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From: barmar@mit-eddie.UUCP (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: "Hack" is a sacred word?
Message-ID: <848@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 25-Oct-83 02:30:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.848
Posted: Tue Oct 25 02:30:45 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Oct-83 02:49:16 EDT
References: <114@ccieng6.UUCP> <1313@rlgvax.UUCP>
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
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From: dave@rlgvax.UUCP (Dave Maxey)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: "Hack" is a sacred word?
Message-ID: <1313@rlgvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Oct-83 02:22:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.1313
Posted: Fri Oct 21 02:22:33 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Oct-83 01:56:32 EDT
References: <114@ccieng6.UUCP>
Organization: CCI Office Systems Group, Reston, VA
Lines: 20

> ... but tell me please... what ever happened to:
>
>				Programmer

The problem with "programmer" is that it is much too general.  In my
father's company's DP department there is a guy who learned COBOL at one
of those places that advertises "you too can be a computer technician,
or just look like one...".  HE is a programmer, but he is not dedicated
to the art of programming.  He would not stay up for 36 hours straight
in order to finish a program.  He is not a member of that elite known as
"computer hackers".

Many people have recently pointed out that the meaning of a word is the
way it is used by a large segment of the population.  While I agree with
this in principle, there is obviously something wrong which is making us
feel that the word "hacker" is being misused by a large segment of the
population.  I think a good analogy is some homonyms which are often
iinterchanged, such as "their" and "there"; just because half of the
times I see these words they are misused doesn't mean that they are
interchangeable.  Perhaps the problem with "hacker" is that there are
two large segments of the population, each with conflicting definitions,
and some concensus will have to be reached at some point.  Or maybe it
is a problem of misinformation: realize that to most lay people, this
was a new word when the media began using it to describe the breakin
artists, so the lay people just assumed the media's definition, without
realizing that they were being misinformed.  Maybe this is how new words
go from being jargon to real words, but I think something got lost in
the translation.
-- 
			Barry Margolin
			ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics
			UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar