Xref: utzoo alt.folklore.computers:7769 comp.misc:10792 Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!bbn.com!cosell From: cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.misc Subject: Re: MULTICS and the Jargon File Message-ID: <61408@bbn.BBN.COM> Date: 6 Dec 90 19:30:36 GMT References: <1YfTW4#8MK9Xf8YJtZH970VXl0fFB3R=eric@snark.thyrsus.com> <1990Dec3.193049.8771@sctc.com> <12248@milton.u.washington.edu> <1YgzZ0#1bb89X3cQmgD00tBfF8KX0N9=eric@snark.thyrsus.com> <12392@milton.u.washington.edu> Sender: news@bbn.com Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers Lines: 50 mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) writes: }In article <1YgzZ0#1bb89X3cQmgD00tBfF8KX0N9=eric@snark.thyrsus.com> eric@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes: }>I'm considering it. My problem is that while the PDP-10 isn't quite dead, }>it and a lot of the PDP-10 derived slang are no longer alive *in hackerdom*. }So what? A lot of the slang in the original jargon file was already }old or out of use. The entire reason for the jargon file was (1) to }document the extant slang, (2) to preserve the older terms. Oh? "The entire reason"? Huh? From what source do you speak so authoritatively? That it was may have been partly obsolete by tthe time YOU got a copy of it doesn't mean that it was ever *intended* to be a historical document. Going to the Hacker's Dictionary [done by the guys, the ONLY guys, who actually get a 'vote' in my book on what the "entire reason" for their labors was], and when many of these terms were even MORE out-of-date [by the time standards of those of us who lived with the jargon]. The Introduction reads: These are the words used for fun by the people who use computer for fun: the hackers. Here you will find almost nothign of those awful computer languages such as BASIC that can be written but not spoken. This book is, in fact, a revised version of the famous ``jargon file,'' a dictionary of slang terms cooperatively maintained by the hackers at advanced computers laboratories at Stanford University, [MIT], [CMU], and other places such as Yale University, Princeton University and [WPI]. some of the wores are fairly new; others have been used for over two decades; others were borrowed from other fields. You see anything in that about 'historical'? You see anything in that about preserving the quaint jargon that grew up around the use of tab equipment in the late 40's? IT is all written ruthlessly in the PRESENT text: even if you and I happen to know that some of that terminology is obsolete, it sure looks to me like they intended it not to be historical at all, but rather to be a snapshot of CURRENT usage within this odd subculture. My rule for things like this is that the folks who do the work get to say what their intent is... it is not for you or I to tell them how to do what they want. I quoted Guy's words from the Hacker's dictionary. Eric is working with Guy on this and presumably gets to chat with Guy about his editorial decisions. within VERY broad limits, I would mostly say that THEY get to decide, and I thought that Eric's guidelines made a lot of sense, and as described it would be a useful and interesting book. If _you_ want to do a "historical slang and folklore encyclopaedia", you can edit it via whatever rules you choose. /Bernie\ Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com