7 ms·

Ask HN: How many of you actually identify yourself as hackers? If so, why?

9 points by type0 10y ago

znpy 10y ago
I have been thought that 'hacker' is a title that other people give to you, but you do not give to yourself. The only exceptions are people that "created" the hacker culture: people like Stallman, Sussman, esr, etc. Just my two cents.
- tnecniv 10y ago
  I think to some degree, it's really an attitude.
askafriend 10y ago
I think it's a pretty stupid word and I avoid having anything to do with it. It also tends to be overused as well as misused.
veddox 10y ago
1) I like to think of myself as a hacker, because as tnecniv says, in many ways it's really an attitude. 2) I don't self-describe as a hacker in public however, because as znpy says, it's a title that other people ought to give you first before you call yourself that. 3) I especially don't self-describe as a hacker when non-techies are around, because they'll just think I'm calling myself a cracker (not the effect you want ;-) )
jasonkester 10y ago
No, of course not. And, of course, Hacker News is a really bad name for a community of software entrepreneurs, for a number of reasons. First, it encourages people who understand the correct meaning of the term to associate this place with the art of computer programming, leading them to submit articles about Haskell as though they belonged here. There are a lot more people who care about that sort of thing than people starting software businesses (startup or otherwise), so we get a bit lost in the noise. The big one, though, is that "Hacker" doesn't mean what computer folk know it to mean. To anybody but us (meaning roughly 100% of people), it means "Criminal Who Breaks In To Your Computer". That's what we associate ourselves with by naming this site the way we do. I'd much rather go back to being "Startup News". At least then our only concern would be convincing people to stop posting general tech news here.
- bbcbasic 10y ago
  Wow that's news to me I thought this site was for tech news and Haskell was welcome
  - Lordarminius 10y ago
    > Wow that's news to me I thought this site was for tech news and Haskell was welcome :)
  - chc 10y ago
    I think he's being a little bit reductive, probably because there's a dearth of more interesting startup-relevant topics here these days.
- crazypyro 10y ago
  Sometimes articles about programming languages do belong here. They have a large audience here and have since I've been around. This isn't "Startup News" and doesn't purport to be. In fact, the guidelines for hacker news specifically state that "[On Topic]...includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."
- icebraining 10y ago
  What makes you think stories about Haskell don't belong here, though? I mean, just look at the last stories submitted by pg (I've removed the YC/HN-specific links): This is the driest year in California history How Airbnb used predictive pricing to improve user experience Wallpaper group Source of the recent outagelet Moths and sloths: Slow food movement Migration of Monarch Butterflies Shrinks Again Under Inhospitable Conditions From Erratic to Effective: The Story Behind the Zapier Blog in 2013 Boardinghouses: where the city was born A Start-Up Moves Teachers Past Data Entry Why Are Americans Staying Put? Map: Income Taxes by US County Silicon Valley 40 under 40: Garry Tan JPMorgan applies for patent on bitcoin-like currency Medieval kids’ doodles on birch bark Rockstar: We celebrate the value and power of innovation Nut consumption reduces risk of death Economic history: What can we learn from the Depression? Stars of Tech World Lend Their Force to George Lucas Startups Like Berlin Because Visa Rules Are Nothing Like the U.S. Commuting's Hidden Cost Chemical 'clock' tracks ageing more precisely than ever before Stephen King’s Family Business Is an Haskell story really less relevant that all of these?
Mimu 10y ago
When I saw people saying stuff like "hacking a salad" I considered this term lost forever. Putting food together is not hacking a salad people, it's literally making one.
- bbcbasic 10y ago
  If you chop it up using a blunt knife it could be described as hacking
- qubex 10y ago
  I concur: the term 'hacking' has become hopelessly diluted by wannabe use applied to unrelated activities that are only very weakly analogous. A 'hack' is a self-deprecating description of a quick and dirty programming job, anybody who proudly self-describes something they've done as hacking has totally missed the point. It used to be that one could not self-style oneself as a hacker but rather became one when others who are recognised as such begin referring to one as such. (I used to be referred to as being one, but I gave up my fascination with computer security and exotic computer science concepts in the mid 2000s.)
  - shaftway 10y ago
    Hacking doesn't need to be self-deprecating. I'm proud of some of my work that I consider a hack. When I worked in finance, I hacked together a bridge between an FIXML order pub/sub service and a proprietary exchange server. Was it my best work? Obviously not. Was it ugly as sin? Hell yes. Did I slap it out in a few weeks? Yup. Did it prop up the business for the 18 months it needed to develop a "real" solution? Yeah. That ugly hack probably earned the business millions in revenue. Though I also concur; the term hacker is overused, diluted and twisted in meaning, and I have no interest in bringing it back.
- mbrock 10y ago
  rms is a hacker if anyone is a hacker, and he gives an example of hacking that involves eating with chopsticks at a Korean restaurant. https://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html https://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html
kapv89 10y ago
I think this post needs some context. For example, this is what I think of when I think of a "hacker": http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html It might be different for someone else.

