History
The Geek Code was invented by Robert A. Hayden in 1993 and is defined at geekcode.com. This concept is used in many other occupations and groups such as goths (Goth Code) and even the Schlock Mercenary webcomic.
A few years before the Geek Code was published, similar codes existed for other purposes. The Natural Bears Classification System is a very similar code for the Bear community. Like the Geek Code, it generally uses a single letter for the attribute and + or − signs for the grade. It was inspired by the Yerkes spectral classification system for describing stars. Unlike the Geek Code, this spectral classification system uses classes, subclasses & peculiarities for categorization. These systems differ in their orthogonality, the Geek Code is very orthogonal in the computer science sense (may be projected onto basis vectors), where the Yerkes system is very orthogonal in the taxonomic sense (represent mutually exclusive classes).
In some parts of the net, it was once common practice to use a geek code as one's signature, though those times are now long past. One of the consequences of being so old in such a fast-moving field is that much of the geek code now looks rather dated. The World Wide Web is described as "relatively new and little understood" — while the latter may still be accurate, the former certainly isn't.
Hayden's own geek code is:
GED/J d-- s:++>: a-- C++(++++) ULU++ P+ L++ E---- W+(-) N+++ o+ K+++ w--- O- M+ V-- PS++>$ PE++>$ Y++ PGP++ t- 5+++ X++ R+++>$ TV+ b+ DI+++ D+++ G+++++ e++ h r-- y++**
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
Read more about this topic: Geek Code
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The custard is setting; meanwhile
I not only have my own history to worry about
But am forced to fret over insufficient details related to large
Unfinished concepts that can never bring themselves to the point
Of being, with or without my help, if any were forthcoming.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“This above all makes history useful and desirable: it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)