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). 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.
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