mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (09/16/83)
There has been a lot of discussion reaching here in the last couple of days about the "true" meaning of hacking or hacker. I am surprised at the possessiveness that computer types have shown about the word. When (and where) I grew up, one main meaning of "hack" was somebody who was no better than competent at their profession or art form. It was almost the converse of "genius". A class of 50 engineers might contain 45 hacks and 5 good engineers. Similarly, a computer hacker to me was somebody who wasn't very good at programming, but went about doing it anyway. I suspect the derivation was from "hacking" a piece of wood when the job required careful carving, or some such. When and how did "hacking" come to be tied to computers, and when and how did the connotation become good rather than bad? Martin Taylor
shebs@utah-cs.UUCP (Stanley Shebs) (09/16/83)
I've always had the impression that the term "hacker" as used for programmers originated at MIT in the 60's, but that was long before my time, so perhaps someone closer could verify or disverify that? stan the l.h. utah-cs!shebs
ews@tekecs.UUCP (Ed Sznyter) (09/17/83)
In a democracy, something is good because the majority of the people say that it is good. The majority of computer people are hackers. If we took a vote, I warrant that we would find the majority of the people to be good. Simple transitivity. tektronix!tekecs!ews