{"id":10890,"date":"2022-10-18T12:59:03","date_gmt":"2022-10-18T16:59:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=10890"},"modified":"2022-10-18T12:59:03","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T16:59:03","slug":"the-jargon-file","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=10890","title":{"rendered":"The Jargon File"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I got a text from a friend who is not from the Hacker culture. The text described a series of tasks he had just performed that were a canonical example of yak shaving. He didn\u2019t know the term, of course, so I responded that the technical term for what he had undergone was \u201cyak shaving\u201d and pointed him to the appropriate entry of the Jargon File<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Doing that reminded me of the joys of the Jargon File<\/a> and how it\u2019s something that everyone in our tribe should be familiar with. It\u2019s endlessly enjoyable to just browse through random entries and savor their screamingly funny humor. I\u2019ve written about it before (see here<\/a> and here<\/a>) but it\u2019s been a while so another mention seems justified.<\/p>\n

Many of the Jargon File terms have been part of my vocabulary for a long time but I sense is that there\u2019s been less uptake among younger hackers. Or perhaps the jargon has just changed. The Jargon File was, as far as I can tell, last updated in 2003 so it may not reflect current usage.<\/p>\n

Regardless, it\u2019s still worth reading to understand our shared culture and because it is really, really funny. If you haven\u2019t already, follow the link and read a few of the entries. And be sure to read about the magic switch<\/a>. It\u2019s absolutely my favorite hacker story. You can see a picture of the switch in this comment to my post about it<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I got a text from a friend who is not from the Hacker culture. The text described a series of tasks he had just performed that were a canonical example of yak shaving. He didn\u2019t know the term, of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-10890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10890"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10891,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10890\/revisions\/10891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}