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wizard: n. 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 fixer. See also deep magic,
heavy wizardry, incantation,
magic, mutter,
rain dance,
voodoo programming, wave a dead chicken.
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