Re: Hackers (was Is General Kind)

[howland.reston.ans.net!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!csc.ti.com !tilde.csc.ti.com!mksol!mccall@gatech.edu (fred j mccall 575-3539)]

In <1993Apr5.131014.7376@mcc.com> breland@mcc.com (Mark A. Breland) writes:

>In article 1pirdgINNs48@shelley.u.washington.edu, bketcham@stein2.u.washington
.edu (Benjamin Ketcham) writes:
>>
>>Since nobody else has spoken up about this yet, I may as well mention it:
>>
>>The term "hacker" describes a culture of programmers who program for
>>enjoyment, as well as, often, for work.  The hacker culture espouses the
>>values of robustness and quality in software, and eschews kluge artistry.
>>
>>The term "hacker" has been imprecisely applied by the media to refer to
>>persons who break security on shared computer systems, and/or write and
>>disseminate software viruses.  The true hacker culture has nothing but
>>contempt for these people.

>While I would agree with your latter point of the media misapplying the
>term "hacker" to e-burglars, I am in diametrical opposition to your
>assertion that a true hacker "eschews kluge artistry."  Without igniting
>any language flame wars, the definition of hacker that I am familiar with
>(and have sadly had to experience in previous incarnations) more closely
>adheres to the following:

>  "What's the problem?  OK.  Gotta spec?  Great...I'll get back to ya."

>  [...six weeks later...]

>  "Here, how's this look?...great graphics, huh?!...oh, wrong functionality?
>   OK,...I'll get back to ya."

>  [...eight weeks later...]

>   "Alright, everythings cool now.  What?...it crashed?  Well, it only
>    handles the left mouse button.  ALRIGHT ALREADY...I'll FIX it!"

>  [...four weeks later...]

>   "Put an exception handler in every routine so it won't crash...but the
>   performance may require more cycles and I/O channels.  Oh, there are
>   no more available resources?  Hmmmm.  What?...a design document?...
>   traceability?...capacity and throughput analysis?...what are those?
>   Aren't ya supposed to just code to fit the spec?...oh, by the way,
>   I'll get to those inline comments after I finish this next project..."

You can disagree, but you are only perpetrating yet another of the
modern 'misdefinitions' of 'hacker'.  No, he's not going to be
particularly interested in all the paper, per se, but he isn't a 'hack
and slash' programmer, either.  The difference between a (real)
'hacker' and those other folks is that the 'hacker' *loves* what he's
doing and would rather make things elegant and functional than just
about anything.  Sometimes the elegance gets in the way of
comprehension by mere mortals, which is probably the biggest problem
with a 'pure hacker'.  Someday someone is going to want to enhance
what he did.

-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
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Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.