Why Your IT Department Needs To Staff a Hacker

First time accepted submitter anaphora writes "In this TED Talk, Rory Sutherland discusses the need for every company to have a staff member with the power to do big things but no budget to spend: these are the kinds of individuals who are not afraid to recommend cheap and effective ways to solve big company problems. This article argues that, in the IT world, this person is none other than a highly-skilled hacker. From the article: 'To the media, the term “hacker” refers to a user who breaks into a computer system. To a programmer, “hacker” simply means a great programmer. In the corporate IT field, hackers are both revered as individuals who get a lot done without a lot of resources but feared as individuals who may be a little more “loose cannon” than your stock IT employee. Telling your CEO you want to hire a hacker may not be the best decision for an IT manager, but actually hiring one may be the best decision you can make.'"

Comments

Quite obvious for security reasons

[Life2Death]

One cannot fix what they do not know how to break, or how it breaks.

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[SomePgmr]

It doesn't sound like that's what they're talking about.

I think they're talking about the "I'll just get shit done where it needs doing, by whatever means I feel most appropriate" type worker. In my work experience, that guy is usually the one that is just an OK programmer, but the only one in the building that actually knows how to work on his machine, too. He probably also doesn't much mind office politics because he'll blow right past it and deal with any fallout when the problem is solved. He may or may not have read the manual. He's the practical person more than the academic, if you're brave enough to stereotype like that. ;)

You wouldn't believe the supposed "really great programmers" I've seen that just throw their hands up when something goes sideways on their workstation, or sit on their hands for days over a management dispute. They're there for one job, to write textbook quality code for a single project, collect the paycheck and be out the door at 5:01 unless someone insists that he stay. That's it. If anything else happens that complicates that arrangement, it's like a train derailment.

I know, I'm being a bit obtuse about the difference where there's a million shades of grey... but it's something I've seen a lot and I agree with the general point.

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[St.Creed]

True enough. If you really want to hire one, though, replace the name "hacker" with "troubleshooter" or "all-round developer". Management can understand why you would want to hire a troubleshooter, as opposed to a hacker who "just makes trouble".

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[Tough Love]

Didn't bother even to read the summary?

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

What you describe is what I call the "Just get it done" attitude, and it's one I've personally had for a very long time. People with this attitude sometimes do get themselves in trouble (I know I have) but they're also the guy who can pick something up and poke at it for an hour or two and produce a result, which is a useful skill to have, particularly if the shit hits the fan.

I've worked with guys with a similar attitude, and I've also worked with guys at the opposite end of the spectrum: the ones who'll say "I don't know what that is so I'm not touching it".

An effective organisation needs a mix of people. You can't have all hackers: nothing will ever got documented (or even possibly finished). You need some forward looking academic guys to do the planing, and you need process-and-document guys to hold everything together and reign in the hacker types. Oh and you certainly don't want too many of the "It's not my job guv" types.

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[Arancaytar]

You're thinking of the wrong kind of hacker.

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[ArhcAngel]

You just described the job requirement for a trade floor tech. I've been working in the trade support role for ~10 years and that's exactly what we do. On a trade floor where seconds count management doesn't care if you skirt company policy to get a problem solved in the shortest amount of time. IT can address the issue formally post trade close. Corporate IT doesn't always get the urgency with these environments and explaining to them why you need the firewall turned off because it just went postal and started blocking the main trading hub isn't likely to get you anywhere.

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[element-o.p.]

What you describe is what I call the "Just get it done" attitude, and it's one I've personally had for a very long time. People with this attitude sometimes do get themselves in trouble (I know I have) but they're also the guy who can pick something up and poke at it for an hour or two and produce a result, which is a useful skill to have, particularly if the shit hits the fan.

There are a couple of problems with this type of person, and to be clear, I tend that direction myself and fortunately, so does my boss. I've seen cases where we've built circuits on a verbal request, but then the service orders never get put in and the customer never got billed. I've seen cases where we got a project 75% complete, but then the customer pulled the plug before there was a contract signed, or the requirements were changed so that we had to start over. I've seen cases where what was documented and what was actually built were two entirely different things. And I've seen cases where a union was in a pissing match with...someone, I don't actually know who...and they got their collective boxers in a wad and grieved a bunch of guys and their managers because on the day that the order was due for a customer (after a month wait), they still hadn't even strung the CAT-5 in the data center, so a bunch of my coworkers just went in there and did it themselves.

I'd still much rather work with a "just get 'er done!" type than the typical bureaucrat, though!

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[sycodon]

"To a programmer, “hacker” simply means a great programmer. "

I've been doing this since 1986. I have never, ever heard anyone, in a large company (10,000+) or small (11) one, call a great programmer a hacker. I have heard them call "hackers" irresponsible, self important jerks who have little regard for the fact that a company will out live the brief time of their employment and that those who follow will have to deal with their non-standard, obtuse, "brilliant" way of doing things.

