steven@mcvax.UUCP (Steven Pemberton) (12/12/84)
Interesting that all the definitions of hacker in the sense of programmer were complimentary: they must have been written by people who considered themselves hackers! In England (where I come from) I always heard the word used as an insult, meaning someone who programs without thinking first. Steven Pemberton, CWI, Amsterdam; steven@mcvax.
mauney@ncsu.UUCP (Jon Mauney) (12/17/84)
> Interesting that all the definitions of hacker in the sense of programmer > were complimentary: they must have been written by people who considered > themselves hackers! In England (where I come from) I always heard the word > used as an insult, meaning someone who programs without thinking first. Aha! but you see, if you can program without thinking first, and get away with it, then you must be very smart; and then you can say: "Just imagine how marvelous I would be if I went through the planning that those other drudges have to go through. But why bother? I'm already brilliant, why ruin the fun just to obtain a small improvement in maintainability and self-documentation?" Describing yourself as a hacker, and meaning it positively, is boasting. -- Jon Mauney, mcnc!ncsu!mauney Computer Hacking Department North Carolina State University "Oh, I'm a systems hack and I'm OK, I work all night and I sleep all day;"
rcb@rti-sel.UUCP (Randy Buckland) (12/18/84)
> Interesting that all the definitions of hacker in the sense of programmer > were complimentary: they must have been written by people who considered > themselves hackers! In England (where I come from) I always heard the word > used as an insult, meaning someone who programs without thinking first. > > Steven Pemberton, CWI, Amsterdam; steven@mcvax. Personally I prefer to think while programming. Randy Buckland Research Triangle Institute ...!mcnc!rti-sel!rcb
jsq@ut-sally.UUCP (John Quarterman) (12/20/84)
> > Interesting that all the definitions of hacker in the sense of programmer > > were complimentary: they must have been written by people who considered > > themselves hackers! In England (where I come from) I always heard the word > > used as an insult, meaning someone who programs without thinking first. > Describing yourself as a hacker, and meaning it positively, is boasting. Yes, the people who wrote those definitions were hackers, and yes, they were boasting. You can read about them in: HACKERS (Heroes of the Computer Revolution) Steven Levy Anchor Press/Doubleday Copyright (c) 1984 by Steven Levy ISBN 0-385-19195-2 You won't find Ken Thompson or Dennis Ritchie in the index, though you will find many references to Richard Stallman. You will also find TECO spelled TICO and TENEX spelled TENNIX and other such rot. In other words, it's very selective in what and who it treats, and small details sometimes fall by the wayside, but it does give some idea of what hacking really is. -- John Quarterman, CS Dept., University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712 USA jsq@ut-sally.ARPA, jsq@ut-sally.UUCP, {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!jsq
dee@cca.UUCP (Donald Eastlake) (12/24/84)
Many of the typos in the book "HACKERS: Heros of the Computer
Revolution" are of a phonetic nature. I think Steven Levy recorded most
of his interviews and then later transcribed from the records. Thus
TICO instead if TECO (Text Editor and Corrector). However the overall
pictures painted in the book are correct. (The Index is also a bit
lacking. My name appears on page 83 (not listed in the Index) as well
as on page 118 which is listed in the index.) There is hope of some
of these problems being fixed in the paperback edition.
--
+ Donald E. Eastlake, III
ARPA: dee@CCA-UNIX usenet: {decvax,linus}!cca!deejack@vu44.UUCP (Jack Jansen) (12/26/84)
It seems that the net is divided into two camps, one which says:
"A hacker is someone without any sense of responsibility who
breaks other peoples security systems for fun", and the others saying:
"A hacker is a friendly, though slightly weird, person, who will solve
*any* conceivable computer problem in no time, although the procedures
he follows are unintellegible, and usually irreproducible".
I think that these describe *the same persons*, only at a different
stage in life. Is there *any* unix-wizard out there who didn't start
his computer-life with writing password decrypters, acquiring
super-user permission, breaking system-account database, etc etc etc etc?
By doing all these kind of things, you get to know, for instance, the
unix kernel so well (since you have to let it do things it wasn't
meant to do) that you can usually trace a problem to it's source,
and this is exactly what a hacker in the second sense of the word
does.
--
Jack Jansen, {seismo|philabs|decvax}!mcvax!vu44!jack
or ...!vu44!htsa!jack
If *this* is my opinion, I wasn't sober at the time.