Yet here we are on a site called "Hacker News" with the current top story being about a consensus algorithm with a load of implementations and real world usage,

Yet here we are on a site called "Hacker News" with the current top story being about a consensus algorithm with a load of implementations and real world usage, libraries in multiple languages. The original term comes, afaik, from journalists who would hack on typewriters, hence hacks.. it's another evolution, but I'm not great with etymology.