

“File descriptor table isn't something system wide” - nazri1
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/coreutils/2015-07/msg00037.html

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pavlov
This is the kind of link I like to see on HN because the content is not pre-
chewed clickbait -- you have to do a bit of work to figure out the context,
and that makes you think harder about what's being said.

~~~
cmrx64
This is the kind of link that makes me scratch my head when I see it on HN,
because my preconceived notion of "hacker" includes "understands operating
systems", in which case this knowledge is old hat (as he acknowledges). If you
don't already know OS minutia, nothing written here is going to shed much
insight.

~~~
JohnBooty

       This is the kind of article that makes me scratch 
       my head when I see it in the New England Journal of 
       Medicine, because my preconceived notion of "doctor" 
       includes "can perform thoracic surgery", in which case 
       this knowledge is old hat (as he acknowledges). If you 
       don't already know how to perform a heart bypass, 
       nothing written here is going to shed much insight.
    

There are lots of hackers with deep, deep knowledge in other areas of
"hacking" that are miles away from Unix file descriptors and so forth. A lot
of "true hacking" doesn't even involve Unix, just like a lot of talented
medical doctors aren't qualified to perform a heart bypass.

How about the crazy geniuses that made the first wire-wrapped Amiga
prototypes? Or the heroic coders who pulled off various feats of assembly
language coding on the incredibly constrained hardware in various game
consoles? Or the people who write web frameworks. Or the people who build
robots, or the people who built the chips that Unix runs on?

~~~
ild
Word "hacker" has become very vague lately, but the definition used 10 years
ago, did not include "people who build robots, or the people who built the
chips that Unix runs on". Those were called Electric Engineers AFAIR. "Hacker"
literally meant a guy involved with cybersecurity and therefore deeply into OS
internals. Then the word went through transformation and today may easily mean
"an Arduino hacker who made an automated bird feeder", "a RoR hacker who made
a homepage with it etc.".

~~~
luso_brazilian
I believe your view of the definition 10 years ago is the incorrect one.
Paraphrasing he Djikstra (misatributed quote) [1] hacking is no more about
computer security hacking than astronomy is about telescopes.

AS can be seen in the Jargon File ("a collection of slang terms used by
various subcultures of computer hackers" [2]) the definition for hacker "seems
to have been first adopted as a badge in the 1960s" and "it was used in a
sense close to this entry's by teenage radio hams and electronics tinkerers in
the mid-1950s." [3]

In the past years hacking (thanks to the connotation given by the mass media)
became synonymous with "miscelaneous computer mischief, sometimes malicious
and often related to computer network security" but that's a very recent
phenomenon.

[1]
[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Computer_science#Disputed](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Computer_science#Disputed)

[2]
[http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/introduction.html](http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/introduction.html)

[3]
[http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html](http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html)

------
vezzy-fnord
Some context: Al Viro is an ex-Plan 9 developer turned Linux kernel hacker.

