[DiabloD3]

I'm surprised, it comes up frequently among programmers, and I know not all of them could have read that wonderful book.

[gknoy]

I encountered it in the Jargon file first, and that was part of what prompted me to read Stranger in a Strange Land.

[danpat]

Ditto. I first encountered "grok" in the early 1990s. I read Stranger in a Strange Land for the first time this year.