9 points by type0 10y ago

znpy 10y ago

I have been thought that 'hacker' is a title that other people give to you, but you do not give to yourself. The only exceptions are people that "created" the hacker culture: people like Stallman, Sussman, esr, etc. Just my two cents.

tnecniv 10y ago
I think to some degree, it's really an attitude.

askafriend 10y ago

I think it's a pretty stupid word and I avoid having anything to do with it. It also tends to be overused as well as misused.

veddox 10y ago

1) I like to think of myself as a hacker, because as tnecniv says, in many ways it's really an attitude. 2) I don't self-describe as a hacker in public however, because as znpy says, it's a title that other people ought to give you first before you call yourself that. 3) I especially don't self-describe as a hacker when non-techies are around, because they'll just think I'm calling myself a cracker (not the effect you want ;-) )

jasonkester 10y ago

No, of course not. And, of course, Hacker News is a really bad name for a community of software entrepreneurs, for a number of reasons. First, it encourages people who understand the correct meaning of the term to associate this place with the art of computer programming, leading them to submit articles about Haskell as though they belonged here. There are a lot more people who care about that sort of thing than people starting software businesses (startup or otherwise), so we get a bit lost in the noise. The big one, though, is that "Hacker" doesn't mean what computer folk know it to mean. To anybody but us (meaning roughly 100% of people), it means "Criminal Who Breaks In To Your Computer". That's what we associate ourselves with by naming this site the way we do. I'd much rather go back to being "Startup News". At least then our only concern would be convincing people to stop posting general tech news here.

bbcbasic 10y ago
Wow that's news to me I thought this site was for tech news and Haskell was welcome
- Lordarminius 10y ago
  > Wow that's news to me I thought this site was for tech news and Haskell was welcome :)
- chc 10y ago
  I think he's being a little bit reductive, probably because there's a dearth of more interesting startup-relevant topics here these days.
crazypyro 10y ago
Sometimes articles about programming languages do belong here. They have a large audience here and have since I've been around. This isn't "Startup News" and doesn't purport to be. In fact, the guidelines for hacker news specifically state that "[On Topic]...includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."
icebraining 10y ago
What makes you think stories about Haskell don't belong here, though? I mean, just look at the last stories submitted by pg (I've removed the YC/HN-specific links): This is the driest year in California history How Airbnb used predictive pricing to improve user experience Wallpaper group Source of the recent outagelet Moths and sloths: Slow food movement Migration of Monarch Butterflies Shrinks Again Under Inhospitable Conditions From Erratic to Effective: The Story Behind the Zapier Blog in 2013 Boardinghouses: where the city was born A Start-Up Moves Teachers Past Data Entry Why Are Americans Staying Put? Map: Income Taxes by US County Silicon Valley 40 under 40: Garry Tan JPMorgan applies for patent on bitcoin-like currency Medieval kids’ doodles on birch bark Rockstar: We celebrate the value and power of innovation Nut consumption reduces risk of death Economic history: What can we learn from the Depression? Stars of Tech World Lend Their Force to George Lucas Startups Like Berlin Because Visa Rules Are Nothing Like the U.S. Commuting's Hidden Cost Chemical 'clock' tracks ageing more precisely than ever before Stephen King’s Family Business Is an Haskell story really less relevant that all of these?

Mimu 10y ago

When I saw people saying stuff like "hacking a salad" I considered this term lost forever. Putting food together is not hacking a salad people, it's literally making one.

bbcbasic 10y ago
If you chop it up using a blunt knife it could be described as hacking
qubex 10y ago
I concur: the term 'hacking' has become hopelessly diluted by wannabe use applied to unrelated activities that are only very weakly analogous. A 'hack' is a self-deprecating description of a quick and dirty programming job, anybody who proudly self-describes something they've done as hacking has totally missed the point. It used to be that one could not self-style oneself as a hacker but rather became one when others who are recognised as such begin referring to one as such. (I used to be referred to as being one, but I gave up my fascination with computer security and exotic computer science concepts in the mid 2000s.)
- shaftway 10y ago
  Hacking doesn't need to be self-deprecating. I'm proud of some of my work that I consider a hack. When I worked in finance, I hacked together a bridge between an FIXML order pub/sub service and a proprietary exchange server. Was it my best work? Obviously not. Was it ugly as sin? Hell yes. Did I slap it out in a few weeks? Yup. Did it prop up the business for the 18 months it needed to develop a "real" solution? Yeah. That ugly hack probably earned the business millions in revenue. Though I also concur; the term hacker is overused, diluted and twisted in meaning, and I have no interest in bringing it back.
mbrock 10y ago
rms is a hacker if anyone is a hacker, and he gives an example of hacking that involves eating with chopsticks at a Korean restaurant. https://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html https://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html

kapv89 10y ago

I think this post needs some context. For example, this is what I think of when I think of a "hacker": http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html It might be different for someone else.