Ask HN: How many of you actually identify yourself as hackers? If so, why? - type0
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jasonkester
No, of course not.

And, of course, Hacker News is a really bad name for a community of software
entrepreneurs, for a number of reasons.

First, it encourages people who understand the correct meaning of the term to
associate this place with the art of computer programming, leading them to
submit articles about Haskell as though they belonged here. There are a lot
more people who care about that sort of thing than people starting software
businesses (startup or otherwise), so we get a bit lost in the noise.

The big one, though, is that "Hacker" doesn't mean what computer folk know it
to mean. To anybody but us (meaning roughly 100% of people), it means
"Criminal Who Breaks In To Your Computer". That's what we associate ourselves
with by naming this site the way we do.

I'd much rather go back to being "Startup News". At least then our only
concern would be convincing people to stop posting general tech news here.

~~~
bbcbasic
Wow that's news to me I thought this site was for tech news and Haskell was
welcome

~~~
chc
I think he's being a little bit reductive, probably because there's a dearth
of more interesting startup-relevant topics here these days.

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Mimu
When I saw people saying stuff like "hacking a salad" I considered this term
lost forever. Putting food together is not hacking a salad people, it's
literally making one.

~~~
qubex
I concur: the term ' _hacking_ ' has become hopelessly diluted by wannabe use
applied to unrelated activities that are only very weakly analogous.

A ' _hack_ ' is a self-deprecating description of a quick and dirty
programming job, anybody who proudly self-describes something they've done as
_hacking_ has totally missed the point. It used to be that one could not self-
style oneself as a _hacker_ but rather became one when others who are
recognised as such begin referring to one as such.

(I used to be referred to as being one, but I gave up my fascination with
computer security and exotic computer science concepts in the mid 2000s.)

~~~
shaftway
Hacking doesn't need to be self-deprecating. I'm proud of some of my work that
I consider a hack.

When I worked in finance, I hacked together a bridge between an FIXML order
pub/sub service and a proprietary exchange server. Was it my best work?
Obviously not. Was it ugly as sin? Hell yes. Did I slap it out in a few weeks?
Yup. Did it prop up the business for the 18 months it needed to develop a
"real" solution? Yeah.

That ugly hack probably earned the business millions in revenue.

Though I also concur; the term hacker is overused, diluted and twisted in
meaning, and I have no interest in bringing it back.

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veddox
1) I like to think of myself as a hacker, because as tnecniv says, in many
ways it's really an attitude.

2) I don't self-describe as a hacker in public however, because as znpy says,
it's a title that other people ought to give you first before you call
yourself that.

3) I especially don't self-describe as a hacker when non-techies are around,
because they'll just think I'm calling myself a cracker ( _not_ the effect you
want ;-) )

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askafriend
I think it's a pretty stupid word and I avoid having anything to do with it.
It also tends to be overused as well as misused.

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znpy
I have been thought that 'hacker' is a title that other people give to you,
but you do not give to yourself.

The only exceptions are people that "created" the hacker culture: people like
Stallman, Sussman, esr, etc.

Just my two cents.

~~~
tnecniv
I think to some degree, it's really an attitude.

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kapv89
I think this post needs some context. For example, this is what I think of
when I think of a "hacker": [http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-
howto.html](http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html)

It might be different for someone else.