It's not about You, it's about providing the infrastructure for the company to do business in a reliable and predictable fashion. All of the safeguards and practices developed over the years to provide stable systems, delivering accurate results argue implicitly against the romanticized definition of a hacker and certainly against the reality of your average hacker.

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[SuricouRaven]

There is a difference. The hacker is an expert in haste and improvisation. When the network is down due to a failure of a nonredundant fiber interface, the troubleshooter is the one who leaves everyone working on pen and paper while a 24-hour urgent delivery of a new SPF is arranged. The hacker is the one who is trailing ethernet cable out of the window on the top floor and back in on the bottom to make a quick-and-dirty workaround that'll have the network somewhat operational again in fifteen minutes.

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[internerdj]

In the moment of crisis, they are a lifesaver pushing your software out moments before you piss off the customer. Of course, they are also often the reason you lost three weeks of development time chasing a bug in undocumented code that isn't in the repository and they don't remember writing.

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[peragrin]

What you describe though can be tempered with a bit of forethought.

before you get it done, dot the I's and Cross the T's for approvals.

I too am the type of person who will get it done without being told. but I always make sure I have written approval before I start. if you need a contract signed you make sure it is signed. That is part of getting the job done, and in fact it is usually step one.

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[element-o.p.]

...and when upper management (your boss's boss) says, "service orders are on the way -- just go ahead and set this up." you do what? Draw a line in the sand and tell him you'll do it when you get a signed contract? He's a type-A personality. If I tell him I'm not doing it without a contract, I'll be out on the streets.

I'm not talking about a situation where I'll have a Career Limiting Move if the contracts aren't signed. I'm low enough on the food chain that I won't be the guy who gets canned for it, but it's not good for the company (and I do care about the company I work for) when we don't get paid for products we are providing because the contract was never finalized.

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[Paracelcus]

YES, excellent point! And may I add that the person you are describing is much more likely to be a "seasoned" worker, and the first one to be let go in a pinch (no fun/does not socialize).

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[jklovanc]

I guess you have had contact with some pretty poor troubleshooters. A good troubleshooter would so a quick analysis to see if pen and paper was an acceptable option. If it was not he would resort to a hack such as you suggest. He may also spend the few minutes to quickly analyse if the hack will do more damage than good.

As another poster suggests the "quick and dirty workaround" may expose the network to intrusion and if it is a secure network, like a medical data system, could expose the company to thousands of dollars in fines.

My first question would be what is a non-redundant fiber interface doing at such a critical link? To me that is poor system design.

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

...and when upper management (your boss's boss) says, "service orders are on the way -- just go ahead and set this up." you do what? Draw a line in the sand and tell him you'll do it when you get a signed contract?

Well, he 'told' me to do this in email, Right? So, that's the "written approval before I start".

If it wasn't in email, then email them and ask them to reply with what they want done, 'just so I have it straight'. Then save that email.

I mean, come on.

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[grcumb]

There is a difference. The hacker is an expert in haste and improvisation. When the network is down due to a failure of a nonredundant fiber interface, the troubleshooter is the one who leaves everyone working on pen and paper while a 24-hour urgent delivery of a new SPF is arranged. The hacker is the one who is trailing ethernet cable out of the window on the top floor and back in on the bottom to make a quick-and-dirty workaround that'll have the network somewhat operational again in fifteen minutes.

I beg to differ. The REAL hacker is the one who's been running on their own clandestine ethernet (possibly Internet) connection quietly for weeks or months, and simply turns it on for the rest of the company the moment he sees a connectivity problem. And that's ten minutes before anyone else realises what's happening.

At least that's what I'd do. (Hi, Boss!) 8^)

I have a problem with the 'no budget' part of the assertion, though. It doesn't have to be a lot, but a good hacker does need enough discretion to spend a little money from time to time on 'useless' things like that extraneous ethernet cable or a network-enabled KVM that isn't strictly necessary but sure comes in handy when a server stuffs in a way that nobody can fix, or a 3G modem with a decent data plan that allows him to back up his music collection^W^W^W^Wmonitor mission-critical backups from the road. Most importantly, the hacker-in-residence needs to have discretion enough to contract outsiders from time to time to do little needful things that he can't be arsed to do himself.

Likewise, the real value of a hacker is someone who has management's ear. It's one thing to be the friendly, half-mad hermit living in the cave that nobody visits until they need a Ben Kenobi; it's another thing entirely to be able to explain in clear terms to the CEO that while this Enterprise Solution will indeed increase synergy, maybe they should just use this $2 hack running on PostGRES on a 3 year old server until such time as the company figures out what its requirements really are.

(P.S. In case it escaped you, I am my organisation's hacker. I don't have a lot of budget, but I do have some. And I have real authority, though I don't tend to exercise it for its own sake.)

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[sarysa]

But when you enter the world of software, dotting the i's and crossing the t's devolves into mindless bureaucracy.

There is way too much focus on hardware in this thread. I've regularly been this archetype on the software side of my company. Client or server, issue with a product or issue with the dev environment..there is a lot of unnecessary bureaucracy in modern companies and I've frequently been the one to cut through the crap.

