mauney@ncsu.UUCP (01/06/84)
Those on the net concerned about the pejoration of the term "hacker"
will be disappointed to know that not only does IEEE Spectrum not
know the 'true' meaning of the word, they haven't even the foggiest
idea where the new meaning came from. In the Technically Speaking column
of the January 1984 issue of Spectrum, an anonymous editor states:
"... A hacker used to be someone who know little about about
a sport or other activity but who plunged in enthusiastically,
attempting to approximate the necessary motions. ...
The new usage may have begun with the group of youngsters
who make up the newest segment of these 'criminals.' They
referred to themselves as hackers -- what they were doing
was just fooling around. Some of them inadvertently
gained notoriety ... and the media picked up the slang
word and changed its meaning."
Shows what the IEEE knows about computer programming.
Jon Mauney (mcnc!ncsu!mauney)
North Carolina State Universityrh@mit-eddie.UUCP (Randy Haskins) (01/09/84)
I'd always thought that a hacker was a person on a computer who wasn't really a programmer, i.e, someone who knows quite a bit about the system, but doesn't necessarily write the best code imaginable. I am mostly a hacker (on Twenex more so than UNIX), although I'm starting to become a hacker-programmer (sounds sort of like "fighter-magic user, huh?). Most of the people I hang around with are in this category. I'm not sure if I understand how people become pure programmers. I know it isn't through taking classes, because all of the people who were taking a course on the 20 this term (who hadn't been hackers) really lost badly when it came to writing good programs. -- Randwulf (Randy Haskins); Path= genrad!mit-eddie!rh
holmes@dalcs.UUCP (Ray Holmes) (01/10/84)
[] What is a "hacker"? A hacker is a person who has certain abilities(sp?). 1) To find the bugs where none existed before. 2) To debug a program writen in a language that he's never seen before and without a manual. 3) To debug the program that that everyone else has given up on. He handles all the REAL bugs. 4) To do all of the above before anyone can figure out whats happening. True, many of these skills can be used to "crack" a system, but how much more valuable to have them on "your" side. I am a hacker (by the above criteria) and am proud of it.