[aklug] Re: Why hacking isn't fun anymore

Christopher Howard said, on 08/07/2010 10:00 PM:
> I knew I'd get a few comments about the cracking vs. hacking thing.
> Frankly, if you pick any random person off the street, and tell him you
> are a hacker, he'll think you break into computer systems. If you tell
> him you are a cracker, you will make a very different impression.
>
> Furthermore, I've seen the signatures on files actually left by people
> who have broken into a system. They called themselves "hackers". So I'll
> call 'em hackers if I want to do so.

Your call, of course. I guess I would argue that just because usage by
the clueless (not you, as you're making a deliberate choice; I mean the
non-technical masses and the script kiddies) is trending that way, it
doesn't mean that we all have to go along. Most people under 30 are
completely oblivious to the proper use of apostrophes, too, but I pipe
up about that as well. :-) I'm all for language evolving, but I'll
oppose anything that I see as a loss of signal.

In a larger sense, we (as geeks) have inherited a lot of vocabulary (and
even grammar) from a fine history of computing culture. These folks
struggled to make tinkering and solving problems -- true hacking --
respectable and legal. I, for one, believe that those people deserve
better than to have a perfectly good word, that they were proud to use,
usurped. So I'll call *them* hackers if I want to do so. :-)

Which is not to say that I don't know why it happened. "Hacker" sounds
intuitively negative. We ourselves call a quick and dirty programming
job a "hack". This usage was deliberately self-deprecating. "Hacking
away" at something does reflect something about how we feel about
ourselves and the process sometimes.

The real issue, which is also touched on indirectly by your point about
"cracker" (which no one uses) is this: there is no good word for how I'm
wanting to use "hacker". The closest that the masses are catching on to
is "geek", which isn't the same; being a geek about something is about
driving deep into a topic, but not necessarily capturing someone's quest
for better code or solutions.

We need something that means "I tinker, try to solve problems, and
attempt to make things happen elegantly with X", where "X" is a language
or other programmable framework. It needs to capture something beyond
what "coder" and "programmer" do, something about both the ugliness of
kluges and the beauty of the Right Way to do something, and about the
quest (and necessity) of both.

I'm poking holes without proposing solutions on this one; I don't know
of a better word. But I do think that we need one, since "hacker" is
pretty much a lost cause.

Royce
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Received on Sun Aug 8 07:52:54 2010