This can be anything from skimming through the self gratifying api documentation you see everywhere when developing plugins, to writing tools unpromped because they'll save time in the long run, to literally solving a code problem while others around me discuss it...which is pretty funny because they're realizing the fix was faster than the red ape they were putting up. I will happily go out of my area of expertise to "get 'er done".
/br/> In spite of all this painting me as a thoughtless speed demon, I actually put a lot of planning into things and have worked on vast products in an organized, but efficient way.

That said, there is a balance to be struck between corporate policy (and general human interaction) and my brand of efficiency. True to the stereotype, I am not very social and have few friends. But even if lower runs of mgmt can't stand me, higher rungs like me.

It's a weird and VERY risky game to play, bu it is a legitimate niche to carve out in a modern company. Now I'm directly under a boss who was my boss before and liked me, but in a different dept. But I get to pretty much be myself and have a ton of autonomy within the company. So I can't complain. :)

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

When it's a choice between risking an attack or losing a $40,000,000 trade the business really doesn't give you a choice.

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[Life2Death]

That's not a hacker, but instead a "hack" who is good at bitch work.

I was just following tradition and not RTFA

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

When it's a choice between risking an attack or losing a $40,000,000 trade the business really doesn't have the ability to assess the risk.

FTFY. Have they even bothered considering how much they could lose if there was an attack? Probably more than $40m. Maybe the entire hub?

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[Floyd-ATC]

This.

That said, when management decides they can just keep using the quick-and-dirty cable out the window solution instead of paying for something proper they will soon get into trouble. When I took over the network at my workplace after about 10 years of symbolic funding, there were flat layer 2 networks spanning some 120 WAN sites over 480 square kilometers using multiple radio hops and FreeBSD based tunnels for encryption. Very cheap, very clever... and very useless for getting any actual work done. When management finally woke up they had to spend a LOT of money to rebuild everything from scratch, a process that has taken tree and a half years and still isn't finished.

Every company needs a hacker, but they also need someone in charge with enough technical insight to know when to let loose that hacker and when not to.

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[laurelraven]

My first question would be what is a non-redundant fiber interface doing at such a critical link? To me that is poor system design.

The answer? "Redundancy costs money."

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[jklovanc]

The full statement should really be "Redundancy costs money and lack of redundancy costs a lot more money". There is an old saying; you can pay me a little now or a lot later. By definition a critical system is one where the company will lose a lot of money if it goes down and it eventually will. The short sighted decision to not have redundancy is usually a bad one.

Re:Quite obvious for security reasons

[laurelraven]

The full statement should really be "Redundancy costs money and lack of redundancy costs a lot more money". There is an old saying; you can pay me a little now or a lot later. By definition a critical system is one where the company will lose a lot of money if it goes down and it eventually will. The short sighted decision to not have redundancy is usually a bad one.

This is very true; however, most businesses don't see past the "Redundancy costs money" part, and get caught up in the short-term price rather than looking to the long term one.

Also, saying all of that wasn't quite as pithy as I was shooting for, so...

On Staff?

[WrongSizeGlass]

I don't need a hacker on staff. I'll just leave a few ports open, like FTP, Telnet, HTTP, RDP, etc. They'll find me and I won't have to spend a cent on payroll! ;-)

Re:On Staff?

[virgnarus]

That's right, you won't! Someone else that's filling your shoes will, as you're busy at home updating your resume.

Re:On Staff?

[N!k0N]

I don't need a hacker on staff. I'll just leave a few ports open, like FTP, Telnet, HTTP, RDP, etc. They'll find me and I won't have to spend a cent on payroll! ;-)

That's like expecting your car's security will be improved by leaving the windows down in a well-visited parking ramp in an area with no security cameras. No, you'll just get robbed, and likely the inside will be trashed because if there's one thing criminals love more than a free lunch, it's shitting on someone else's hard work for thrills. There aren't many real hackers left in the world... it's all assholes looking for cheap thrills or cash. Those of us who still do it to teach ourselves about how these amazing little boxes of wires and boards work and make them do nifty things for us are about as plentiful as 20-something aged stamp collectors.

I believe "woosh" is in order.

Re:On Staff?

[virgnarus]

So the moral of the story is: don't leave your lunch in your car, and keep the windows up so some jerk doesn't come around and leave a complimentary air freshener in your car's interior.

Re:On Staff?

[PuZZleDucK]

Yeah, I hate it when my jam sandwiches taste like new car! On the other hand it's hot here and I hate it when my sandwiches are toasted... What a dilemma!

Re:On Staff?

[Anonymous Coward]

That "wooshing" sound is because the car windows are down ... right?

Re:On Staff?

[davewoods]

I got in trouble for cracking a weak wireless signal. I found the office responsible and notified them how it was very unsecure, even I could hack into it! They were not happy.

Things must be slow at TED

[Animats]

They must have had a slow day at TED and needed a talking head.

