4 ms·
What's described here as "programming by coincidence" was the meaning of the negatively-connotated phrase "hacking up a program" in the 1980's, in Australia/New
by vorg 12y ago
What's described here as "programming by coincidence" was the meaning of the negatively-connotated phrase "hacking up a program" in the 1980's, in Australia/New Zealand at least, before the word "to hack" got redefined as something positive for the Hacker News crowd. Or maybe the U.S. usage was always out of sync with the Down Under usage.
- ggchappell 12y ago> Or maybe the U.S. usage was always out of sync with the Down Under usage. I suspect this is the case. I'm in the U.S., and I recall using "hack" in pretty much the HN sense as early as the mid-1980s.