Wizard
1. A person who knows how a complex piece of software or hardware works (that is, who
groks it); especially someone who can find and fix bugs quickly in an emergency.
Someone is a
hacker if he or she has general hacking ability, but is a wizard with respect to something only if he or she has specific detailed knowledge of that thing.
A good hacker could become a wizard for something given the time to study it.
2. A person who is permitted to do things forbidden to ordinary people; one who has
wheel privileges on a system.
3. A Unix expert, especially a Unix systems programmer.
This usage is well enough established that "Unix Wizard" is a recognised job title at some corporations and to most headhunters.
See
guru,
lord high fixer.
See also
deep magic,
heavy wizardry,
incantation,
magic,
mutter,
rain dance,
voodoo programming,
wave a dead chicken.
4. An interactive help utility that guides the user through a potentially complex task, such as configuring a
PPP driver to work with a new
modem.
Wizards are often implemented as a sequence of dialog boxes which the user can move forward and backward through, filling in the details required.
The implication is that the expertise of a human wizard in one of the above senses is encapsulated in the software wizard, allowing the average user to perform expertly.
[
Jargon File]