Re:Things must be slow at TED

[Anonymous Coward]

No,
You all miss the point. The point, said in terms I speak, is that IT is a cost center in almost every company that has an IT department. By having a resident hacker, you have the ability to generate prototypes quickly, and switch IT from a cost center to a profit center. By doing this rapid prototyping, you have the ability to demonstrate to management the ability of IT to increase profit. This is a *good thing*.

Re:Things must be slow at TED

[Anonymous Coward]

Every IT manager I know is groaning just hearing this. Guess what he'll get asked about next? Where's the guy who'll build a system no one else can support? You know, the guy who will quit and leave a trail of wreckage behind him? Where, oh where, can we find one for our very own?!?!?! It's visionary 'cause I saw it on TED.

To some extent, yes

[Thyamine]

I can agree to a point. I certainly know people/places that just throw money at a problem. And I know that when systems and down and the customer is starting to panic, that I've come up with some interesting and very good solutions. However there are problems with always trying to solve solutions with 'hacks'. They become unsupportable, they fail in unexpected ways, and they make it harder for you to get a budget to do things you simply can't/shouldn't hack a solution together for. 'What, why do we need a SAN? Remember how you wired those netbooks together for our web farm! Figure something out for us. KTHXBYE.'

But I do agree you need someone who can think creatively and not be locked into marketing speak anytime a problem comes up.

Re:To some extent, yes

[godrik]

I think teh point of the original article is not to build your IT staff out of hackers-that-don't-shave-and-keep-swords-under-their-pillow. But having one in the corner that will recall you periodically that "we don't need a supercomputer, we can do it in excel" is sane for a team.

Re:To some extent, yes

[crazyjj]

I become very wary when the higher-ups start talking about fixing problems without spending any money. It's usually corporate-speak for "Do everything for nothing." Some things are WORTH spending money on. Some things you absolutely NEED to spend money on. And hacking together cheap solutions only makes it even more problematic when one of these situations arises (Expect to hear "Hey, why do you need a budget bump now? You did fine last year on next-to-nothing"). Corporate culture almost demands that you spend at least enough money each year to not shock the hell out of the boss when you really NEED it one year.

Not to mention that hacked solutions tend to be a fucking NIGHTMARE to maintain over the long-term. Think about the day your "hacker" leaves and his replacement has to come in and try to figure out his predecessor's jerry-rigged mess.

Re:To some extent, yes

[mcmonkey]

Not to mention that hacked solutions tend to be a fucking NIGHTMARE to maintain over the long-term. Think about the day your "hacker" leaves and his replacement has to come in and try to figure out his predecessor's jerry-rigged mess.

QFT. While hacker != cracker, the submission is incorrect to say a hacker is a great programmer.

A hacker may or may not be a great programmer. What a hacker is, is clever. A hacker can get systems to do things they weren't designed to do. A hacker can repurpose tools to achieve novel results.

What a hacker does not do, is produce a solution that will be easily maintained.

Re:To some extent, yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. Quality work is made by following processes and using checks and balances, not by trying to patch holes with someone who doesn't understand the whole picture.

...Wrong. I was called in as a hacker to a fortune 500 (at the time, but no longer) manufacturing company that had an emergency. Their WAN connection was down which took out their VPN connection to their corporate offices which housed a lot of their IT equipment. It essentially left them dead in the water. To the tune of losing about $100,000/hr (not including employees lazing about with nothing to do). Their proprietary firewall failed. The cold spare turned out to be dead. The firewall vendor said they could have one next morning at 8 AM. I told them I could have them back up in about an hour.

One pfSense install later (and a call to corporate) and they were back up and running. Was it done with checks and balances? Approval all the way up the chain of command? A plan? A review? No. They simply said "Do whatever needs to be done and get it back online as quickly as possible." Done. At the next maintenance window, the pfSense 'hack' was replaced.

In the context of the article, the 'hacker' needs to be your 'go to guy' when you are looking for a brilliant solution to a tough problem. (And I'm not saying pfSense was some sort of 'brilliant' solution--I'm saying that it was 'brilliant' and a bit 'magic' to the IT-types at this company....which is why they are no longer Fortune 500)

Re:To some extent, yes

[Tough Love]

What a hacker does not do, is produce a solution that will be easily maintained.

Wrong, that depends on the hacker. To qualify as a great hacker, the hacks have to be good by this metric too. A lot goes into being a great hacker, but this much is always true: greatness is on more than one level.

Re:To some extent, yes

[a90Tj2P7]

What a hacker does not do, is produce a solution that will be easily maintained.

This. A thousand times, this.

A well-rounded IT staff would be better off with more money for staying up-to-date with training and new technology than having someone dedicated to hacking together ductape solutions and bandaid fixes because the business doesn't want to spend the money/time on the right tools to doing things the right way.

Hackjobs are a nightmare to maintain, inherit or scale up, and they're usually a bit shortsighted when it comes to conditions the hacker didn't expect or think about. You should think outside the box, but you need to need to make sure what you're making will fit back inside it. The approach and the knowledge you gain from it can be really useful, but I don't want to have to do something like find a way to force an insufficient PBX to meet a company's needs any more than I want to hold my car's bumper on with bungee cords.

