Artifacts and Customs
The academic hacker subculture is defined by shared work and play focused around central artifacts. Some of these artifacts are very large; the Internet, the World Wide Web, GNU, and the Linux kernel are all hacker creations, works of which the subculture considers itself primary custodian.
The academic hacker subculture has developed a rich range of symbols that serve as recognition symbols and reinforce its group identity. GNU's Gnu; Beastie, the BSD Daemon; Tux, the Linux penguin; and the Perl Camel are some examples. The use of the glider structure from Conway's Game of Life as a general Hacker Emblem has been proposed by Eric S. Raymond.
The academic hacker subculture has an annual ceremonial day—April Fool's. There is a long tradition of perpetrating elaborate jokes, hoaxes, pranks and fake websites on this date, which includes the publication of the annual joke RFC.
Read more about this topic: Hacker (programmer Subculture)
Famous quotes containing the word customs:
“We set up a certain aim, and put ourselves of our own will into the power of a certain current. Once having done that, we find ourselves committed to usages and customs which we had not before fully known, but from which we cannot depart without giving up the end which we have chosen. But we have no right, therefore, to claim that we are under the yoke of necessity. We might as well say that the man whom we see struggling vainly in the current of Niagara could not have helped jumping in.”
—Anna C. Brackett (1836–1911)