* Joe Marshall
| It's a fantastic piece of marketing.

  But unlike Microosft's fantastic marketing, what was marketed was not the
  absence of a language so that nobody else would try to take the place of
  their future product while they incompetently tried to make something
  that would meet their wildly inflated expectations and forever promising
  more so people would not want to change to something actually better lest
  they miss out on the fantastic future of their crappy products, but an
  actual language with significant technical support behind it.  Instead of
  rivaling L. Ron Hubbard and other religion-makers with 10% explanation
  and 90% promises, Sun actually delivered a programming language and a
  solid technology.  Tim's assessment as a fantastic piece of engineering
  is certainly how I regard Java, too.

--
Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway

 >   having to fire people for various forms of disrespect for authority,

I'm beginning to believe that there is nothing in you whatsoever except
a generator of hostility, negativity, and destruction. What more direct
evidence of your very serious personality disorders can we expect, now?
  Get help, OK?

 >   Check back in 2005 to see what Len

Now, if you really are a visiting alien, which I'm beginning to suspect
for real, then the egomania engendered by your giant alien brain will
compel you to post a reply.

  This is quite strongly incorrect.  The verb "hack" is very old.  Newer
  meanings include "to manage, deal with, carry out successfully", but
  usually used in the negative, as in "can't hack it".  A "hacker" is one
  who does precisely that -- manages, deals with, carries out successfully.
  Note that this was the meaning employed at MIT, which is credited with
  the coinage of the word "hacker".

| The meanings you are applying to the terms came from journalists misusing
| the terminology to give their pieces the "being one with the clique"
| atmosphere.

  In the writing business, which includes journalists, "hack" refers to bad
  writing, "a hack" is a writer who works on order or who aims solely for
  commercial success, a mercenary writer.  To a journalist, the meaning of
  a cab driver or unskilled player of golf, tennis, etc, may also be closer
  at hand than that of a skilled enthusiast.

| Of course they won the battle over dictionary definitions, the outside
| world was seeing us through their eyes, but a large number of us still
| stick to the original spec.

  You are wrong on this count, too.  An assortment of entries from my
  reference shelf:

Webster's New World College Dictionary, 4th ed (50th anniversary rev):
3 a) an adept or highly skilled computer enthusiast or programmer

Random House Webster's College Dictionary:
3 [slang] a. a computer enthusiast who is esp. proficient in programming

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed:
[informal] 1. One who is proficient at using or programming a computer; a
computer buff

The New Oxford American Dictionary:
1 [informal] an enthusiastic and skillful computer programmer or user

Random House Webster's Unabridged:
3 [computer slang] a. a computer enthusiast

Webster's Third New International Dictionary, unabridged, addendum:
an expert at programming and solving problems with a computer : computer
whiz

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary:
3 : an expert at programming and solving problems with a computer

  Since the animal with which some people are conversing is not American or
  likely to influenced by American traditions, the entries from the Oxford
  Reference Online are quite different from the above American dictionaries:

A Dictionary of Business:
An individual with a good understanding of the structure and operation of
computer networks, who deliberately breaks into confidential systems. [...]

A Dictionary of Accounting:
A person who uses a computer system without authorization, generally
gaining access by means of a telephone connection.

A Dictionary of the Internet:
1. Someone who uses a high degree of computer skill to carry out
unauthorized acts within a network: [...]
2. Someone who is possessed of a high degree of computer skills and who
employs them in a conventional, non-criminal way. Because of this duality
of meaning, hackers who are in the second category use the word CRACKER to
describe those in the first category. The second meaning predates the
first.
  and also
dark side hacker A malicious HACKER, the implication here being that the
hacker community is dedicated to the overall good of the Internet.

A Dictionary of Computing:
1. A person who attempts to breach the security of a computer system by
access from a remote point, [...]
2. Originally, a person who had an instinctive knowledge enabling him or
her to develop software apparently by trial and error.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary:
3. use a computer to gain unauthorized access to data.

  Apparently, the British have some problems with enthusiasts, which may
  account for the massive lack of British hackers to begin with.

--
Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway

  Dictionaries reflect how people use the language.  Apparently, as I
  documented in another message just posted, the British (and other
  European meanings, including translations to "pirate informatico" in
  Italian and Spanish, and "pirate informatique" in French) are quite
  hostile to the computer enthusiast.

  According to some accounts, the majority of free software is developed in
  Europe (and according to the atrocious English in much documentation, not
  by English-speaking programmers), so perhaps even European languages can
  get better dictionaries...

--
Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway

  No, that would be your extremely limited understanding of my tactic.

--
Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway

yuck

I was aware of the use of "hack" as a noun in journalism, but the term
"hacker", AFAIK, first appeared to a general audience in articles
on "phone phreaking".

BTW, you need to expand your definition of the term "hacker", since it
is not the same as "cracker".