Re:To some extent, yes

[sl4shd0rk]

Corporate culture almost demands that you spend at least enough money each year to not shock the hell out of the boss

This is the kind of mentality that makes management keep cutting IT staff, and budget, annually. If you're dumb enough to let one person "jerry-rig a mess" that's the fault of management.

Always, always have at least two people on a project. Documentation should be reviewed for accuracy on a regular basis. Have people design a plan on paper first before any hardware purchasing happens. Have them stick to it so you have an idea what's going on. If they need to change paths, the paper plan should be updated first.

You don't need to run to EMC everytime somone needs a bigger hard drive or test server.

Re:To some extent, yes

[Anonymous Coward]

A low-maintenance hack is a lot like a low-maintenance girlfriend.

There are very few, and once you start investing in one she becomes high-maintenance pretty quickly.

Re:To some extent, yes

[CanHasDIY]

What a hacker does not do, is produce a solution that will be easily maintained.

Wrong, that depends on the hacker.

Also depends on who's following along afterwards. Even the simplest hacks will quickly confound pedigreed ponies who only know how to follow directions.

Most of the hacks I've managed over the years would (by design) be fairly simple for another hacker to figure out, but those MBA's running the department? Yeah, good luck with that, Chuckles.

Re:To some extent, yes

[sjames]

That's why you don't want only hackers. Just one or two. When they create the amazing solution, then you get the other staff involved in documenting it and creating procedures around it so that it becomes a formal solution. That's also where you decide if it's a stop-gap, a prototype, a permanent solution or an abomination to be replaced yesterday.

Re:To some extent, yes

[war4peace]

There's just one problem that comes with that, and it's called management expectations. I've been doing that sort of hacks for a while. Management says "we need an automated reporting application that gathers data from 5 different sources and displays nicely formatted reports on a web page, 24/7, every 15 minutes, but we don't have a budget for that sort of thing". I got an old desktop, installed Apache, installed an Office suite, created some VBA code that did all that. The reports were displayed best in IE only; under FX, the colors were a bit garbled but oh well, it was a quick hack. Right?
Wrong. Management wanted FX compatibility. I talked them out of it, but it took me longer than actually writing the damn code in the first place. Then they wanted historical data, so I expanded my script to do that. Then they wanted e-mails to be sent to them automatically because they were too fucking lazy to check the damn webpage. Then they wanted 2 more data sources included in the consolidated reports. Then they wanted reports customization.
We have a saying here in my country which sounds like this: "You can't make a whip out of shit and expect to crack it". But management expected just that. There's a pretty thick line between aiming for more and being flat out ridiculous. And needless to say, I am not a programmer and never been one, my job was different but I took this project to see what could I accomplish.
That's the problem right there: you do something with nothing and then they expect you to do just that and more of it indefinitely. So good luck in hiring a "just get shit done" guy. It's good to have one. But the temptation to abuse him is high and most management level dudes have no clue when they cross the line.

Re:To some extent, yes

[silas_moeckel]

Can do it in excel is never a sane option, that's an unmanageable nightmare waiting to happen. You going to email the spreadsheets around while your at it so everybody has a local copy of different old versions and it's impossible to reconcile them all?

Re:To some extent, yes

[Bengie]

80/20 rule for life!

Re:To some extent, yes

[SuricouRaven]

This is why Scotty always padded his time estimates.

Re:To some extent, yes

[CodeArtisan]

Agreed. Quality work is made by following processes and using checks and balances, not by trying to patch holes with someone who doesn't understand the whole picture.

...Wrong. I was called in as a hacker to a fortune 500 (at the time, but no longer) manufacturing company that had an emergency. Their WAN connection was down which took out their VPN connection to their corporate offices which housed a lot of their IT equipment. It essentially left them dead in the water. To the tune of losing about $100,000/hr (not including employees lazing about with nothing to do). Their proprietary firewall failed. The cold spare turned out to be dead. The firewall vendor said they could have one next morning at 8 AM. I told them I could have them back up in about an hour. In the context of the article, the 'hacker' needs to be your 'go to guy' when you are looking for a brilliant solution to a tough problem. (And I'm not saying pfSense was some sort of 'brilliant' solution--I'm saying that it was 'brilliant' and a bit 'magic' to the IT-types at this company....which is why they are no longer Fortune 500)

Sounds like you're wrong about processes. Many people assume a process == bureaucracy. In all the large companies I have worked with, what you describe is covered by an Emergency Fix process, which basically will let someone dive in and fix things as quickly as possible without the usual chain of command overhead. However, once in place, there will be checks and balances applied after thee fact to ensure the implemented fix won't cause any security/maintenance.performance etc. issues in the future.

Re:To some extent, yes

[element-o.p.]

I think you are buying into a false dichotomy.

