5 ms·

From personal experience, this resonated with me, complete from the rocky start with high school CS in Logo onward. I know the feeling, and (though I'm male) I

by Udo 13y ago

From personal experience, this resonated with me, complete from the rocky start with high school CS in Logo onward. I know the feeling, and (though I'm male) I recognize many of the waypoints described. And I, too, don't feel like a real hacker. But of course, the word means wildly different things to different people. Even though I love programming very much and I'm doing it all the time, and especially doing it for fun, it was only after joining HN that it dawned on me I could be considered a hacker in some circles. Still, my primary definition of being a hacker is someone who is insanely active in hacker and cracker culture, someone very interested in systems security, someone who knows to debug a defunct DSL modem given only an oscilloscope and a bit of tinfoil. That's not me. If I were to apply for a VC program that looks for hackers, I'd probably feel like a bad fit or a complete fraud. Nevertheless, I probably am a hacker. Labels are always an imperfect solution. One other thing about getting people to program: Male or female, I wouldn't know where to start either. In school I was literally the only kid into actual programming, out of about 500 students. It was only much later in life that I made my first actual programmer friend, and I also recruited an unhappy English major into programming, but most people just aren't interested. And of those who can, and by necessity must, program most would never do it in their spare time for fun.

jeswin 13y ago
catb has the best definition of hacker I have seen: - http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html - http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html - The guys at hack-a-day or nyc resistor are hackers. - Fabrice Bellard is a hacker, for reasons you can see at http://bellard.org/ http://bellard.org/ - People who are _really good_ at *nixen are hackers, because of the nature of the beast. Unix isn't about learning everything from a book, instead you could hack it with what you know. - PG is a hacker for using LISP to build Viaweb (and ARC etc), but not for "hacking" the startup ecosystem (that's just overuse of the term). - DHH is a hacker, for the creative ways in which he pushed Ruby The key thing is "hack value". Hack value is about your technical expertise and your creativity, and both of these things have to be present.
- Udo 13y ago
  Okay, thanks for the correction. You confirmed my suspicions, I'm not really a hacker. And neither are most people on HN I wager. That's yet another club where a geek can fail to get into. Maybe we shouldn't be here, but I can honestly say it's the most interesting community out there that matches my favorite subjects. I'm definitely neither Bellard, nor a LISP millionaire, nor remotely DHH, and I already talked about the hack-a-day guys in my oscilloscope comment. The verdict is in: I can't call myself a hacker. So what's the message here for people like me? I guess the conclusion is for starters that I really am an impostor in a lot of ways, including participating on this site.
  - S4M 13y ago
    Dude, who care if you are a hacker, and in which case, according to which definition. Like many people here, you post insightful comments and have interesting side projects - I recall one of your post where you explained how you made a new language from scratch in five weekends with no experience in compiler theory or language design. I don't know what it makes you, but I think that's pretty awesome - and since I'm not a hacker myself (for the same reasons you say you are not really a hacker), me saying you're a hacker wouldn't make any sens.
    - Udo 13y ago
      Wow, thanks! :) Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not really concerned about being an impostor, I actually rather enjoy being an impostor of somewhat horrifying dimensions in real life. ;)
    - morganherlocker 13y ago
      > you explained how you made a new language from scratch in five weekends with no experience in compiler theory or language design. I agree that the term is pretty meaningless, but I am pretty certain this would qualify under the most stringent of definitions. Personally, I prefer the term 'tinkerer', since it does not come with all the baggage but captures the spirit.
  - ehsanu1 13y ago

by Udo 13y ago

jeswin 13y ago

catb has the best definition of hacker I have seen: - http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html - http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html - The guys at hack-a-day or nyc resistor are hackers. - Fabrice Bellard is a hacker, for reasons you can see at http://bellard.org/ http://bellard.org/ - People who are _really good_ at *nixen are hackers, because of the nature of the beast. Unix isn't about learning everything from a book, instead you could hack it with what you know. - PG is a hacker for using LISP to build Viaweb (and ARC etc), but not for "hacking" the startup ecosystem (that's just overuse of the term). - DHH is a hacker, for the creative ways in which he pushed Ruby The key thing is "hack value". Hack value is about your technical expertise and your creativity, and both of these things have to be present.

Udo 13y ago
Okay, thanks for the correction. You confirmed my suspicions, I'm not really a hacker. And neither are most people on HN I wager. That's yet another club where a geek can fail to get into. Maybe we shouldn't be here, but I can honestly say it's the most interesting community out there that matches my favorite subjects. I'm definitely neither Bellard, nor a LISP millionaire, nor remotely DHH, and I already talked about the hack-a-day guys in my oscilloscope comment. The verdict is in: I can't call myself a hacker. So what's the message here for people like me? I guess the conclusion is for starters that I really am an impostor in a lot of ways, including participating on this site.
- S4M 13y ago
  Dude, who care if you are a hacker, and in which case, according to which definition. Like many people here, you post insightful comments and have interesting side projects - I recall one of your post where you explained how you made a new language from scratch in five weekends with no experience in compiler theory or language design. I don't know what it makes you, but I think that's pretty awesome - and since I'm not a hacker myself (for the same reasons you say you are not really a hacker), me saying you're a hacker wouldn't make any sens.
  - Udo 13y ago
    Wow, thanks! :) Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not really concerned about being an impostor, I actually rather enjoy being an impostor of somewhat horrifying dimensions in real life. ;)
  - morganherlocker 13y ago
    > you explained how you made a new language from scratch in five weekends with no experience in compiler theory or language design. I agree that the term is pretty meaningless, but I am pretty certain this would qualify under the most stringent of definitions. Personally, I prefer the term 'tinkerer', since it does not come with all the baggage but captures the spirit.
- ehsanu1 13y ago