

Ask HN: What is a hacker - quellhorst

What do you consider to be a hacker? Some have called recently dead pop stars, tv pitchmen or even news reports hackers.
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jsz0
I would say it's anyone who finds a creative way to use something in a new and
interesting way. This may include producing an entirely new thing or simply
reworking some other thing -- or combining lots of different things together
to serve a new purpose. Traditionally it applies mostly to technology but I
don't see that as a restriction to the term at all. The first guy who figured
out you could chip flint stones into very sharp spears to hunt with was a
hardcore hacker.

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zimbabwe
I'll take the skeptical approach and say that "hacker" is a word used by
certain people to define certain other people, and that we're as likely to
figure out a good definition of "hacker" as we are of "love" or of "life".

Personally, I see a hacker as somebody that changes things in an unexpected
way. It's the unexpected that makes somebody a hacker instead of a coder or an
entrepreneur.

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quizbiz
a modifier/a tweaker

One that explorers and executes options which were not necessarily originally
intended.

When some call such figures hackers, they do not refer to any definition but
rather the name as a role. When We think about what comes to mind when we
think about a Hacker, what a hacker does, who a hacker is, what
characteristics hackers express, what role hackers play in society, we extend
the 'job title' to fill non-hackers which meet those characteristics.

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bgnm2000
an innovator

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frossie
A hacker is somebody for whom not all solutions are equal; the more elegant is
to be preferred.

Of course, definitions of elegance vary greatly :-)

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iterationx
i like unix terrorist's definitions from phrack 65: "hackers are people that
gain unauthorized access/privileges to computerized systems...And what is up
with the use of the term "cracker"? As far as I'm concerned, that term applies
to people that bypass copyright protection mechanisms."