GPP is -- or at least, appears to be -- talking about long-term supportable projects. You describe how to get a system back up in a pinch. That's not an apples-to-apples comparison. For something that is going to be supported long-term, GPP is right -- you will have the best product by doing it correctly. When the chips are down, however, and you need to put something in place for a day or two -- or even a month or two -- until you can get the equipment to do it right, then you are correct. The trick is knowing when it is appropriate to put in a hack, and when things need to be done The Right Way.

Re:To some extent, yes

[luckytroll]

You quipped -
"What, why do we need a SAN? Remember how you wired those netbooks together for our web farm! Figure something out for us. KTHXBYE.'"

- I think the guy who got that line went on to invent iSCSI.

Not that I have anything against Fibre Channel --- as long as the buffer credits dont run out.

Re:To some extent, yes

[TheSpoom]

If the client is being shady with long term expectations of a software product they're paying you to build, you need to either make them let you participate in the planning, or find another client. There are software companies out there that understand why scope creep is a bad thing.

Re:To some extent, yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Can do it in excel is never a sane option, that's an unmanageable nightmare waiting to happen. You going to email the spreadsheets around while your at it so everybody has a local copy of different old versions and it's impossible to reconcile them all?

No. That's the part you leave to the sucker that takes the responsibility for it. Single point of contact, every get-the-job-done type knows that, or they wouldn't get the job done.

Quick and dirty fixes don't come with a service contract. Responsibility ends on delivery. I'll maintain it (at the usual rates), but either they agree this was a temporary solution and they are responsible for it, or we go to someone who gets the job done properly once and for all. I'll do that too btw, at the usual rates, but an extended timeline :)

Re:To some extent, yes

[Anonymous Coward]

What you are describing, minus the corporate lingo, is a process for not following any particular process. That is Dilbertian.

Re:To some extent, yes

[war4peace]

You either tried to reply to someone else's post, or didn't read mine.
Abort, retry, ignore?

Re:To some extent, yes

[Paracelcus]

"Think about the day your "hacker" leaves and his replacement has to come in and try to figure out his predecessor's jerry-rigged mess."

Been there, done that, but because "he" was well liked and fun to hang out with I got the blame for taking too long to fix what the dumbass kid had done!

Sometimes you just have to strangle a manager (sarcasm).

Re:To some extent, yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here. We are a regulated industry - everything goes through change management, review board, you can't get it done within 24 hours of your window then it has to start at the beginning, etc., etc. Crucial stuff.

And on top of that, we are a regulated industry that runs 24x7 and is deemed a part of the country's critical infrastructure. Tens of millions of people are highly impacted if we mess up. Forget about getting stuff done on the fly, right?

Well, no. Part of the critical infrastructure = you have a process for when the usual process is going to take too long. You might call it an emergency fix process, critical service restoration, whatever.

Everyone gets in a big room together. Someone is tasked with doing nothing other than taking notes - what you do, does it succeed, etc. The idea is you can tidy things up later, once you've gotten past the emergency outage. You know what's been done and what has to be followed up. A status e-mail is sent out to senior management every 30 minutes.

The DBA, network admin, Linux admin, etc., do their jobs. They do whatever's needed to get it back up. In an organized, efficient manner, but without needing to go through all the paperwork (that gets filled out later).

Not to brag, but the company I work for (can't identify it for security reasons) is the biggest of its type in the country by far, one of the ten biggest in the world, and we have a phenomenal reputation in the industry. What I've just described above is part of the reason why - we are careful, regimented, but if stuff is broken then we fix it. Immediately.

Re:To some extent, yes

[grcumb]

To qualify as a great hacker, the hacks have to be good by this metric too. A lot goes into being a great hacker, but this much is always true: greatness is on more than one level.

I couldn't agree more. My mantra is 'Keep the cost of failure small.' That's how a real hacker manages to stay employed past his first 5 years.

Good hackers have a little bit of the Fonz in them. If they're expending more energy than a quick smack on the side of the jukebox, they find another way to do it. They are deft, and they know that least change means least damage. They're not cavalier about their quick-and-dirty fixes. On the contrary, they know the cost of every hack and know how to mitigate that cost when circumstances allow.

Re:To some extent, yes

[Inda]

Shit, you work at my place? Or maybe you are me?

My boss can create =SUM(A1, A30) in Excel. He knows that I know even more than that. That's why I get the same sort of shit you do. Hey, all you have to do is pick the correct functions, yeah?

They're so fucked when I leave and they find out I've used the VBA witchcraft and no one else is willing to work for peanuts.

Re:To some extent, yes

[hairyfish]

$100k/hour, cold spare dead, NBD replacement... the problem isn't the lack of a hacker, more than likely these types of operations are caused by a team of guys who think they're hackers and don't need to follow proper process. Any system that generates $100k/hour should have fully tested and monitored resiliency with tested and available contingency. The solution to cowboys isn't more cowboys.

