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This is such a poorly thought out article. The term hacker has also meant so many different things to so many people. I grew up with the 90's hacker scene. I wa

This is such a poorly thought out article. The term hacker has also meant so many different things to so many people. I grew up with the 90's hacker scene. I was a teenager for almost all of the decade and I started programming and reading about, interacting with, and being a part of the 90's hackers groups. Those groups were called criminals, crackers, or cybergangs but a lot of the old school MIT crowd of hackers. Then the mainstream media picked up the term to mean criminals. Then my age group entered the workforce and redefined the term to mean an excellent programmer, as in hacker news. It's been constantly changing and meaning different things to different groups. How can you co-opt something that fluid? This article smacks of someone complaining about a culture they don't understand themselves.

yellowapple 11y ago
> Then my age group entered the workforce and redefined the term to mean an excellent programmer, as in hacker news. It's worth noting that "hacker news" was probably never meant in the sense of "excellent programmer", but rather in the sense being criticized by the article: one of venture-capitalist-backed businesses "disrupting" industries to dominate said industries (bringing money to the venture capitalists in turn). The implication that HN - which was created and is owned and maintained by YCombinator, arguably among the more prominent of such VCs - was named in reference to anything but the very thing the article describes is inaccurate.
- jasode 11y ago
  >It's worth noting that "hacker news" was probably never meant in the sense of "excellent programmer", but rather in the sense being criticized by the article: I think your notation is revisionist history. Here's an example of a PG's use of "hacker" from 2001. PG is very much talking about "hacker" as an above-average programmer not content with an inferior "blub" language: http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html YCombinator was started in 2005. The "Hacker News" was started in 2007.[1] The audience it intended to serve was the type of "hackers" mentioned in the 2001 essay. PG also later uses "hacker" in the sense of a tech nerd who would rather focus on a startup rather instead of being discontent working at a corporate job. This definition of "life-hacker" is also not relevant to the article's definition. The article is talking about programmers who serve VCs' agendas instead of pursuing their true desires. PG has never advocated that. The essay also complains about the VCs who are pseudo-hackers because of their monetary influence. PG isn't talking about them either. Ergo, this website was not trying to attract them as an audience. (The "demo days" does try to attract VCs but that's an event separate from the website.) One can look at Internet Archive Wayback Machine[2] and see that the front page was dominated by topics unrelated to "chasing the money". Just a bunch of tech geek topics. Programming languages, algorithms, etc. It was very much "news" for "hackers" in the positive connotations of that term. [1]http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html [2]https://web.archive.org/web/20071016064109/http://news.ycombinator.com/news https://web.archive.org/web/20071016064109/http://news.ycomb...
  - yellowapple 11y ago
    The matter of whose history is "revisionist" depends on perspective, and it's really hard to say whether your or my perspective here is the right one. That said, painting my notation as revisionist appears to be inaccurate. > YCombinator was started in 2005. The "Hacker News" was started in 2007.[1] The audience it intended to serve was the type of "hackers" mentioned in the 2001 essay. Are you sure about that? Plenty of large companies have worked to build cultures around their products. Should we really trust YCombinator's motives more than, say, Apple's when they build a product that claims to be geared toward makers while gradually pulling said makers into a particular ecosystem? In other words, just because YCombinator / Paul Graham claim Hacker News to be geared toward technical-loving programmers and tinkerers v. VC-backed (or prospective VC-backed) entrepreneurs doesn't mean that neither of them are lying to us or themselves. > PG also later uses "hacker" in the sense of a tech nerd who would rather focus on a startup rather instead of being discontent working at a corporate job. That happens to describe a lot of people who wouldn't be classified as "hackers", or even future ones in their larval stage. It also happens to describe many (if not most) startup founders of the variety being criticized in the article. > One can look at Internet Archive Wayback Machine[2] and see that the front page was dominated by topics unrelated to "chasing the money". There were a lot of technical topics, yes, but "dominated by topics unrelated to 'chasing the money'" seems to be false, seeing that the top result has a plug for a startup called "ThriveSmart" and is basically how why some startup uses Rails, result #4 is Betteridge's-Law-invoking clickbait rhetorically implying that VC-backed startups should for some reason be ashamed of themselves for not towing to puritannical sensibilities regarding pornographic content (though, to be fair, Paul Graham did post in that article's comment section calling it out on said puritannical and rather hypocritical bullshit), result #7 is about having dinner with YC folks and being acquired by Conde Nast, result #8 is about Caterpillar making money through "Web 2.0", result #16 is a WSJ piece praising the open-office concept and disparaging cubicles "because it's what Silicon Valley does, and therefore deserves attention for some reason", result #29 is some blog post about entrepreneur burnout, and result #30 is a rather-uncritical NYT piece on advertising strategies of large businesses. I haven't even gotten to the second page yet. And yet you cite this as proof that my viewpoint is revisionist somehow. Yeah, there were quite a few awesome technical articles back then, but even back then the Valleyesque distortion cuts through the purported hacker-centric focus of HN. This isn't to say that Paul Graham wasn't or isn't an excellent hacker, nor is it to say that his own definition of hacker back in 2001 was somehow incorrect or out-of-line with the proper (and admittedly nebulous/vague) definition, and nor is it to say that he or YCombinator had motives out-of-alignment with the purported target audience. Rather, it's to suggest that maybe - just maybe - folks around here are taking the "hacker" part of "hacker news" too strongly at face value when its YC heritage ought to be warranting at least a small grain of salt, and that a lot may very well have changed in six years.
- jaegerpicker 11y ago
  As was already pointed out this site was started with exactly the idea of a excellent programmer intended. IE PG's hacker vs blub programmers. Along with his theory that hackers will rise to the top over the blub because of their excellence in development. This was intended to break away from Reddit and other sources of news for hackers to help them elevate their ability. That's basically exactly my point hacker means many things to many people and is impossible for one group to co-opt. In short the article is non-sense.

