From: Steven Gordon (sgordon at svpal.svpal.org)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Unix Hierarchy
Unix Hierarchy of Being
People who come into contact with the Unix system are often told,
"If you have trouble, see so-and-so, he's a guru", or "Bob there is a
real Unix hacker."
What is a "Unix Wizard"? How does he differ from a "guru"?
To explore these and other questions, here is a draft of the "Unix
Hierarchy":
NAME DESCRIPTION AND FEATURES
beginner - insecure with the concept of a terminal
- has yet to learn the basics of vi
- has not figured out how to get a directory
- still has trouble with typing
after each line of input
novice - knows that "ls" will produce a directory
- uses the editor, but calls it "vye"
- has heard of "C" but never used it
- has had a bad experience with rm
- is wondering how to read mail
- is wondering why the person next door
seems to like Unix so very much
user - uses vi and nroff, but inexpertly
- has heard of regular expressions but
never seen one
- has figured out that "-" precedes options
- has attempted to write a C program, but
decided to stick with Pascal
- is wondering how to move a directory
- thinks that dbx is a brand of stereo component
- knows how to read mail and is wondering how
to read the news
knowledgeable
user - uses nroff with no trouble, and is beginning
to learn tbl and eqn
- uses grep to search for fixed strings
- has figured out that mv(1) will move directories
- has learned that "learn" doesn't help
- somebody has shown him how to write
C programs
- once used sed but checked the file afterwards
- watched somebody use dbx once
- tried "make" but used spaces instead of tabs
expert - uses sed when necessary
- uses macros in vi, uses ex when necessary
- posts news at every possible opportunity
- is still wondering how to successfully reply
to mail
- writes csh scripts occasionally
- writes C programs using vi and compiles
with make
- has figured out what && and | | are for
- uses fgrep because somebody said it
was faster
hacker - uses sed and awk with comfort
- uses undocumented features of vi
- writes C code with "cat >" and compiles with
"!cc"
- uses adb because he doesn't trust source
debuggers
- figured out how environment variables are
propagated
- writes his own nroff macros to supplement the
standard ones
- writes Bourne shell scripts
- installs bug fixes from the net
- uses egrep because he timed it
guru - uses m4 and lex with comfort
- writes assembler code with "cat >"
- uses adb on the kernel while the system
is loaded
- customizes Unix utilities by patching the source
- reads device driver source with breakfast
- uses "ed" because "ex" is a Berkeleyism
- can answer any Unix question after a little
thought
- uses make for anything that requires two or
more commands
- has learned how to breach security but no longer
needs to try
- is putting James Woods/Henry Spencer egrep
into his next Unix release
wizard - writes device drivers with "cat >"
- fixes bugs by patching the binaries
- posts his changes to Unix utilities to the net,
and they work
- can tell what question you are about to ask,
and answers it
- writes his own troff macro packages
- is on a first-name basis with Dennis, Bill,
and Ken