Re:To some extent, yes

[pnutjam]

I agree, I am always careful to document the open software and standards I am adhering too. In my mind it always looks straightforward and I have maintained systems for years. Unfortunately once it gets turned over to someone else they always have maintenance problems, usually because they cannot understand the process no matter how much training I provide.
However, I see this with commercial solutions also. Either the new guy can't understand the current stuff, or he needs to mark his territory by replacing things.

Re:To some extent, yes

[pnutjam]

I hold my car's bumper on with bungee cords you insensitive clod! (seriously, I'm driving a deathtrap..)

Re:To some extent, yes

[pnutjam]

This is a good post, hackers are great at keeping you under budget on projects. I remember one network infrastructure upgrade. My boss was unsure about how the new stuff would interact with the old and was hedging toward signing off on additional switch replacements (blowing our budget for the year). After I examined the quote, removed the padding, and assured my boss of interoperabilty we came in under budget and saved about $20k when we eventually upgraded the rest of the older equipment, on our schedule.

Re:To some extent, yes

[shiftless]

But the temptation to abuse him is high and most management level dudes have no clue when they cross the line.

That's why you need to start looking out for your own interests, instead of just being a doormat. When you "trust" the "authorities" to never abuse you, abuse is all you'll ever get.

Re:To some extent, yes

[shiftless]

Could you name the company in question? I'm curious to know who it is, and the knowledge might help others as well. These folks are obviously idiots for setting things up so a WAN failure can destroy their entire operation.

Re:To some extent, yes

[shiftless]

Have you ever had a girlfriend?

Re:To some extent, yes

[war4peace]

Ha, that's exactly what happened when my team changed organizations within the same LoB. I transitioned a tool made in VBA I had created and which we've been using to my former department. After a while, they wanted a small change (add some names into a drop-down list of agents which was hardcoded because it was a "quick hack"). I told them: press Alt+F11 in Excel, press Ctrl+F, search for any existing name and just copy that line of code,go to the end of the line, press Enter and Ctrl+V, then change the duplicate name with the new one. Rinse and repeat.
After a while they came back to me because they had messed up. I declined accountability, saying "I transitioned the tool, now I'm doing something else, go find your own resource". They escalated to their director who had a chat with my manager and guess what happened next...
Yeah, it was me who enhanced that tool 8 times now, because my manager is "managing up", little does he care about abusing his directs as long as he could lick some higher management boots.

Just don't call them a hacker

[crazyjj]

To the general public, the term “hacker” refers to a user who breaks into a computer system.

FTFY.

Best not to go to your boss asking to hire a "hacker." And I sure wouldn't use that term in writing.

Re:Just don't call them a hacker

[chispito]

To the general public, the term “hacker” refers to a user who breaks into a computer system.

FTFY.

Best not to go to your boss asking to hire a "hacker." And I sure wouldn't use that term in writing.

To be fair, I find the general public is often more informed than the media are.

Re:Just don't call them a hacker

[Nidi62]

This is what I was going to say. What I can think of is to basically call him a MacGuyver. I mean, that's basically the role Southerland is suggesting the guy plays, right? Plus this term comes with a more positive connotation than "hacker" would.

Re:Just don't call them a hacker

[SJHillman]

That's because the general public informs the media. It's like a game of Telephone, in which each link further from the source is more convoluted than the previous link.

Subject Area Experts >> People that work with the experts or have intermediate experience in that field >> enthusiasts/hobbyists >> selective public that will read an article on the topic from time to time >> general public that "knows a guy" >> media who gets it from a "guy who knows a guy" or reads a blog by "a guy who knows a guy" >> ... ad infinitum ... >> politicians

Re:Just don't call them a hacker

[crazyjj]

I like MacGuyver, though it might become anachronistic as more young people grow up in the post-MacGuyver era. I was actually shocked the other day to learn that one of the new hires was born in the 90's. I guess it had never occured to me that someone old enough to work could have grown up completely in an era I consider so recent.

Re:Just don't call them a hacker

[St.Creed]

You're right. Telling management you want to hire a McGyver, troubleshooter or "general all-round developer" is fine. But announcing you want to hire a hacker is just a dumb move in any company.

Re:Just don't call them a hacker

[Nidi62]

I like MacGuyver, though it might become anachronistic as more young people grow up in the post-MacGuyver era. I was actually shocked the other day to learn that one of the new hires was born in the 90's.

That's a good point, but if you think about it, you're trying to sell the hire to management, right? Management at this time, especially at the department level, should still be old enough to recognize the reference.

Re:Just don't call them a hacker

[I_am_Jack]

This is what I was going to say. What I can think of is to basically call him a MacGuyver. I mean, that's basically the role Southerland is suggesting the guy plays, right? Plus this term comes with a more positive connotation than "hacker" would.

I've worked some places where it wasn't MacGuyver, but B.A. Barabbas, as in "..get me a BBQ, a trash can and a tube radio, 'cause I'm going to make a server!"

Re:Just don't call them a hacker

[betterunixthanunix]

What term would you use, then? How do you distinguish someone who considers programming their day job from someone who loves to program regardless of whether they are being paid to do it (which is not to say that hackers do not care about getting paid)?

