Jury-Law books

There was Richard Greenblatt, the
lab's in-house Lisp expert and author of MacHack, the
computer chess program that had once humbled A.I.
critic Hubert Dreyfus. There was Gerald Sussman,
original author of the robotic block-stacking program
HACKER. And there was Bill Gosper, the in-house math
whiz already in the midst of an 18-month hacking bender
triggered by the philosophical implications of the
computer game LIFE.See Steven Levy, Hackers (Penguin USA [paperback],
1984): 144. Levy devotes about five pages to describing
Gosper's fascination with LIFE, a math-based software
game first created by British mathematician John
Conway. I heartily recommend this book as a supplement,
perhaps even a prerequisite, to this one.
Members of the tight-knit group called themselves "
hackers." Over time, they extended the "hacker"
description to Stallman as well. In the process of
doing so, they inculcated Stallman in the ethical
traditions of the "hacker ethic ." To be a hacker meant
more than just writing programs, Stallman learned.


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