MIT Press 55 Hayward Street Cambridge, MA 02142-1399 USA "The New Hacker's Dictionary" Raymond, 1993, 0-262-68079-3, U$14.95 esr@snark.thyrus.com gls@think.com Following Ambrose Bierre's "Devil's Dictionary" and Stan Kelly-Bootle's "Devil's DP Dictionary" one expects this book to follow the same line. One expects any number of amusing listings, such as Macintrash and messy-DOS. You certainly get these--but a good deal more, besides. That the book is a source of amusement and entertainment is undeniable. (Indeed, this review almost didn't get written, as I was seduced time and again by the interesting and arcane in its pages.) Raymond and company have, however, compiled substantial material of social, cultural and historic value for those wishing to understand both the strict hacker culture, and the more diffused genre of technical enthusiasts that surrounds computing, and computer networks. The linguistic analysis of hacker culture is a scholarly work in itself. Whether linguists accept it as such in their own field, this work has done the field work and compilation for them. The analysis is incisive: I was quite startled to find the undoubted source for my own discomfort with including punctuation inside of quotation marks. This is not to say the work is without flaws. Originally, the work emphasized mainframe systems and the current compiler makes much of the foolishness of those early users who saw little value in UNIX. Personal computers are now the object of some fun, while not being taken seriously in terms of computing. No doubt the next edition will take the same stance with regard to Personal Digital Assistants. (You didn't expect me to get through this without looking up "virus", did you? The book defines "back door", "logic bomb", "mockingbird", "phage", "Trojan Horse", "virus" and "worm". The virus definition is strictly Cohenesque, and the worm definition refers to "The Shockwave Rider" while ignoring Shoch and Hupp. Generally, though, the definitions contain better information and fewer mistakes than other non-specialist publications.) Whether for fun or scholarship, this is a valuable work. I particularly recommend it to the non-technical manager who needs to understand these unpunctual, unkempt and ill-mannered nerds--without whom the accounting department can't function. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1993 BKNHACKD.RVW ============== Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca | "If you do buy a Institute for Robert_Slade@sfu.ca | computer, don't Research into rslade@cue.bc.ca | turn it on." User p1@CyberStore.ca | Richards' 2nd Law Security Canada V7K 2G6 | of Data Security