
Coders are not hackers. Hacker culture is dead and coders have killed it - Anon84
https://twitter.com/hyonschu/status/1216484082042863616
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ahuth
I don’t know. This seems overly harsh, and a pretty classic case of othering
people who are different than the author.

For example, I’m pretty sure a “hacker” could learn at Khan Academy. In fact,
considering anything other than someone’s skill seems somehow anti-hacker.

~~~
kedean
> In fact, considering anything other than someone’s skill seems somehow anti-
> hacker.

The term hacker was never about pure skill or knowledge, it's about ethos and
mentality. A fast implementation is nothing if it doesn't carry an interesting
twist that got it there, for example.

~~~
anonsivalley652
Twist, or a lot of trial-and-error, happy accidents and incremental
improvements.

Reminds me in undergrad when architecting a MIC-1 microcode implementation:

\- I built a macro-instruction profiling emulator to Huffman encode the micro-
instructions from all of the sample programs.

\- Every micro-instruction served several purposes (it was similar to VLIW but
shorter).

\- I used progressive decoding to save micro-ops.

Then, the resulting project was not only the shortest micro-code by far (37
micro-ops long) but significantly faster in terms of total micro-ops executed
than the next submission.

Note 0: I refuse to call myself a "hacker," it would be like referring to
myself with a title like "king" or "lord" in the third-person.

Note 1: I first learned to code without manuals per se or the internet, but
sitting in front of the incredibly-complete and useable Turbo Pascal IDE and
obsessively trial-and-error-ing. Then adding inline assembly, Borland C++, and
so on.

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detaro
Agree with the first sentence if it's read as "they are not equivalent
groups". Very much disagree with both halves of the second.

Just because not everyone programming computers is a "hacker" anymore doesn't
mean either of those things.

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silverreads
The scars on my hands and the memories of high voltage shocks past received
digitally or even orally agree with this sentiment.

I'm a shit coder. I'm a _great_ hacker. This weekend I just set up a peertube
instance, grabbed some body parts for a project car from the junkyard, and
ALMOST got my 3d print recycling machine working (just needs a damned 9mm
socket adapter). Ain't a programmer. It's just a thing I do when I have no
other alternative. i++

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zozbot234
The second tweet might be better expressed as "[h]ackers don't _ _just_ _ go
to Lambda School or Khan Academy". They do a lot more than that, surely - the
creative and aesthetic impulse is quite real.

Of course these things tend to go in cycles - we all remember the dotcom
environment of the 1990s, where even "knowing some HTML" was enough to be
hired as a coder. Hackerdom will rise again, there's no doubting that.

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anonsivalley652
Rhetorical, purist, black-and-white-thinking nonsense.

Step 0. Don't call oneself a "hacker." It's like claiming to be a Navy SEAL.
Identity labels are garbage, oversimplified mental shortcuts that trivialize
people anyhow.

Step 1. Be infinitely curious and playful without bounds. Try to break things,
use things improperly, dig deeper and void warranties. Coloring outside the
lines and then some.

Step 2. No odd clothing, jewelry, tats, colored hair or nom de guerre are
prerequisite. The better one can blend-in, the better they can hide in plain
sight.

Step 3. Find a tribe. If there isn't one, start one.

Step 4. Dent the universe, or at least have a good time and live it up.

