Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!cca!csin!cjh
From: cjh@csin.UUCP (Chip Hitchcock)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: definition of hack/hacker
Message-ID: <330@csin.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 19-Sep-83 13:12:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: csin.330
Posted: Mon Sep 19 13:12:54 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 19-Sep-83 22:24:18 EDT
Lines: 10


   I have been randomly hanging around MIT for 10+ years now and (from what
I've heard) suspect that technical use of "hack" may predate significant
computer availability. "Hack" can be used in a wide variety of circumstances
but it almost always includes the connotation of using something in a way the
designers didn't intend, e.g. tunnel hacking (getting from one place to another
via the steam tunnel network), or "hack" (noun) which can mean either an
unorthodox-but-effective solution to a problem or an elaborate practical joke
(anything from putting a nipple on top of the lesser dome to welding a
streetcar to its tracks).