yellowapple 11y ago

> Then my age group entered the workforce and redefined the term to mean an excellent programmer, as in hacker news. It's worth noting that "hacker news" was probably never meant in the sense of "excellent programmer", but rather in the sense being criticized by the article: one of venture-capitalist-backed businesses "disrupting" industries to dominate said industries (bringing money to the venture capitalists in turn). The implication that HN - which was created and is owned and maintained by YCombinator, arguably among the more prominent of such VCs - was named in reference to anything but the very thing the article describes is inaccurate.

jasode 11y ago
>It's worth noting that "hacker news" was probably never meant in the sense of "excellent programmer", but rather in the sense being criticized by the article: I think your notation is revisionist history. Here's an example of a PG's use of "hacker" from 2001. PG is very much talking about "hacker" as an above-average programmer not content with an inferior "blub" language: http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html YCombinator was started in 2005. The "Hacker News" was started in 2007.[1] The audience it intended to serve was the type of "hackers" mentioned in the 2001 essay. PG also later uses "hacker" in the sense of a tech nerd who would rather focus on a startup rather instead of being discontent working at a corporate job. This definition of "life-hacker" is also not relevant to the article's definition. The article is talking about programmers who serve VCs' agendas instead of pursuing their true desires. PG has never advocated that. The essay also complains about the VCs who are pseudo-hackers because of their monetary influence. PG isn't talking about them either. Ergo, this website was not trying to attract them as an audience. (The "demo days" does try to attract VCs but that's an event separate from the website.) One can look at Internet Archive Wayback Machine[2] and see that the front page was dominated by topics unrelated to "chasing the money". Just a bunch of tech geek topics. Programming languages, algorithms, etc. It was very much "news" for "hackers" in the positive connotations of that term. [1]http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html [2]https://web.archive.org/web/20071016064109/http://news.ycombinator.com/news https://web.archive.org/web/20071016064109/http://news.ycomb...
- yellowapple 11y ago
  The matter of whose history is "revisionist" depends on perspective, and it's really hard to say whether your or my perspective here is the right one. That said, painting my notation as revisionist appears to be inaccurate. > YCombinator was started in 2005. The "Hacker News" was started in 2007.[1] The audience it intended to serve was the type of "hackers" mentioned in the 2001 essay. Are you sure about that? Plenty of large companies have worked to build cultures around their products. Should we really trust YCombinator's motives more than, say, Apple's when they build a product that claims to be geared toward makers while gradually pulling said makers into a particular ecosystem? In other words, just because YCombinator / Paul Graham claim Hacker News to be geared toward technical-loving programmers and tinkerers v. VC-backed (or prospective VC-backed) entrepreneurs doesn't mean that neither of them are lying to us or themselves. > PG also later uses "hacker" in the sense of a tech nerd who would rather focus on a startup rather instead of being discontent working at a corporate job. That happens to describe a lot of people who wouldn't be classified as "hackers", or even future ones in their larval stage. It also happens to describe many (if not most) startup founders of the variety being criticized in the article. > One can look at Internet Archive Wayback Machine[2] and see that the front page was dominated by topics unrelated to "chasing the money". There were a lot of technical topics, yes, but "dominated by topics unrelated to 'chasing the money'" seems to be false, seeing that the top result has a plug for a startup called "ThriveSmart" and is basically how why some startup uses Rails, result #4 is Betteridge's-Law-invoking clickbait rhetorically implying that VC-backed startups should for some reason be ashamed of themselves for not towing to puritannical sensibilities regarding pornographic content (though, to be fair, Paul Graham did post in that article's comment section calling it out on said puritannical and rather hypocritical bullshit), result #7 is about having dinner with YC folks and being acquired by Conde Nast, result #8 is about Caterpillar making money through "Web 2.0", result #16 is a WSJ piece praising the open-office concept and disparaging cubicles "because it's what Silicon Valley does, and therefore deserves attention for some reason", result #29 is some blog post about entrepreneur burnout, and result #30 is a rather-uncritical NYT piece on advertising strategies of large businesses. I haven't even gotten to the second page yet. And yet you cite this as proof that my viewpoint is revisionist somehow. Yeah, there were quite a few awesome technical articles back then, but even back then the Valleyesque distortion cuts through the purported hacker-centric focus of HN. This isn't to say that Paul Graham wasn't or isn't an excellent hacker, nor is it to say that his own definition of hacker back in 2001 was somehow incorrect or out-of-line with the proper (and admittedly nebulous/vague) definition, and nor is it to say that he or YCombinator had motives out-of-alignment with the purported target audience. Rather, it's to suggest that maybe - just maybe - folks around here are taking the "hacker" part of "hacker news" too strongly at face value when its YC heritage ought to be warranting at least a small grain of salt, and that a lot may very well have changed in six years.
jaegerpicker 11y ago
As was already pointed out this site was started with exactly the idea of a excellent programmer intended. IE PG's hacker vs blub programmers. Along with his theory that hackers will rise to the top over the blub because of their excellence in development. This was intended to break away from Reddit and other sources of news for hackers to help them elevate their ability. That's basically exactly my point hacker means many things to many people and is impossible for one group to co-opt. In short the article is non-sense.