1. Transitively, a person who knows how a
complex piece of software or hardware works (that is, who
groks it); esp. someone who can find and fix bugs quickly in
an emergency. Someone is a hacker if he or she has general
hacking ability, but is a wizard with respect to something only if
he or she has specific detailed knowledge of that thing. A good
hacker could become a wizard for something given the time to study
it. 2. The term `wizard' is also used intransitively of someone
who has extremely high-level hacking or problem-solving ability.
3. A person who is permitted to do things forbidden to ordinary
people; one who has wheel privileges on a system. 4. A Unix
expert, esp. a Unix systems programmer. This usage is well
enough established that `Unix Wizard' is a recognized job title at
some corporations and to most headhunters. See guru, lord high
incantation, magic, mutter,
voodoo programming, wave a dead chicken
