A common extracurricular interest of hackers
(compare science-fiction fandom, oriental food
filk). Hackish folklore has long claimed that musical and
programming abilities are closely related, and there has been at
least one large-scale statistical study that supports this.
Hackers, as a rule, like music and often develop musical
appreciation in unusual and interesting directions. Folk music is
very big in hacker circles; so is electronic music, and the sort of
elaborate instrumental jazz/rock that used to be called
`progressive' and isn't recorded much any more. The hacker's
musical range tends to be wide; many can listen with equal
appreciation to (say) Talking Heads, Yes, Gentle Giant, Pat
Metheny, Scott Joplin, Tangerine Dream, Dream Theater, King Sunny
Ade, The Pretenders, Screaming Trees, or the Brandenburg Concerti.
It is also apparently true that hackerdom includes a much higher
concentration of talented amateur musicians than one would expect
from a similar-sized control group of mundane types.
demogroup n.
[demoscene] A group of demo
(sense 4) composers. Job titles within a group include coders (the
ones who write programs), graphicians (the ones who painstakingly
pixelate the fine art), musicians (the music composers),
sysops, traders/swappers (the ones who do the trading and
other PR), and organizers (in larger groups)....
brute force adj.
Describes a primitive programming style
one in which the programmer relies on the computer's processing
power instead of using his or her own intelligence to simplify the
problem, often ignoring problems of scale and applying naive
methods suited to small problems directly to large ones....
