishing,
delightful, and (so far) unsurpassed.
:Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier:
Katie Hafner & John Markoff
Simon & Schuster 1991
ISBN 0-671-68322-5
This book gathers narratives about the careers of three
notorious crackers into a clear-eyed but sympathetic portrait
of hackerdom's dark side. The principals are Kevin Mitnick,
"Pengo" and "Hagbard" of the Chaos Computer Club, and Robert T.
Morris (see {RTM}, sense 2) . Markoff and Hafner focus as much
on their psychologies and motivations as on the details of their
exploits, but don't slight the latter. The result is a balanced
and fascinating account, particularly useful when read immediately
before or after Cliff Stoll's {The Cuckoo's Egg}. It is especially
instructive to compare RTM, a true hacker who blundered, with the
sociopathic phone-freak Mitnick and the alienated, drug-addled
crackers who made the Chaos Club notorious. The gulf between
{wizard} and {wannabee} has seldom been made more obvious.
:Technobabble:
John Barry
MIT Press 1991
ISBN 0-262-02333-4
Barry's book takes a critical and humorous look at the
'technobabble' of acronyms, neologisms, hyperbole, and metaphor
spawned by the computer industry. Though he discusses some
of the same mechanisms of jargon formation that occur in hackish,
most of what he chronicles is actually suit-speak -- the obfuscatory
language of press releases, marketroids, and Silicon Valley CEOs
rather than the playful jargon of hackers (most of whom wouldn't be
caught dead uttering the kind of pompous, passive-voiced word salad
he deplores).
:The Cuckoo's Egg:
Clifford Stoll
Doubleday 1989
ISBN 0-385-24946-2
Clifford Stoll's absorbing tale of how he tracked Markus Hess
and the Chaos Club cracking ring nicely illustrates the difference
between 'hacker' and 'cracker'. Stoll's portrait of himself, his
lady Martha, and his friends at Berkeley and on the Internet paints
a marvelously vivid picture of how hackers and the people around
them like to live and how they think.
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