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发信人: capita@TWserv (赖明宗), 信区: info_culture
标  题: Jargon File 的书单
发信站: 台湾文化资讯站 (Thu Mar 28 13:28:16 1996)
转信站: TWserv

在 jargon file (也就是 The New Hacker's Dictionary 的电子版) 里
有列出一份 hacker 必读的书单。我想很值得参考，「微软阴谋」里的
许多典故就来自这些书，不过这是 93 年的版本，不知道新版的 jargon
file 的这份列表里有没有新增加一些书。

—————————————

Here are some other books you can read to help you understand the hacker
mindset.

∶G"odel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid:
Douglas Hofstadter
Basic Books, 1979
ISBN 0-394-74502-7

This book reads like an intellectual Grand Tour of hacker
preoccupations.  Music, mathematical logic, programming, speculations on
the nature of intelligence, biology, and Zen are woven into a brilliant
tapestry themed on the concept of encoded self-reference.  The perfect
left-brain companion to `Illuminatus'.

∶Illuminatus!:
    I.   `The Eye in the Pyramid'
    II.  `The Golden Apple'
    III. `Leviathan'.
Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
Dell, 1988
ISBN 0-440-53981-1

This work of alleged fiction is an incredible berserko-surrealist
rollercoaster of world-girdling conspiracies, intelligent dolphins, the
fall of Atlantis, who really killed JFK, sex, drugs, rock'n'roll, and
the Cosmic Giggle Factor.  First published in three volumes, but there
is now a one-volume trade paperback, carried by most chain bookstores
under SF.  The perfect right-brain companion to Hofstadter's `G"odel,
Escher, Bach'.  See {Eris}, {Discordianism}, {random numbers}, {Church
of the SubGenius}.

∶The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
Douglas Adams
Pocket Books, 1981
ISBN 0-671-46149-4

This `Monty Python in Space' spoof of SF genre traditions has been
popular among hackers ever since the original British radio show.  Read
it if only to learn about Vogons (see {bogon}) and the significance of
the number 42 (see {random numbers}) --- and why the winningest chess
program of 1990 was called `Deep Thought'.

∶The Tao of Programming:
James Geoffrey
Infobooks, 1987
ISBN 0-931137-07-1

This gentle, funny spoof of the `Tao Te Ching' contains much that is
illuminating about the hacker way of thought.  "When you have learned to
snatch the error code from the trap frame, it will be time for you to
leave."

∶Hackers:
Steven Levy
Anchor/Doubleday 1984
ISBN 0-385-19195-2

Levy's book is at its best in describing the early MIT hackers at the
Model Railroad Club and the early days of the microcomputer revolution.
He never understood UNIX or the networks, though, and his enshrinement
of Richard Stallman as "the last true hacker" turns out (thankfully) to
have been quite misleading.  Numerous minor factual errors also mar the
text; for example, Levy's claim that the original Jargon File derived
from the TMRC Dictionary (the File originated at Stanford and was
brought to MIT in 1976; the co-authors of the first edition had never
seen the dictionary in question).  There are also numerous misspellings
in the book that inflame the passions of old-timers; as Dan Murphy, the
author of TECO, once said: "You would have thought he'd take the trouble
to spell the name of a winning editor right."  Nevertheless, this
remains a useful and stimulating book that captures the feel of several
important hackish subcultures.

∶The Devil's DP Dictionary:
Stan Kelly-Bootle
McGraw-Hill, 1981
ISBN 0-07-034022-6

This pastiche of Ambrose Bierce's famous work is similar in format to
the Jargon File (and quotes several entries from jargon-1) but somewhat
different in tone and intent.  It is more satirical and less
anthropological, and is largely a product of the author's literate and
quirky imagination.  For example, it defines `computer science' as "a
study akin to numerology and astrology, but lacking the precision of the
former and the success of the latter" and "the boring art of coping with
a large number of trivialities."

