Does Gareth Branwyn's / WIRED's Jargon Watch
June 18, 2000 5:44 PM   Subscribe

Does Gareth Branwyn's / WIRED's Jargon Watch ever acknowledge its debt to Eric Raymond's Jargon File? I mean, the File's revision history states clearly that it began in 1975-- considerably before WIRED came to the trough --so isn't this Jargon Watch book just a rip-off of the print verison of the Jargon File, The New Hacker's Dictionary?
posted by jbushnell (10 comments total)
 

For my jargon needs, I use the (searchable) Jargon Dictionary, which works off of the File, and contains the relevant File-related bits like the Introduction ("Of Slang, Jargon and Techspeak"), "Hacker Writing Style," "Jargon Construction," and this useful Bibliography.
posted by jbushnell at 5:45 PM on June 18, 2000



At least it's not blinking!
posted by thirteen at 5:54 PM on June 18, 2000


From what I've seen, the Wired Jargon Watch is not *nearly* so lexicographically picky about 'live jargon' as ESR is; I've seen things in there that, while I thought they were cool coinages, I was *not* prepared to believe that they were live usages.

That is, Eric explicitly endeavours to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive.
posted by baylink at 6:06 PM on June 18, 2000


I was under the impression that Gareth's column is only intended to be a compliation of the latest cool new coinages that people have either come across (or even made up themselves), without regard to how long the new words or phrases might survive. If, indeed, they ever come close to regular usage in the first place.
posted by aaron at 7:51 PM on June 18, 2000


So, what y'all are saying, is that Jargon Watch doesn't need to acknowledge Raymond's jargon list because the two are fulfilling fundamentally different "roles" in the jargon "community?"

I guess I'll buy that.
posted by jbushnell at 8:47 PM on June 18, 2000


Let's just say that, although I haven't checked myself, I bet that there's little-to-no overlap in the contents of the two sites.
posted by aaron at 9:44 PM on June 18, 2000


The Jargon File did not invent the concept of defining technical jargon in 1975. Forget Jargon Watch, though ... Keith Dawson's Jargon Scout is a better read.
posted by rcade at 3:20 AM on June 19, 2000


It's not "his" Jargon File - it used to be a shared open source project but development pretty much stoped after he
took it over.
posted by adieu at 11:21 AM on June 19, 2000


Ah ha-- the dirt comes out! Interesting.
posted by jbushnell at 11:30 AM on June 19, 2000


"development basically stopped"

And you base that assertion on ... what?
posted by baylink at 5:45 PM on June 19, 2000


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