| Title: | -={ H A C K E R S }=- |
| Notice: | Write locked - see NOTED::HACKERS |
| Moderator: | DIEHRD::MORRIS |
| Created: | Thu Feb 20 1986 |
| Last Modified: | Mon Aug 03 1992 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 680 |
| Total number of notes: | 5456 |
It seems that there's some kind of mythological/mystical overtones to the hacker syndrome. There's talk of certain "incantations." Also, there seems to be some delight taken in using cryptic languages (TECO) or systems (Unix). It reminds me of some MACLISP error messages: ; VERITUS ETERNAE - DON'T SETQ T! ; NIHIL EX NIHIL - DON'T SETQ NIL! I'm sure the MACLISP implementors got a kick out of that... There seems to be some pride in writing and understanding cryptic code. I'm especially reminded of James Gosling's "Skull and Crossbones" documentation on his screen management package for Emacs... <_Jym_>
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23.1 | TRIVIA::MUNYAN | Tue Jul 17 1984 15:15 | 6 | ||
Be glad that it didn't let you succeed with (SETQ T NIL) ... I've used a version of LISP on a 10 that let you do it... things get really screwed up then... Steve | |||||
| 23.2 | LATOUR::AMARTIN | Tue Jul 17 1984 21:28 | 5 | ||
The real hack is that AC0 must always contain 0, so that EVAL of NIL is NIL (or something like that). I believe that there is code which occaisionally checks to make sure that AC0 contains zero, so that it has a chance of dying gently before something REALLY bad happens. /AHM | |||||