what is a hack writer?

[Never_Have_I_Because_I]

nothing to add. i would like to know.

[ftg]

From my American Heritage Dict.:

A writer hired to produce routine or commercial writing

Other useful text:

Hack, adj. 1. By, characteristic of, or designating routine or commercial writing. 2. Hackneyed; banal.

I.e., someone who’s paid by the word and so they’re going to produce words and not much more.

Note that it is a quite negative word. Hence (one of) its common usages among computer folk as bad programmer.

[Krisfer_the_Cat]

Someone who writes the same damned plot novel after novel.
And some of these hacks make big money! (Did I hear someone mention Anne Rice?)

[Ponder_Stibbons]

You mean, it’s not some guy who writes while driving a taxi? Damn, there goes my dream …

[robby]

Someone who writes crap, knows that they’re writing crap, and doesn’t care.

[DrDeth]

Well, right here in Cs there’s a thread about Steven king- there’s a good start…

[samclem]

Horses of the hackney type were often worked heavily, in the nature of things that were hired out to all and sundry. So the word evolved in parallel with the previous sense to refer figuratively to something that was overused to the point of drudgery. By the middle of the sixteenth century, hackney was being applied to people in just this sense, and was abbreviated about the start of the eighteenth century to hack, as in hack work; it was applied in particular to literary drudges who dashed off poor-quality writing to order—hence its modern pejorative application to journalists.

From Michael Quinion’s great website. He’s one of the very best.

worldwidewords

[CandidGamera]

@ftg

Note that it is a quite negative word. Hence (one of) its common usages among computer folk as bad programmer.

What? Huh? No… really? I think you may be off-base here. ‘Hack’ in the computer world is generally a neutral or positive term as I’ve experienced it. (One generally doesn’t refer to a programmer as a ‘hack’, but a ‘hacker’… one who hacks)

Originally, it meant a kind of rush-job, but that’s not the connotation I encounter these days.

Here, have a link to the ‘Jargon File’, a collection of Hacker-related slang :
Cite

[RealityChuck]

I proudly wear my “Hack Writer” button, since it’s also used as a negative term for someone who doesn’t write mainstream literary fiction.

[ftg]

@CandidGamera

What? Huh? No… really? I think you may be off-base here. ‘Hack’ in the computer world is generally a neutral or positive term as I’ve experienced it. (One generally doesn’t refer to a programmer as a ‘hack’, but a ‘hacker’… one who hacks)

Originally, it meant a kind of rush-job, but that’s not the connotation I encounter these days.

Here, have a link to the ‘Jargon File’, a collection of Hacker-related slang :
Cite

The Jargon File is MIT’s take on the meaning of certain words. Not everybody on the planet is an MIT LCS person. At 4 of the 5 colleges I’ve been at “hacker” is a purely negative term, sharing the same connotation, more or less, as “hack writer.” Only at the 5th were there a significant number of people who used it in a positive sense. So you had to deduce by context whether “He’s a hacker.” was a good or bad thing. Eventually people switched to “wheel” as a positive substitute, but even that got polluted since most self-described “wheels” were really lousy programmers.

And a “hack” is a bad programming/hardware patch to almost everyone in CS.

[msklystron]

@RealityChuck

I proudly wear my “Hack Writer” button, since it’s also used as a negative term for someone who doesn’t write mainstream literary fiction.

Such as?

Plenty of good writing goes on in the SF genre, and yet it is generally considered to be a lesser form.

Where can I get a ‘Hack’ button? I have had pretty positive responses to my rough draft so far, but one individual referred me to the Wretched Writer’s Society. Does this qualify me as a hack?

[CandidGamera]

@ftg

The Jargon File is MIT’s take on the meaning of certain words. Not everybody on the planet is an MIT LCS person. At 4 of the 5 colleges I’ve been at “hacker” is a purely negative term, sharing the same connotation, more or less, as “hack writer.” Only at the 5th were there a significant number of people who used it in a positive sense. So you had to deduce by context whether “He’s a hacker.” was a good or bad thing. Eventually people switched to “wheel” as a positive substitute, but even that got polluted since most self-described “wheels” were really lousy programmers.

And a “hack” is a bad programming/hardware patch to almost everyone in CS.

The Jargon File isn’t MIT-centric. It gathered a lot of slang from various computer-development hotbeds, and tries to stay up to date with the current state of computer slang. It even includes British computerese. Until I encountered what you posted, everyone in my experience who’s used the term ‘hacker’ or ‘hacking’ has either used it a.) incorrectly as a substitute for ‘cracking’ [these would be the nontechnical sorts], or b.) as a positive or neutral substitute for programmer/programming. [The people using it this way were the technically-literate sorts.]

The word ‘hack’ is a bit broader in my experience, than ‘hacker’ or ‘hacking’, but I most often see it used in reference to a clever modification of an existing system to make it do something it ordinarily wouldn’t or shouldn’t.