Basically, I think that modern computer geeks…The law abiding kind, want something cool to call themselves to diferintiate from the general public who just use computers as they come out ot of the box. So they co-opted hacker, and started claiming it meant something that it never meant, like making an X-Box run Linux.
But try as they might, they cant sanitze it, it means what it has always meant.
That’s just the opposite of what happened. Eric Raymond is correct, “hacker” originally carried a positive connotation, as it originated at MIT in the 60’s to 70’s. Read Levy’s Hackers fore more details. Any other usage is incorrect and is largely caused by the idiotic media again.
Hello, I’m the English Language. When it comes to word usage, I’m strictly popular vote. If the majority of people use a word in a certain way, that’s what the word means. Etymology makes no none difference to I.
So when people, especially those in the news and media, call people who break into computers hackers, then that’s what hackers are. Are they bad people? Yes, they certainly are. They break into computers and do bad things. What about crackers? I like 'em with cheese. Oh, there’s a small in-group who likes to use the word in a different fashion? Wake up and smell the coffee, folks. I’m the English Language and I don’t care. Because I don’t have to.
From Levy’s Hackers, in a passage about MIT’s Tech Model Railroad Club in the 50s:
And that’s why it’s a shame that the English language doesn’t have an academy. The Spanish and French languages and Esperanto are capable of resisting illogical language change and language dilution from foreign language words entering their own.
UnuMondo
Note that the use of “hacker” to mean “good at programming” originated at MIT. A lot of other places in the '70s, if not earlier, used the term much as it is used outside computing: someone who is really bad at programming. Since the “Hacker’s Dictionary” originated at MIT and, well, MIT is MIT, they insist that the alternate meaning was never used by anyone ever. Hahaha.
A hacker hacks. A hack is a something done poorly. Writing books or code, doesn’t matter.
Quoth bdgr:
That may have been true at one time, but nowadays, most crackers (by which I mean persons who defeat computer security systems of whatever sort) just use pre-written scripts. Granted, in most cases, it does take someone who knows what they’re doing to create the scripts in the first place, and the authors of the scripts can, perhaps, be justly considered hackers. But the majority of the people who use the programs are just monkeys pushing the button.
So. Tell me how you can’t find the word “hamburger” or “microchip” in France these days, due to the “word police.”
There’s a pair of modifying terms to the label hacker that have arrisen in recent years, as a response to the media’s hijack of the term. They spring from the lore of old western movies: “White Hat” and “Black Hat”. A console cowboy who wears a White Hat is one of the “Good Guys” and one who wears a Black Hat is one of the “Bad Guys”. It’s one way of telling the codeslingers apart.
Oh, no. We are so not going to have a debate about language academies in GQ. Really, we’re not.
Does there remain a General Question on the table?
manny I apologize for the divergence.
Since I’m the OP, close it, please.
Even today, in the hacker comunity cracker is ONLY used for someone who defeats protection…Maybe not in polite society…
Well, dont blame the media, because when I first heard the term in comon usage, you never heard that refered to in the media.
Were talking pre-wargames here. Like I said, I can only speak for what I know personally…Around 30 years ago, hacker meant someone who broke into computers…It may have meant something differant at MIT, who knows. One of my co-workers is in the who’s who of computer pioneers and worked for univac back before core memory was even invented so maybe I will ask him what it meant the first time he heard it.
I’m sorry ftg, but you are wrong. A computer “hacker” can have great technical skill.
The word “hacker” has been corrupted, and is now generally interpreted as "someone who (illegally) breaks into and/or damages computers, networks, or websites. As Exapno Mapcase pointed out, we don’t have to like it (I certainly don’t), but we do have to live with it.
More technically oriented publications, such as The Register choose their words more carefully.
Script Kiddie: someone who uses an available program to achieve desired (usually malicious) effects. The “s’kiddie” is frequently unaware of the internal workings of the program, i.e., he is just a user.
Cracker: someone who figures out how to disable software copy protection, or someone who uses available software for same purpose. Sometimes “cracker” is also applied to people engaging in script kiddie style behavior.
Hacker: someone with supreme technical knowledge who figures out how to use pre-existing flaws in computer software to elicit outcomes unintended by the designers. Hackers can write the programs with script kiddies use.
Perhaps a bit of an oversimplification, but oh well…
Like I said: “hahaha”. How can I be “wrong” in knowing for a fact that “hacker” to mean “really awful programmer” wasn’t used at a whole lot of colleges since at least the early '70s? Are you claiming that I suffer from a massive and ongoing memory fault?
There was only one college I have worked at where some people used it in a positive way. Since a lot of us there used it in the negative, we got away with a lot of putdowns. Eventually the term “wheel” took over, but since it was applied to the same idiots, that didn’t work for long. (Long before “wheel” came to mean “good sysadmin”.)
ftg, what was the standard of “Good programming” that was being applied in this case? Was it programs that followed the rules of syntax and the expected conventions of coding style put forth? Or was it more simply “Does the program acomplish the required task?”
One of the cornerstones of “Hacking” is that there are many rules in a computer system; some can be bent, others can be broken. A lot of time, what made a hack a hack in the first place was a creative disregard for an accepted rule or convention, in order to efficently acomplish a desired task.
Does this make for “good” programming? If the definition of “Good” is measured in terms of program longevity and portability, then probably not. The rule that can be broken today on this platform may only be able to be bent on a different platform, and may become unbreakable on any system on the next release of the compiler.
It comes down to competing ideologies of what is the “right” way to use a computer. The conventional ideology says to trust and obey the rules and conventions, because they were laid out by people who understand how the system works. The hacker ideology says don’t trust the rulemakers, explore the system for yourself to find out its true capabilities, and to use anything that works.
It would be nice to have a source, instead of just making a bald assertion.
My favorite all time example of a true hacker: This guy was getting compiler errors for “undefined variables” in a subroutine. We checked over his code. Function A called function B with some variables. Function B called Function C. Function C needed the variables B was called with. We couldn’t convince him that he needed to pass the variables to C as well! He was completely clueless. We saw a lot of other crap going over his code. The really hilarious part was that he was a paid senior programmer in the computer center. He was promptly dubbed a “hacker” by one and all. Hacker means “really bad programmer”.
As for Urban Ranger. I am the cite. I have used “hacker” this way for at least 30 years. Almost everyone I know has used it this way.
Fun thing I used to do: email the MIT jargon file maintainer asking that the alternate meaning be included. Maintainer emails me back telling me that he has never heard the term used that way. Wait a year. Send same email. Get same response. Send a copy of his earlier email, asking what “never” means. No response. Lather, rinse, repeat. Like I said. “hahaha”
ftg, obviously I’m not going to dispute your personal experience. But just because you’ve never heard hacker used in anything but a negative context doesn’t mean that hacker = poor, incompetent programmer, end of story.
You are indisputably wrong. It is NOT “incorrect.”
If you look in any real dictionary, “hacker” can be correctly used as meaning “a person who gains unauthorized access to computers or computer networks.” That’s what the word means. It’s simply not an issue of debate; that’s one of the accepted meanings of that word whether you like it or not. That’s the way English works - if there’s common agreement on what a word means, that’s what it means, and when it goes into the dictionaries it’s even correct to use in an essay or on your Scrabble board. Deal with it.
BTW, for cites, try www.m-w.com or dictionary.com, not to mention the rather obvious fact that 200 million English-speaking people will tell you that’s what “Hacker” means. It might mean something else too, but that’s English. “Hacker” also has meanings totally unrelated to computers.