elvy@h-aiken.UUCP (Marc Elvy) (01/24/84)
There have already been many letters written complaining about the
defilement of a term some of us have grown fond of (in the college
setting, it usually boils down to students accusing each other of
being hackers (which is never admitted, no matter how many Friday
and Saturday nights one spends in the terminal rooms)). In the
last Communications of the ACM (letters to the editor), there are
several such articles, the most condemning of which was written
by Richard Stallman at the MIT AI Labs (in which he claims that
the term "hacking" was coined by the AI Labs affiliates many years
ago, and is still cherished warmly -- as far as I know, this is
the correct story of the origin of the term). Stallman suggests
that the break-and-enter-bandits be called "crackers", and it seems
to me like this is a far more reasonable suggestion (especially
since, on rare occasions (when slightly tipsy no doubt), I have
openly admitted to being "somewhat of a hacker" (a dangerous thing
to do anywhere in the vicinity of Harvard's amazingly ethereal
computer science department)). I signed Stallman's letter, and
I will be only to happy to add my support to any other letters
which attempt to nip this new definition in the bud.
Marc
Marc A. Elvy
({genrad,alegra,ihnp4,ima}!wjh12!h-aiken!elvy)
Aiken Computation Laboratory
Harvard Universitymonroe@sequent.UUCP (02/13/84)
"Crackers"? I think "twit" better suits these types.