What is a hacker? | Hacker News Reader

What is a hacker?

cs.berkeley.edu

28 pointsiofthestorm7 comments

The definition sounds like "scientist", but applied mainly to artifacts. Reminds me of this passage from ZatAoMM:

After a while you may find that the nibbles you get are more interesting than your original purpose of fixing the machine. When that happens you've reached a kind of point of arrival. Then you're no longer strictly a motorcycle mechanic, you're also a motorcycle scientist, and you've completely conquered the gumption trap of value rigidity. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper2/Zen/Zen%20and%20the%20Art...

Yes yes, hackers are just "young and immature", and just need to grow into "moral" adults.

The hacker aesthetic that he's talking about includes challenging preconceived notions. The result might be at odds with what is currently thought of as ethical, but it's not precluded from having ethics.

Stallman most certainly has an ethical basis. Torvalds is the free software pragmatist.

Gee, it would be nice if this little essay had a date. Yeah, a bit off topic, but it always bothers me when there is some article, blog entry, or whatever and there is no date so I can put the author's words in a temporal context.

Guess you didn't read to the end:

"Note: This is an appendix to 'Computer Hacking and Ethics,' a position paper I wrote for the ACM Select Panel on Hacking in 1985."

Yes it is an appendix. We know the date of the original work. but it does not give a date for the appendix.

I think it would be easier to make a list of things that a hacker is not.

  I'm a hacker and I'm okay
  I play all night and I sleep all day

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