Comment by EliRivers | Hacker News Reader

Comment by EliRivers | Hacker News Reader

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WTF are you talking about? "Hacker" is entirely cultural.

It was in its infancy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(programmer_subculture) ) and it is now. Part of it's current culture is the pretence that it's all about skill; it's not. The completely lacking in skill won't get recognised as part of it, but it's attitude and style that buys admission to that club.

These days, software places that are looking for "hackers" generally mean they're looking for inexperienced youngsters who have dabbled in a handful of currently trending web frameworks, but have "Agile" written on the crumpled t-shirt they will wear to the interview. The world's finest software engineer could turn up but because that person has decades of experience, plans their software before they write it, children in college and a liking for going home at five, the world's finest software engineer will be rejected on grounds of "culture fit". HN is heaving with people who have immersion baptised themselves in this particular kool-aid.

You seem to be confusing "hacker" with "hipster".

It wasn't me who pushed those two words so close together. I sometimes wonder when those who were known as "hackers" back when it meant something will find a new word, but then I remember that they tend to love word games and will never decide on anything, and they've got better things to do with their time anyway.

A subculture that requires you to have a specific skill...

Any skill. There are bio-hackers. Lock-hackers. Engine-hackers. Clothing-hackers. On and on and on. The skill has become irrelevant. Just any skill. Attitude and style is now what makes it "hacker".

Must be a changing thing. I've always thought "hacker" without qualifiers meant "person who can code".

At risk of showing my age, it never meant that; or at least, if that's what it means now, it's a very modern interpretation and the word has basically become meaningless.

I've got a copy of Levy's "Hackers" on my desk, printed in 1984. The first chapter opens in the late fifties (i.e. almost sixty years ago) in the MIT model railway club.

"Hackers" are (or at least, were) people who solved problems in a particular way. A good hack involved some clever dodge around a limitation, or some new creative technical thinking to achieve a task. In code terms, someone might find a way round a memory limitation by reusing something in a non-standard way, or perhaps someone might hide some extra calculation in the fly-back time of a CRT monitor. Hacks show a knowledge and understanding beyond the standard methods, a knowledge and understanding often gathered through exploring deeply and chasing personal itches; creativity based on a more thorough understanding than just knowing the syntax. The skill good hackers tended to have was just a base knowledge that allowed their creativity to fly; sometimes someone would churn out a creative, non-standard solution purely because they didn't have the skill needed, and didn't know the elegant standard method.

A "person who can code" is not a hacker (under the traditional definition, at least). That's simply a person who can code. Some of the finest programmers are not hackers. Some of the finest hackers are not outstanding programmers. Yes, there's a broad correlation; good hackers tend to be good programmers (although certainly not the other way around), but the two terms are by no means synonymous.

If you've not read Levy's "Hackers", it's a good read.

It only means that today because so many people idolize hackers and so many people want to hire hackers that everyone just calls themselves hackers as a political move.

The only skills a "Hacker" needs is to be able to learn new things quickly and curiosity.

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