demented
= D =
demo
demigod n.
A hacker with years of experience, a
world-wide reputation, and a major role in the development of at
least one design, tool, or game used by or known to more than half
of the hacker community. To qualify as a genuine demigod, the
person must recognizably identify with the hacker community and
have helped shape it. Major demigods include Ken Thompson and
Dennis Ritchie (co-inventors of Unix and C), Richard
M. Stallman (inventor of EMACS), Larry Wall (inventor of
Perl), Linus Torvalds (inventor of Linux), and most recently
James Gosling (inventor of Java, NeWS, and GOSMACS) and
Guido van Rossum (inventor of Python). In their hearts of
hearts, most hackers dream of someday becoming demigods themselves,
and more than one major software project has been driven to
completion by the author's veiled hopes of apotheosis. See also
net.god, true-hacker.
--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.