Cat-v

   Cat-v.org (accessible at http://cat-v.org) is a [1]minimalist [2]hacker
   website describing itself as a random contrarian insurgent organization
   which promotes [3]critical thinking, [4]free speech, examines
   [5]technology from minimalist point of view, opposes [6]orthodoxy and
   talks about wider context of technology such as [7]politics, society and
   philosophy; the site hosts a few "subsites", e.g. those related to [8]Plan
   9 OS and [9]Go language, however most famous is its [10]encyclopedia of
   things considered harmful (http://harmful.cat-v.org/). The whole site,
   especially the "harmful" section (which was the first one), revolves
   around the phrase "considered [11]harmful" -- this is basically a
   [12]computer science academic [13]meme that started with a 1968 paper
   named "Go To Statement Considered Harmful" which was later followed by
   dozens of similarly named articles; cat-v is taking this to the next level
   by building a whole website about all things considered harmful. The name
   of the site itself comes from [14]Rob Pike's 1983 presentation "UNIX
   Style, or cat -v Considered Harmful" that criticized the -v flag of the
   [15]Unix [16]cat program as such flag, strictly speaking, violates the
   [17]Unix philosophy (cat should only concatenate files, the flag makes it
   do something that should rather be done by another program). Though maybe
   coincidental, the name is also similar to CatB (a short for famous hacker
   essay/book [18]Cathedral and Bazaar). The site is very nice, made in plain
   HTML minimalist style, working with HTTP and besides others contains a ton
   of great quotes on every topic, there is also an [19]IRC, mailing list and
   a blog.

   The section "considered harmful" contains many things, even quite general
   ones, probably to provoke thought -- one should likely not see a thing
   present on the list as something we have to always necessarily get rid of
   -- though many times we should! -- sometimes we just may think about how
   to improve the thing or minimize its negative impact; try to think of
   harmful things like "things that suck"; everything sucks, some things just
   [20]suck less. Among things listed under the harmful section are besides
   others all [21]software, [22]OOP, [23]GNU, [24]Linux, [25]C++, dynamic
   [26]linking, [27]Java, [28]XML, [29]vim, [30]Emacs, [31]GPL (one
   recommended alternative being [32]CC0 instead), [33]Perl, [34]standards,
   Sweden, [35]gay marriage, marriage, children, words, [36]intellectual
   property, [37]religion, [38]science, minimum wage, the Avatar movie,
   [39]Wikileaks, [40]people, [41]economics, [42]global warming
   scaremongering, [43]security theater etc.

   Cat-v has existed since at least 2005 (according to Internet Archive) and
   was started by [44]Uriel M. Pereira, a minimalist hacker who greatly
   contributed to a lot of [45]suckless software and who committed suicide in
   2012. Suckless and cat-v seem to be pretty close -- suckless.org has its
   own section of harmful things called simply "sucks".

   From [46]LRS point of view cat-v is based in great many ways, mainly its
   focus on the big picture and wider context or technology, promotion of
   minimalism, freedom of speech and thinking and anti-orthodoxy -- it is not
   a soyboy site, good quality sites without [47]SJWery are greatly
   appreciated. However we would also find disagreements e.g. on [48]Plan 9
   and [49]Go, which we consider greatly harmful. And of course some politics
   etc.

See Also

     * [50]suckless

Links:
1. minimalism.md
2. hacking.md
3. critical_thinking.md
4. free_speech.md
5. tech.md
6. orthodoxy.md
7. politics.md
8. plan9.md
9. golang.md
10. encyclopedia.md
11. harmful.md
12. compsci.md
13. meme.md
14. rob_pike.md
15. unix.md
16. cat.md
17. unix_philosophy.md
18. bazaar.md
19. irc.md
20. suckless.md
21. software.md
22. oop.md
23. gnu.md
24. linux.md
25. cpp.md
26. linking.md
27. java.md
28. xml.md
29. vim.md
30. emacs.md
31. gpl.md
32. cc0.md
33. perl.md
34. standard.md
35. gay.md
36. intellectual_property.md
37. religion.md
38. soyence.md
39. wikileaks.md
40. people.md
41. economics.md
42. global_warming.md
43. security
44. uriel.md
45. suckless.md
46. lrs.md
47. sjw.md
48. plan9.md
49. goland.md
50. suckless.md