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Comment by elthran | Hacker News Reader

Definitely agree with one of the comments on the blog - the domain (haxx.se) really doesn't help the author's case here when trying to explain to a layperson.

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Right - I know the person complaining is a little bit misguided (and seemingly refusing to understand, which can be frustrating) but when your primary contact is "@haxx.se" you must surely be at least a little bit prepared for these sort of things.

I'd prefer to give the author the benefit of the doubt, but it seems odd to even post this publicly at all unless a tiny part of them wanted to have a "haha look at this idiot" rant and they knew it could be justified under "I was only asking for help...".

If people come to me not knowing how stuff works and are just asking for help, I would never make fun of that person and would tear into someone who did.

On the other hand, if someone was woefully wrong about how something works and came at me as if their ignorance was my problem to solve, they can sod off. And I'd be happy to post their threatening and hilariously wrong headed emails all over the Internet, because for a lot of people being publicly humiliated is the only way they start listening.

On my SaaS application's file submission page, I have a small paragraph directed toward administrators along the lines of: If you'd like to batch upload your files, download curl from (haxx.se url), and use the following command line, bla bla bla.

Having this link to "haxx.se" is a relatively high volume source of comments by my users.

Host it yourself, that's what I do.

It also helps with curl changes breaking something or other. Once upon a time curl has optimized something, and it triggered a bug in AWS EC2 network driver.

Might be worth for either you or haxx.se to use a more neutrally-worded redirect or alias domain. Something with curl in it.

Also, from http://daniel.haxx.se/blog/about/

>I’m Daniel Stenberg, a network hacker working for Mozilla.

Sigh. Why does everyone have to be a hacking rockstar ninja? What's wrong with not using a word that has negative connotations to the rest of the world, and just calling yourself a developer/engineer?

You realise this is the man that created CURL, right? If anyone is allowed to call himself a hacker, it's Daniel.

Everyone is "allowed" to call themselves whatever they want.

I would argue there are practical rules to follow depending on your audience. In this case it seems fine but obviously can cause issues with the modern interpretation of what hacker means.

What's wrong with using whatever words you want on your personal site to describe yourself and the work you do?

Who cares that some ignoramus directs her anger at him? Do you also think "hackers" or software devs shouldn't have long hair or listen to rock music?

"hacker" was positive before it was negative, it's fine to hang onto it, because at worst you're only hurting yourselves (hackers). (and it's not even a pejorative, anyway)

Why all the downvotes for this comment? I think the point is reasonable. It's fine for us to use the word "hacker" in the non-criminal sense among ourselves (for example, the title of this site), but not where the general public is likely to see it and misunderstand it.

> but not where the general public is likely to see it and misunderstand it.

So nowhere. It's on the public internet which is where 'the general public' is likely to see it so suggesting that you don't use some phrase where 'the public' can't see it in practically means you can't use it anywhere.

I know the last thing I want to do is self censor myself everywhere because someone somewhere might get offended.

It's not "self-censorship," it's understanding that the generally-accepted definition of a word is different from it's obscure jargon meaning. The word "hacker" has meant "someone who maliciously breaks into computer systems" since at least the 1980's (thirty years ago, before some HN readers were even born). Languages are fluid.

Yes languages are fluid but words also have various meanings. If we have to prevent ourselves from using some word because others may find it offensive, that is self-censoring.

OP tried to get around that by trying to say that when you could be heard by 'them' you shouldn't use those words, but this is the public internet. You are always communicating in the presence of those that will be offended.

This isn't a matter of anyone being "offended," though. No one finds the word "hacker" offensive, they just might have a completely different definition of it depending on what their experiences are. You might as well use a word that's unambiguous.

Likewise, editing a paper to remove grammatical errors is also not "self-censorship." It's improving the clarity of your message.

What word or words do you suggest that are fully, completely, 100% unambiguous identifiers in this instance?

I don't care that some ignoramuses will take my self-identification as a hacker the wrong way, and I refuse to stop because you and others don't think it's "fine" for me to do it. It's my choice, and trying to convince me otherwise will get a downarrow click in return.

Even though I agree completely with you, you came to Hacker News to say that

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