  I predicted the SGML winter to occur within a decade in 1994.  Then SGML
  died and spawned a hell-child, instead.  One of the best reasons to avoid
  XML at all cost (which is an amusing way to put it since no technology
  decision can save you more money than a decision not to use XML) is that
  the information you store into XML form becomes even more fragile and
  outdatable than whatever other format you could have used once you
  started to think about your data formats.  Since thinking about something
  will always be better than not thinking about something, what gains XML
  have in an organization that uses it comes from thinking about their data
  formats, but like most people who become satisfied with, if not enamored
  with, the first thing they meet that does not stink, XML is better than
  utterly braindamaged crap.  To many, this is so unusual that they think
  XML must be good.  Instead, it is only /less/ braindamaged crap, and the
  little good it has is completely defeated by the rest of it.

| If we're *really* lucky, Java and C#/.NET will be dragged down along with
| XML.

  Well, I think XML and Microsoft will go down together.

--
Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway

\Hack\, n. [Shortened fr. hackney. See Hackney.] 1. A horse, hackneyed
or let out for common hire; also, a horse used in all kinds of
 work, or a saddle horse, as distinguished from hunting and carriage
horses.

 2. A coach or carriage let for hire; particularly, a a coach with two
seats inside facing each other; a hackney coach.

 On horse, on foot, in hacks and gilded chariots. --Pope.

 3. A bookmaker who hires himself out for any sort of literary work; an
overworked man; a drudge.

 Here lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery freed, Who long was a
bookseller's hack. --Goldsmith.

 4. A procuress.
 Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA,
Inc.
(via www.dictionary.com)

  No.  Do you lack the creativity to come up with anything new?

| Really, I expected you to be above such abject schadenfreude.

  Amazing.  Why?  Would you really believe someone you taunt and provoke to
  be "above" wanting you to suffer a long and painful death, too?  You are
  the classic school bully who believes that what you do is a "joke" until
  you get seriously hurt, and then that those who cause you to feel pain
  have to be sociopaths, but the fact that you attack people and provoke
  them and "expect them to dance" does not register with you.  But let me
  get back to this point below.

| I can only imagine how many hundrends of words of vitriol you'd cons up
| to express your moral outrage over such an "evil" point of view.

  It seems I got to you.

| I'm beginning to believe that there is nothing in you whatsoever except a
| generator of hostility, negativity, and destruction.

  Towards you?  I expect you to think and I am prepared to deal with you as
  a thinking being when you decide to think.  That is more generosity than
  you will ever experience again.  Otherwise, what do you think you deserve?

| What more direct evidence of your very serious personality disorders can
| we expect, now?  Get help, OK?

  Seems that someone is either not getting the joke, or is perhaps beginning
  to get it.  Either way, I am inordinately pleased that I got to you and
  that you finally feel pain.

| I've often wondered why the Net attracts so many sociopaths and
| misanthropes.

  I have often wondered what attracts your kind myself: people whose goal
  it is to provoke other people.  I respond to your attempts to provoke you.

  That is not what I said, but it is very amusing that you think so.

  Well, we all know that you attacked me out of nowhere, to provoke me and,
  in your inimitable lunacy, expect me to dance.  Do you believe that anyone
  does not realize that something is seriously wrong with you by now?

| Now, if you really are a visiting alien, which I'm beginning to suspect
| for real, then the egomania engendered by your giant alien brain will
| compel you to post a reply.

  *laugh*  You are not even sufficiently well versed in logic to understand
  what an idiot you look like when you do not understand that posting a
  reply can have so many other reasons.  Really, Len, take a remedial course
  in logic and thinking skills.

| >   So have no sympathy
|
| Your sociopathic tendencies are already well known.

  Some people see others as they see themselves.

| Poppycock. You want me to self-destruct. That is ipso facto concern.

  No, it is the absence of concern.  But please make up your mind.  If I
  were a sociopath, I would not have concern for you, yet you desperately
  want me to have concern for you.  This is why you think that labeling me
  a "sociopath" would hurt.  But I do not care what you try to do to hurt
  me, as the only consequence I care about is that people see what you are
  willing to do.  And calling someone a sociopath reflects back on you.

| I am beginning to think you are actually so incredibly unconscious that
| you fail to understand what you are doing.

  I am happy that I have finally got to you and wiped that moronic grin off
  your stupid face.  There is yet hope for you.  /Think/, monkey, /think/!

  As for being unconscious of what you are doing, you are apparently not
  quite aware that you taunt and try to provoke and harrass people.  What
  does that say about you?  What does it say about you when you /sulk/ in
  return for being exposed as the really evil person you have posted lots
  of articles to prove that you are?  Who do you think you are kidding?

--
Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway

  The point is that there is no foundation for the coinage at MIT, but the
  use of "hack" to mean basically "do well", meant that "hacker" was simply
  someone who did something.  Only computer hackers became "famous", but
  music hackers also exist.  The question "what are you hacking?" is only
  slang for "what are you doing?".

| I was aware of the use of "hack" as a noun in journalism, but the term
| "hacker", AFAIK, first appeared to a general audience in articles on
| "phone phreaking".

  This is not correct, either.  The history of "hacker" is quite different
  from what people believe -- for the journalists, it has a longer story
  than they think, and for the hackers, the meaning to other parts of
  society has never been particularly positive to begin with.

| I'm guilty of overstating the case, surely.

  You seem overly defensive to me, and when I point out that all of the
  American dictionaries I own have a positive entry for "hacker" you only
  dismiss it.  I find this disturbing.

| As time progresses, I expect what I said to become more correct.

  But it has become less and less correct so far, so I have to ask for the
  observations you use for this more emphatic rejection of what you
  actually find in today's dictionaries.

| Current usage of "hacker" tends to the more derogatory meaning.

  If you look for the derogatory meaning, of course you will find it.  But
  to make "tends to" a valid conclusion, you have to be more objective and
  willing to look for data that contradicts your initial assumption.

| I suspect, like "villain", the benign version will slowly fade into
| obscurity.

  And what beningn meaning does "villain" have?

--
Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway

  The addition of "old" to many derogatory terms make them terms of
  endearment.  The endearment is in "old", not in the next term.

--
Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway

  The book «Hacker's Delight», which was mentioned here previously and
  which is a delightful read, would go a long way to help understand the
  term as used by hackers.

--
Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway

Webster's second definition is "villein" :
<http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=villein>

What with the distinct lack of any villain classes anymore, it's kind
of the class-slur equivalent of the racial slur "vandal"...

Woo hoo! I've completed the Naggum Hat Trick!!

Shadow dancing?

Dance, monkey, dance!

Yes, that's schadenfreude, but I have an excuse: I'm retarded and insane.

  But I also read the forewords of same and have worked with dictionary
  makers (one of the few benefits of working with SGML) so know something
  about how these definitions are both constructed and intended to be read.

| Webster's second definition is "villein" :
| <http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=villein>

  When an entry is simply a redirection, the preferred action when writing
  is not to use the word that was redirected if one means the word to which
  it was redirected, and when reading, to understand that the main entry
  word is the historically preferred, so even if there is a sense that only
  redirects to another, it has much less historical significance than one
  with its own definition.  So in this case, I ignored the redirection when
  I looked it up because "villein" is a different word with a different
  history than "villain" even if "villain" has been used where "villein"
  would be the better choice.  As far as I can tell, "villain" is uniformly
  bad, while the general lack of spelling conventions until recently could
  have produced texts where what would now be a typo would then have been
  acceptable.

--
Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway

  You are right.  It was a mistake to expect you to think.  I seem to make
  that mistake a lot, even with people who make such an effort to prove
  that they would rather die than think.

| Much of the message to which you were reponding was simply copied from
| your own bellicose posts to this newsgroup.

  Do they teach this style at JPL?  I ask because the other nutjob there
  also thinks that copying someone else's words somehow makes him less
  responsible for what he is saying.  Since part of the point with a common
  language is that we do indeed copy both words and phrases from one
  another, this particularly infantile way to shirk responsibility for your
  own actions betrays a serious personality disorder.

  On the other hand, I thought what you "said" made sense, so of course I
  should have realized it was not "your words".

| For example, the exchange above is you arguing with yourself, Naggy.

  You appear to believe, like that "Mel" chimp, that misspelling someone's
  name has any other effect than to make people aware of your immaturity.

| You project your self-loathing all over c.l.l.

  I note with some humor that you see it this way.

| Some people have tried to convince you that you fail to practice what you
| preach.  I choose to point and laugh at the dancing monkey.

  *laugh*  Yeah, people like you have tried to "convince" me all right.

| Yes, that's schadenfreude, but I have an excuse: I'm retarded and insane.

  Indeed, you are the kind of person who needs excuses for what you do.

| >   There is yet hope for you.
|
| I thought I was doomed to self-destruction?

  No, it is my goal.  If you think that my having a goal constitutes your
  being doomed, may I suggest an already established religion or cult?

| Make up your mind, Nagster.

  I am not the kind of person who makes up his mind about other people.  If
  I were, you would never have received a response from me to begin with.
  So I keep hoping that you will grow a brain and a conscience.

| >   you taunt and try to provoke and harrass people.
|
| Dance, monkey, dance!

  You make a pretty good case for making up my mind, however.

  You are being laid off at JPL, are you not, or fired?  What did they
  catch you doing?  Wacking off to your own news articles, or do you have
  wait for me to respond to them first?  Or just general monkey business?

--
Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway