Per Merriam-Webster:

Main Entry: hack·er Pronunciation: 'ha-k&r Function: noun 1 : one that hacks 2 : a person who is inexperienced or unskilled at a particular activity <a tennis hacker> 3 : an expert at programming and solving problems with a computer 4 : a person who illegally gains access to and sometimes tampers with information in a computer system

Today, usage 4 seems most common in the computer industry, but I often see my Java-loving-coworkers (counfound them! confound them to heck!) using "hack" in form #2. "Let's not hack that up". "I don't want to see any hacks" here. Needless to say, I don't like those comments very much -- often my solution of adding a bitmask or something equivalent saves hundreds of lines of code and is a good deal more efficient. But that cleverness is "a hack" and therefore not appreciated. Grr.

What "not hacking" usually means to them is, "let's not do something particularly clever here, but instead let us overdesign a painful solution that completely overreaches beyond the original scope of the problem".

Is the day of cleverness in computer software lost to these folks? This goes back to some of my earlier "Programming is Art" type comments. To loose sight of the foundations of the art, and the ability to find clever solutions...to make that non political correct...that's not good.

Yes, folks can write unmaintainable code that is hugely special-case driven, containing many large if-combs, with lots of one-offs, fudge factors, etc, and there are cases where you see code like "c&=(int)m+n+y>>3&0xFC%4". But let's not call that hacking. Let's call that "bad code". Let's call this "cluelessness" or "junior high school programming".

I'm tired of saying "I've got a cool hack that allows XXX" and getting dirty looks for it. So what languages other than Perl & C still allow for the hacker mentality rather than scorn it? Perhaps Ruby has promise, I have not investigated it deeply. Python seems too concerned by structure and orderliness to allow for a hacker-mindset. Perhaps some more functional languages still do?

Anyhow, I don't want to see my profession replaced by in-it-for-the-money drones with lots of invalid preconceptions. Hacking is about thinking outside the box. Or, actually, thinking that there is no box. There is no one true way.

Power to the camel. Death to the smiling black & white pointy triangular thing with two arms.

Edit by castaway, changed accidental a tag to &lt;

In reply to Fighting the denigration of hacking by flyingmoose

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