[net.misc] Is "Hacker" Good?

cw (06/06/82)

I have never thought that "hacker" was a pleasant term.  Would you, for
example, want a carpenter to work on your house who was described
as a "hacker"?  As far as I can tell, "hacker"'s program with axes.
There are two mitigations, however.
   1.  Many hackers have considerable (if disorganized) knowledge and
       can be a help with difficult problems because they have been
       through the problem themselves.  However, they very often specify
       local fixes rather than globab corrections, so that you have to
       evaluate their help carefully.
   2.  Many good computer scientists describe themselves as "hacker"'s
       as a way of being modest.  Without going into psychoanalytic
       space, I always try to judge a self-proclaimed hacker's skills
       for myself.

Finally, has anyone else noticed that hacker's spend their undergraduate
years in the computer center, get terrific jobs for 3 years, and then
burn out?  This is a statement of averages, of course, but it seems to
be a pattern.

Charles

trb (06/07/82)

Hackers program with axes!
Gimme a break, huh?

Look, pal, I've seen incompetence in my day, and it has nothing to do
hackers.  Just because you looked it up in your Funkin' Wagnalls and it
said that to hack means to bludgeon, it doesn't mean that computer
hackers are to be perceived as bludgeon wielders.

The hackers I have known tend to love their work and do it well.  We
have highly refined senses of aesthetics and we pay more than our share
of taxes to Uncle Sam.  What the hell do you from us?  Doth not a hacker
bleed?

Next time you need some work done, go find a cretin with a HIPO
diagramming template in his plastic pocket protector.  Give me a guy
with a flannel shirt and hiking boots any day of the week (which is
when you'll find him working).

If you want to make disparaging remarks about hackers, eagle!cw, you're
doing it in the wrong space.
	I hack and I'm proud.
	Andy Tannenbaum   Bell Labs  Whippany, NJ   (201) 386-6491

jon (06/07/82)

(to the tune of the Dr. Pepper commercial)
I'm a hacker, he's a hacker,
we're a hacker, she's a hacker,
wouldn't you like to be a hacker too?
  be a hacker...

rick (06/07/82)

It seems that we have a difference of opinion on the definition of "hacker".