user

n. 1. Someone doing real work with the computer, using it as a means rather
than an end. Someone who pays to use a computer. See real user. 2. A
programmer who will believe anything you tell him. One who asks silly
questions. [GLS observes: This is slightly unfair. It is true that users ask
questions (of necessity). Sometimes they are thoughtful or deep. Very often
they are annoying or downright stupid, apparently because the user failed to
think for two seconds or look in the documentation before bothering the
maintainer.] See luser. 3. Someone who uses a program from the outside,
however skillfully, without getting into the internals of the program. One
who reports bugs instead of just going ahead and fixing them. The general
theory behind this term is that there are two classes of people who work
with a program: there are implementors (hackers) and luser s. The users are
looked down on by hackers to some extent because they don't understand the
full ramifications of the system in all its glory. (The few users who do are
known as real winners. ) The term is a relative one: a skilled hacker may be
a user with respect to some program he himself does not hack. A LISP hacker
might be one who maintains LISP or one who uses LISP (but with the skill of
a hacker). A LISP user is one who uses LISP, whether skillfully or not. Thus
there is some overlap between the two terms; the subtle distinctions must be
resolved by context.

