Joe Barr (October 19, 1944 – July 11, 2008) was an American technology journalist, an

editor Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, photographic, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, orga ...

and

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

for the

SourceForge SourceForge is a web service that offers software consumers a centralized online location to control and manage open-source software projects and research business software. It provides source code repository hosting, bug tracking, mirrorin ...

sites

Linux.com Linux.com is a website owned by the Linux Foundation. The goal of the site is to provide information about the developments and changes in Linux and related products. Linux.com offers free Linux tutorials, news and blogs, discussion forums and ...

and IT Manager's Journal. A former

programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

, Barr had worked on everything from microcomputers like the

TRS-80 Model I The TRS-80 Micro Computer System (TRS-80, later renamed the Model I to distinguish it from successors) is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of '' ...

to IBM

mainframes A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise ...

with acres of

DASD A direct-access storage device (DASD) (pronounced ) is a secondary storage device in which "each physical record has a discrete location and a unique address". The term was coined by IBM to describe devices that allowed random access to data, t ...

, writing code in more than a dozen languages, including

RPG II RPG II is a very early and popular version of the IBM RPG programming language. It was developed in the late 1960s and designed to work on the smallest IBM systems of the time such as the IBM 1130, IBM System/3, System/32, System/34, System/36. I ...

, 370 ALC,

COBOL COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily us ...

BASIC BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...

, TIBOL,

MASM The Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM) is an x86 assembler that uses the Intel syntax for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. Beginning with MASM 8.0, there are two versions of the assembler: One for 16-bit & 32-bit assembly sources, and another (ML64) ...

, and C, much of that experience coming in his 13 years with

Ross Perot Henry Ross Perot (; June 27, 1930 – July 9, 2019) was an American business magnate, billionaire, politician and philanthropist. He was the founder and chief executive officer of Electronic Data Systems and Perot Systems. He ran an inde ...

's EDS. As a writer, Barr first gained notoriety and, according to Ziff-Davis' Spencer F. Katt, a cult-like following for his zine, The Dweebspeak Primer. Barr began writing about personal computing in 1994, and primarily about Linux and open source in 1998, when he began writing for IDG's LinuxWorld.com. The

MPlayer MPlayer is a free and open-source media player software application. It is available for Linux, OS X and Microsoft Windows. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS, MorphOS and AROS Research Operating System are also available. A port for DOS usi ...

project made him even better known by dedicating a derogatory page to him in their documentation after he wrote a piece entitled ''MPlayer: The project from hell''. In 2001, Barr was awarded a Silver Medal by the American Society of Business Publication Editors in the category of Original Web Commentary for his LinuxWorld.com article entitled ''Dumbing Down Linux''. In his last years he worked at OSTG, writing articles, columns, and commentary for NewsForge and Linux.com. Barr's first book, CLI for Noobies, was published in 2007 by the SourceForge Community Press. He also was an enthusiastic

amateur radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency communic ...

operator using his callsign W5CT. Barr died on July 11, 2008.

References

External links

The Dweebspeak Primer

CLI for Noobies--A primer on the Linux command line
(web page about the book) {{DEFAULTSORT:Barr, Joe 1944 births 2008 deaths Geeknet American technology journalists American male journalists 20th-century American journalists Amateur radio people