A hacker with years of experience, a world-wide reputation, and a
major role in the development of at least one design, tool, or game used by
or known to more than half of the hacker community. To qualify as a
genuine demigod, the person must recognizably identify with the hacker
community and have helped shape it. Major demigods include Ken Thompson
and Dennis Ritchie (co-inventors of Unix and
C), Richard M. Stallman (inventor of
EMACS), Larry Wall (inventor of
Perl), Linus Torvalds (inventor of
Linux), and most recently James Gosling (inventor of
Java, NeWS, and GOSMACS) and
Guido van Rossum (inventor of Python). In their
hearts of hearts, most hackers dream of someday becoming demigods
themselves, and more than one major software project has been driven to
completion by the authors veiled hopes of apotheosis. See also
net.god, true-hacker,
ubergeek. Since 1995 or so this term has been
gradually displaced by ubergeek.