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I'm embarrassed to see such nonsense coming from a company we funded. A hacker is not intrinsically someone who throws things together to see if they'll work.
by pg 13y ago
I'm embarrassed to see such nonsense coming from a company we funded. A hacker is not intrinsically someone who throws things together to see if they'll work. The phrase "kernel hacker," for example, doesn't mean someone who writes OSes in that way. It means someone who is deeply familiar with OS internals.
- tel 13y agoWhile I agree with the notion of the word as you're using it here being material, it's disingenuous to ignore that "hacker"—in common usage—is constantly fighting with going the way of "ninja rockstar". (Is this better than going the way of "cracker"? Who knows.) It seems that as soon as a term becomes an HR draw a flood of overinflated resumes comes quickly to erase its meaning. Hacker the way you're using it is, I believe, a term bestowed upon someone by another, more universally recognized hacker. In that way, I don't think it's possible for a company to broadcast that they're "hiring hackers". By definition, you have to know who's a hacker before you can approach them. It's use in marketing for hires is thus pretty much dead on arrival.
- LukeWalsh 13y agoI have never been more pleasantly surprised with a click to the comments section, came here to post this exact same thing.
- lowboy 13y agoI think this is an issue of a semantic mismatch surrounding a buzzword. A kernel "hacker" and web "hacker" have different flavours. I can see where they're coming from against certain interpretations of the word, but they should have been more specific.
- spitfire 13y agoUnfortunately, the meanings of words change over time. "Hacker" in the general usage has come to mean throwing things together quickly to see if they'll work. It is frustrating to see, but once a word comes into common use you lose control of it.
- pg 13y agoIf you take a look at the HN jobs page, you'll see that's not true. Of the companies looking for "hackers" one is doing document signing and the other is writing healthcare software.
- Smudge 13y agoI didn't read it as ZenPayroll trying to redefine what "hacker" means. Rather, they are simply stating what "hacker" typically describes in the context of a job board. In my experience, their described usage is pretty common, especially among hiring posts for startup jobs.
- selmnoo 13y agoThis is clearly a case of semantic disputes. Hacker in the MIT definition of the word emphasizes cleverness and playfulness, and I think this is how most people (including the HN crowd here) usually mean to use the word. I should note that the term 'kernel hacker' has more or less developed on its own, separately, as a phrasal noun. One could very well argue that the definition of 'hacking' extends to sloppy implementation methods, so calling the logic in the submitted post 'nonsense' may be going a little overboard here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(programmer_subculture) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(programmer_subculture)
- pg 13y agoHas "Lisp hacker" also developed separately as a phrasal noun? "Unix hacker?" "C Hacker?" The term "hack" extends to sloppy implementation. I wrote about that here: http://paulgraham.com/gba.html http://paulgraham.com/gba.html but the word "hacker" doesn't simply mean someone who produces hacks in that sense.
- gailees 13y agoopened the comments just to see if pg had chimed in on this. glad you came in to clarify. thank you. this is somewhat offensive as a hacker -- moving fast allows me to iterate, and several iterations is wayyyy better at trying to build something perfectly the first time. even if you want things to be perfect, you should hire hackers. just have them iterate before you do new releases.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoI felt it was a way of getting people to look at their solicitation, nothing more.