Joe Barr (October 19, 1944 – July 11, 2008) was an American technology journalist, an editor and writer for the SourceForge sites Linux.com and IT Manager's Journal.
A former programmer, Barr had worked on everything from microcomputers like the TRS-80 Model I to IBM mainframes with acres of DASD, writing code in more than a dozen languages, including RPG II, 370 ALC, COBOL, BASIC, TIBOL, MASM, and C, much of that experience coming in his 13 years with Ross Perot's EDS.
[citation needed] 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.
[1] 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.
Barr's first book, CLI for Noobies, was published in 2007 by the SourceForge Community Press.