
Conduct Unbecoming of a Hacker (2014) - z1mm32m4n
http://sealedabstract.com/rants/conduct-unbecoming-of-a-hacker/
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01572
"And yet a great many of our institutions are set up to discourage, distract,
destroy and derail the making of anything."

This may not be obvious to everyone writing software. Or maybe authors today
just do not care. They are too busy chasing users.

As for the later some who would call themselves "hackers", I wonder: Did the
original "hackers" from whence the term was taken have such ambivalence and
accept what was made for them (including "platforms") fully knowing that it
meant lock-in?

Thwarting "hackers" from making things for themselves may not always be
obvious today because in fact some of these "institutions" are set up by
organizations who desperately _need_ developer contributions.

As long as they can take the contributions and use them to generate revenue or
mindshare _for the organization_ , they appear to be _encouraging_ people to
make things... but only if authors agree to jump through hoop after hoop.

"Instituition": Want access to our pool of end users? Jump!

Today's so-called "hacker": How high?

But what if the "hacker" _does not plan to share_ his program with end users?
What if he is writing it only for himself?

What is the purpose of making such an author jump through _any_ hoops? How
does that serve the author in any way?

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thomastjeffery
> Indeed, several point the fingers at closed-source software as the problem
> which I think is an incorrect, but not entirely unreasonable view.

I have to disagree with you there. Being able to create a _fix_ rather than a
_workaround_ is _very_ important to us hackers. Proprietary software is a
thick wall we often beat our heads against. Since all software is written by
hackers, we should promote a culture of making that software _free_.

Apart from that detail (wherever repeated), this is a fantastic article! There
is definitely a trend from hacking to thinking, and there are several ways we
can get that trend flowing the other way.

It course, thinking is the most important aspect of hacking, so we should find
ways to minimize those other aspects. For example, creating a parser/editor to
style code so we don't waste time nitpicking.

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brokentone
This is the best thing I have ever read on Hacker News. This is my only
comment on the matter.

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jdashg
The note on the commonality of patch authors making changes after getting an
r+ at Mozilla is a little misunderstood here. It's very common at Mozilla to
grant "r+ with nits", which is to say "yes land this code, but make these
changes first". It's generally not acceptable for patch authors to make
arbitrary changes after review, since that should incur another review!

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tomc1985
1) Who the hell is "Hacker Monthly"?

2) I wouldn't call Dr Dobbs a _hacker rag_. That'd be 2600, or PoC||GTFO, or
Phrack. Dr Dobbs is a trade journal.

~~~
norswap
This is the "hacker news"* definition of "hacker". What you're referring too
is what HN will call a "cracker" (or "phracker" for cracking communication
systems).

A "hacker" on here is just someone that does neat technical stuff
(purposefully simplify, don't nitpick).

*Which is much older than that of course, dating to the BBS era and earlier.

~~~
tomc1985
That's what a hacker has always been -- even the 'h4x0r' definition. There is
a necessary component of deviance and anti-authority in the word that nearly
everyone seems to have forgotten about.

If you're making computers do something they're not supposed to be doing,
you're hacking. The "entrepreneur hacking away at his business" definition
hearkens back to the word they use for a bad writer: a "hack".