∶The Devouring Fungus: Tales from the Computer Age:
Karla Jennings
Norton, 1990
ISBN 0-393-30732-8

The author of this pioneering compendium knits together a great deal of
computer- and hacker-related folklore with good writing and a few
well-chosen cartoons.  She has a keen eye for the human aspects of the
lore and is very good at illuminating the psychology and evolution of
hackerdom.  Unfortunately, a number of small errors and awkwardnesses
suggest that she didn't have the final manuscript checked over by a
native speaker; the glossary in the back is particularly embarrassing,
and at least one classic tale (the Magic Switch story, retold here under
{A Story About `Magic'} in {appendix A}) is given in incomplete and
badly mangled form.  Nevertheless, this book is a win overall and can be
enjoyed by hacker and non-hacker alike.

∶The Soul of a New Machine:
Tracy Kidder
Little, Brown, 1981
(paperback: Avon, 1982
ISBN 0-380-59931-7)

This book (a 1982 Pulitzer Prize winner) documents the adventure of the
design of a new Data General computer, the Eclipse.  It is an amazingly
well-done portrait of the hacker mindset --- although largely the
hardware hacker --- done by a complete outsider.  It is a bit thin in
spots, but with enough technical information to be entertaining to the
serious hacker while providing non-technical people a view of what
day-to-day life can be like --- the fun, the excitement, the disasters.
During one period, when the microcode and logic were glitching at the
nanosecond level, one of the overworked engineers departed the company,
leaving behind a note on his terminal as his letter of resignation: "I
am going to a commune in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time
shorter than a season."

∶Life with UNIX: a Guide for Everyone:
Don Libes and Sandy Ressler
Prentice-Hall, 1989
ISBN 0-13-536657-7

The authors of this book set out to tell you all the things about UNIX
that tutorials and technical books won't.  The result is gossipy, funny,
opinionated, downright weird in spots, and invaluable.  Along the way
they expose you to enough of UNIX's history, folklore and humor to
qualify as a first-class source for these things.  Because so much of
today's hackerdom is involved with UNIX, this in turn illuminates many
of its in-jokes and preoccupations.

∶True Names ... and Other Dangers:
Vernor Vinge
Baen Books, 1987
ISBN 0-671-65363-6

Hacker demigod Richard Stallman believes the title story of this book
"expresses the spirit of hacking best".  This may well be true; it's
certainly difficult to recall a better job.  The other stories in this
collection are also fine work by an author who is perhaps one of today's
very best practitioners of hard SF.

∶Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier:
Katie Hafner & John Markoff
Simon & Schuster 1991
ISBN 0-671-68322-5

This book gathers narratives about the careers of three notorious
crackers into a clear-eyed but sympathetic portrait of hackerdom's dark
side.  The principals are Kevin Mitnick, "Pengo" and "Hagbard" of the
Chaos Computer Club, and Robert T. Morris (see {RTM}, sense 2) .
Markoff and Hafner focus as much on their psychologies and motivations
as on the details of their exploits, but don't slight the latter.  The
result is a balanced and fascinating account, particularly useful when
read immediately before or after Cliff Stoll's {The Cuckoo's Egg}.  It
is especially instructive to compare RTM, a true hacker who blundered,
with the sociopathic phone-freak Mitnick and the alienated, drug-addled
crackers who made the Chaos Club notorious.  The gulf between {wizard}
and {wannabee} has seldom been made more obvious.

∶Technobabble:
John Barry
MIT Press 1991
ISBN 0-262-02333-4

Barry's book takes a critical and humorous look at the `technobabble' of
acronyms, neologisms, hyperbole, and metaphor spawned by the computer
industry.  Though he discusses some of the same mechanisms of jargon
formation that occur in hackish, most of what he chronicles is actually
suit-speak --- the obfuscatory language of press releases, marketroids,
and Silicon Valley CEOs rather than the playful jargon of hackers (most
of whom wouldn't be caught dead uttering the kind of pompous,
passive-voiced word salad he deplores).

∶The Cuckoo's Egg:
Clifford Stoll
Doubleday 1989
ISBN 0-385-24946-2

Clifford Stoll's absorbing tale of how he tracked Markus Hess and the
Chaos Club cracking ring nicely illustrates the difference between
`hacker' and `cracker'.  Stoll's portrait of himself, his lady Martha,
and his friends at Berkeley and on the Internet paints a marvelously
vivid picture of how hackers and the people around them like to live and
what they think.