From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.0 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_40 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 8 Apr 93 17:12:41 GMT From: cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!csc.ti.com!til de.csc.ti.com!mksol!mccall@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (fred j mccall 575-3539) Subject: Re: Hackers (was Is General Kind) Message-ID: <1993Apr8.171241.8099@mksol.dseg.ti.com> List-Id: In <91874@hydra.gatech.EDU> jm59@prism.gatech.EDU (MILLS,JOHN M.) writes: >In article <1993Apr7.174347.103@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (f red j mccall 575-3539) writes: >>In <1993Apr5.131014.7376@mcc.com> breland@mcc.com (Mark A. Breland) writes: >> >[delete lots of optimistic prose, about the higher mission of hackers] >>You can disagree, but you are only perpetrating yet another of the >>modern 'misdefinitions' of 'hacker'. No, he's not going to be >"You can call a dog's tail a leg, but that don't make it so." -- Abraham Linco ln >"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." -- William Shakespeare >"A marvelous animal is the flea, with scarcely a difference 'twixt He and She, > but He can tell, and so can She." -- unknown, oft quoted by my father >"What we have here is a failure to communicate" -- Hud >'Hacker' means what the media mean it to mean. (could I say that fast??) >In popular usage it implies _lots_ more ability than responsibility >though criminal intent may or may not be attributed. I humbly [8*>) >suggest it's not a compliment, no matter how many software professionals (?) >wish that it were. Rather depends on whether the person who uses it knows what they're talking about or not. Contrary to your statement, the Press does *not* define the English language and what the words mean. If they did, we would all be mutually incomprehensible and unable to hold a discussion about any technical subject whatsoever. >It's the editors of the world you need to convince, not the >programmers. If people who *should* know better use words incorrectly (in order to make some political point about 'mandated languages' and their 'superiority', for example), how can we ever expect anyone else (like the Press) to get it right? >'Sanitation engineers' drive garbage trucks in many PC (no, not 'Personal >Computer') contexts. Keep trying, tho .. So what do 'Software Engineers' drive? ;-) -- "Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world." -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.