2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
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demigod
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2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
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n. A hacker with years of experience, a world-wide reputation, and a major
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role in the development of at least one design, tool, or game used by or
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known to more than half of the hacker community. To qualify as a genuine
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demigod, the person must recognizably identify with the hacker community and
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have helped shape it. Major demigods include Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie
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(co-inventors of Unix and C ), Richard M. Stallman (inventor of EMACS ),
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Larry Wall (inventor of Perl ), Linus Torvalds (inventor of Linux ), and
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most recently James Gosling (inventor of Java, NeWS , and GOSMACS ) and
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Guido van Rossum (inventor of Python ). In their hearts of hearts, most
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hackers dream of someday becoming demigods themselves, and more than one
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major software project has been driven to completion by the author's veiled
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hopes of apotheosis. See also net.god , true-hacker , ubergeek. Since 1995
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or so this term has been gradually displaced by ubergeek.
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