|
user: n. 1. Someone doing ‘real work’ with the computer, using it
as a means rather than an end. Someone who pays to use a computer. See
real user. 2. A programmer who will believe anything you tell him. One who
asks silly questions. [GLS observes: This is slightly unfair. It is true
that users ask questions (of necessity). Sometimes they are thoughtful or
deep. Very often they are annoying or downright stupid, apparently because
the user failed to think for two seconds or look in the documentation
before bothering the maintainer.] See luser. 3. Someone who uses a program from the outside, however skillfully,
without getting into the internals of the program. One who reports bugs
instead of just going ahead and fixing them. The general theory behind this term is that there are two classes of
people who work with a program: there are implementors (hackers) and
lusers. The users are looked down on by hackers to
some extent because they don't understand the full ramifications of the
system in all its glory. (The few users who do are known as real winners.) The term is a relative one: a
skilled hacker may be a user with respect to some program he himself does
not hack. A LISP hacker might be one who maintains LISP or one who uses
LISP (but with the skill of a hacker). A LISP user is one who uses LISP,
whether skillfully or not. Thus there is some overlap between the two
terms; the subtle distinctions must be resolved by context.
| 
