Eric S Raymond wrote: How not to engage me!

By Xah Lee. Date:

Eric S Raymond (aka ESR), the famous hacker, wrote a blog: [How not to engage me By Eric S Raymond. At http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4650 , accessed on 2012-10-10 ].

The blog is about a flame mail Eric recieved about one of his popular essay 〈How To Ask Questions The Smart Way〉. Then, someone in the comment mentioned my name, and suggested that it might be me.

I followed up with a comment. Here it is.

Jack Bowtz wrote: «Xah Lee! The writer was maybe Xah Lee.»

esr wrote: «Probably not. The name given was Greek, not Chinese, and a Google search indicated that it corresponds to a real person.»

I heard my name mentioned. Xah Lee here. No it's not me.

I hate esr's online persona, but i respect him as a person. (hi Eric.)

yes i hate the word hacker (as in MIT hacker), and everything 'bout the hacker culture.

i've briefly scan'd esr's article 〈How To Ask Questions The Smart Way〉 many years ago. I think it's like most hacker's produce: technically sound, but inane. The whole article can be condensed into one single paragraph, and it would be 10 times more effective. But nooooo, hackers love to masturbate among themselves.

my impression of reading this flame mail is that it's rather fine, and it can be defended just as hackers drivel a river on these trivial matters. (a la slashdot “News for nerds. Stuff that matters.”)

esr is full of himself, witness this very blog post and his comments, not unlike, yours truely. I, also, now and then get crazed hate mails, from FSF _OR_ Open Source fanatics to unix-liking fanatics. The OR conjunction there makes it a nihilist joke by itself. We, the human animals, make this world interesting, to ourselves, we think?

PS i've read the “esr's” Jargon File i think more or less whole around 1998. I loved it, and particularly recall how i painstakingly went thru the intro section that describe hacker, and thinking how much it identifies me. That was when i was much younger, and haven't become a troll (a term hackers LOVE) yet. But now, “hacker”? I nothing but LOL. Seriously.

—humbly, for the amusement of greater gods.