Editing Grok (section)

==Adoption and modern usage==

===In computer programmer culture===
Uses of the word in the decades after the 1960s are more concentrated in [[Cyberculture|computer culture]], such as an ''[[InfoWorld]]'' columnist in 1984 imagining a computer saying, "There isn't any software! Only different internal states of hardware. It's all hardware! It's a shame programmers don't grok that better."<ref>{{cite magazine |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=uS4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA32 |title = The Sixth Generation |access-date = 2024-01-04 |author = Doug Clapp |date = 1984-05-21 |magazine = Infoworld |page = 32 }}</ref>

The [[Jargon File]], which describes itself as "The Hacker's Dictionary" and has been published under that name three times, puts ''grok'' in a programming context:<ref>{{cite web |title=grok |url=https://www.catb.org/esr/jargon/html/G/grok.html |website=[[Jargon File]] |access-date=18 October 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Jargon File version 2.7.1 |url=https://www.catb.org/esr/jargon/oldversions/jarg271.txt |website=Jargon File |access-date=18 October 2024 |date=1 March 1991}}</ref>

{{quote|When you claim to "grok" some knowledge or technique, you are asserting that you have not merely learned it in a detached instrumental way but that it has become part of you, part of your identity. For example, to say that you "know" [[Lisp (programming language)|Lisp]] is simply to assert that you can code in it if necessary{{snd}}but to say you "grok" Lisp is to claim that you have deeply entered the world-view and spirit of the language, with the implication that it has transformed your view of programming. Contrast [[zen]], which is a similar supernatural understanding experienced as a single brief flash.}}

The entry existed in the very earliest forms of the Jargon File in the early 1980s. 

The book ''[[Perl Best Practices]]'' defines ''grok'' as understanding a portion of computer code in a profound way. It goes on to suggest that to ''re-grok'' code is to reload the intricacies of that portion of code into one's memory after some time has passed and all the details of it are no longer remembered. In that sense, ''to grok'' means to load everything into memory for immediate use. It is analogous to the way a processor [[CPU cache|caches]] memory for short term use, but the only implication by this reference was that it was something a human (or perhaps a Martian) would do.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Conway |first1=Damian |author1-link=Damian Conway |title=Perl Best Practices |date=2005 |publisher=[[O'Reilly Media]] |location=Sebastopol, California |isbn=0-596-00173-8 |pages=4–5}}</ref>

==== Examples of usage ====

A typical tech usage from the ''Linux Bible'' characterizes the [[Unix]] [[software development]] philosophy as "one that can make your life a lot simpler once you grok the idea".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Negus |first1=Christopher |title=Linux Bible |date=2005 |edition=1st |publisher=[[John Wiley & Sons]] |location=Hoboken, New Jersey |isbn=0764589741}}</ref>

The book ''[[Cyberia (book)|Cyberia]]'' covers its use in this subculture extensively:<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rushkoff |first1=Douglas |author1-link=Douglas Rushkoff |title=Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Cyberspace |date=1994 |publisher=[[Harper San Francisco]] |location=San Francisco, California |isbn=9780062510105}}</ref>

{{quote|This is all latter day usage, the original derivation was from an early text processing utility from so long ago that no one remembers but, grok was the output when it understood the file. [[Brian Kernighan|K]]&[[Dennis Ritchie|R]] would remember.}}

* The main web page for [[cURL]], an open source tool and programming library, describes the function of cURL as "cURL groks URLs".<ref name=curl/>
* The [[keystroke logging]] software used by the NSA for its remote intelligence gathering operations is named GROK.<ref name=intercept/>
* One of the most powerful parsing filters used in [[Elasticsearch]] software's logstash component is named ''grok''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Grok filter plugin |url=https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/logstash/current/plugins-filters-grok.html |website=[[Elasticsearch]] |access-date=18 October 2024}}</ref>
* A reference book by Carey Bunks on the use of the GNU Image Manipulation Program is titled ''Grokking the GIMP''.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bunks |first1=Carey |title=Grokking the GIMP |url=http://dev.cs.ovgu.de/tutorials/Grokking-the-GIMP-v1.0/ |website=Carey Bunks |access-date=18 October 2024}}</ref>
* The generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by [[XAI (company)|xAI]] is named [[Grok (chatbot)|Grok]]''.''<ref>{{Cite web |title=Grok |url=https://x.ai/grok |access-date=2025-01-09 |website=x.ai |language=en}}</ref>

===In counterculture===
{{see also|Counterculture of the 1960s}}

*[[Tom Wolfe]], in his book ''[[The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test]]'' (1968), describes a character's thoughts during an [[Psychedelic experience|acid trip]]: "He looks down, two bare legs, a torso rising up at him and like he is just noticing them for the first time{{nbs}}... he has never seen any of this flesh before, this stranger. He groks over that{{nbs}}..."<ref name="wolfe1968">{{cite book|author=Tom Wolfe|title=The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test|publisher=[[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]]|ISBN	=978-0-553-38064-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9io09MPj55EC&q=%22He+groks+over+that%22|year=1968|page=96}}</ref>

*In his counterculture [[Volkswagen]] repair manual, ''How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat<!--not a typo--> Idiot'' (1969), dropout aerospace engineer [[John Muir (engineer)|John Muir]] instructs prospective used VW buyers to "grok the car" before buying.<ref name="MuirGregg1971">{{cite book|author1=John Muir|author2=Tosh Gregg|title=How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=guPXAAAAMAAJ&q=grok|year=1971|publisher=John Muir Publications|isbn=978-0-912528-33-5|page=16}}</ref>

*The word was used numerous times by [[Robert Anton Wilson]] in his works ''[[The Illuminatus! Trilogy]]'' and ''[[Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy]]''. For instance, in ''The Eye in the Pyramid'', volume one of ''Illuminatus'':<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wilson |first1=Robert Anton |last2=Shea |first2=Robert Joseph |author1-link=Robert Anton Wilson |author2-link=Robert Shea |title=The Illuminatus! Trilogy Omnibus |date=1984 |publisher=[[Random House]] |isbn=9780307569646 |page=174}}</ref>
{{blockquote|I caught the references to Aristotle, the old man of the tribe with his unfortunate epistemological paresis, and also to that feisty little lady I always imagine is really the lost Anastasia, but I still didn’t grok. “What do you mean?” I asked (...)}}

*And in ''The Trick Top Hat'', volume two of ''Schrödinger's Cat'':<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wilson |first1=Robert Anton |title=Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy: "The Universe Next Door", "The Trick Top Hat", & "The Homing Pigeons" |date=1979 |publisher=[[Dell Publishing]] |location=New York |isbn=0-440-50070-2 |page=242}}</ref>
{{blockquote|Williams went on. "You've got to think of time ripples, as well as space ripples, to grok the quantum world. ..."}}