Dueling Dictionaries

Michael Nadeau

THE NEW HACKER'S DICTIONARY, SECOND EDITION, compiled by Eric S. Raymond, MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-68079-3, $14.95

You can judge a book by its cover. The IBM Dictionary of Computing is just what you'd expect: a serious, "just the facts, ma'am" reference on computer terms. The second edition (which adds 250 definitions and updates another 150) of The New Hacker's Dictionary, however, knows how to have fun with the language.

The two, in fact, have little in common except the word dictionary in their titles. That's OK, though, because each serves a different purpose. The 18,000-definition IBM Dictionary is as solid and up-to-date a reference on the vocabulary of computin g as I've seen. It does cater to IBM-specific terminology, as you would expect from the title, but not at the expense of jargon at large. The New Hacker's Dictionary is a colorful celebration of hacker slang and contains few of the terms in the IBM Dictionary.

One word you do find in both is bug. The IBM Dictionary defines it as "an error in a program." The New Hacker's Dictionary devotes over a page to it, describing not only its roots in hackerdom, but also pointing out that a bug was considered a flaw in something prior to the age of computers. This historical perspective exists throughout the book and makes The New Hacker's Dictionary both a good recreational read and a reference.

Anyone who deals with technical literature will find the IBM Dictionary of Computing indispensable. Anyone interested in hacker culture will enjoy browsing through The New Hacker's Dictionary. I intend to hang onto both.