Re:Just don't call them a hacker

[geminidomino]

but B.A. Barabbas

Is he the one who pities the fool who put Jesus on the cross?

Re:I can't be the only one...

[Monsieur Canard]

*raises hand*

That definitely would've made those debugging sessions a lot more fun.

Re:I can't be the only one...

[YodasEvilTwin]

It might result in a lot more "debugging" than you want. STDs are bad, mmkay?

There's a balance

[grasshoppa]

I'm a big fan of standardized solutions from a name big enough to provide consistent support. That said, sometimes 2 hours spent writing a script is cheaper than 20,000 spent to your vendor to accomplish the same thing.

It's a balance, and it's up to the manager to determine the best financial choice.

Re:There's a balance

[serviscope_minor]

I'm a big fan of standardized solutions from a name big enough to provide consistent support.

If by standardized solution, you mean a piece of utter piece of shit and if by "name big enough to ptovide support" you mean Oracle, then sure.

Though you might want to add a few zeros to your figure of 20,000 if you want a big name.

Re:There's a balance

[s.petry]

Nah, I can't say I agree with you. The problem we have now in IT is that we have really only given ourselves 2 possible solutions, unlike what grasshoppa suggests as a third alternative. It currently goes like this.

Big contract houses and huge pay outs for everything. This could be Dell or HP, with full board support, iLO licenses, insight managers, etc... Oracle and IBM have the same thing. It's a fixed price for everything, and you have to order from the catalog for them to support you. Need a 1 off for something? 1 year and a million dollars later you may have a new set of reports on utilization. Yes, things that simple are horribly expensive and lengthy to get done when they are not in the catalog.

The only alternative I see outside of the above in big companies, is the "FFFA" method of IT support. Yes, a horrible Fucking Free For all, where every admin does their own thing. Guy 1 installs Gentoo on everything, someone else loads Ubuntu, some Windows admin gets everyone hooked in to using AD for Auth and $HOME dirs, another guy loads Fedora, another guy loads Suse. Every time a person quits to go fuck up a different site with the same mentality, things just get worse. A guy gets hired that does not know anything but NetBSD, and has a fit over all the disparate components. He builds an APT server and starts pushing NetBSD as the savior for the company. Meanwhile, a few other people left and now nobody knows what the fuck is going on. Someone suggests getting everyone on RedHat for standardization, but the Engineers and developers cry foul "My stuff won't work on anything but !".

New people come in and try to support the mess, but generally they last a few months at best.

Look, if it's your site and 20-30 machines who gives a shit as long as it's all the same. In a large environment where you have to have many people supporting all kinds of products and programs the rules have to change.

The best places I ever worked were places that had standards yet allowed deviations by good people that know the company, products, and hardware they are dealing with. I have personally hacked many solutions for people, and worked with some other exceptional people as well. All the while, we had hardware, OS, and software standards that we all agreed to follow. I have worked in a total of 2 places like that in the last 20 years, the last of which was 4 years ago. Now all I find are option 1 or option 2. Big companies generally have option 1, and start ups have option 2, even when they reach the several hundred server mark.

Re:There's a balance

[HornWumpus]

I've seen companies with 100% capex on software development.

That is _always_ a BS accounting trick. Makes the cash flow look better, also the capital expense is supposed to leave something of value (a working system) so it can be sold to investors as value, not an expense.

I blame the accountants/auditors. Any auditor that sees 100% capitalized development, 0% expensed maintenance, who doesn't immediately raise flags is worthless to potential investors. In my experience all auditors are worthless.

Re:There's a balance

[s.petry]

Hard to say if you are the same AC as I responded to, even if Karma is broken it would be good to use your account so that people could know if this was a discussion or random posting. It does make a difference in formulating thoughts.

What you point at as option 3 is the same thing I pointed at, and assuming you are the same AC you kind of pissed on grasshoppa suggesting that very thing.

Now to your statement that small businesses never standardizing, I call bullshit. The reason they fail to have standards is because the people building them infrastructure have no vision, not because it's required to be a success.

To your Gentoo example, fine with me assuming that you have standardized on Gentoo for your Linux platform. If you have Ubuntu, then go to a 1 off Gentoo because it's got the best internet walk through.. well, you just shot your company in the foot. It's also a problem if you have to spend nearly as much money on the Gentoo solution as you would for a KVM solution. In most cases, those things are pretty damn cheap. So what you end up with in many cases is a solution lacking in support with a higher rate of failure, and when you add in man hours the solution costs just as much if not more than a brand new solution. I do realize that your example may not have been the best, however I have seen this exact one used and have created and shown presentations that solutions like the ones you suggest cost more than purchasing a KVM to start with.

Re:Just one?

[ThorGod]

The concept kind of negates itself. So even if you have no real use for a top of the line programmer ("To a programmer, “hacker” simply means a great programmer"), you should still hire one and have him/her sit around all day looking for exploits on your network?

1.) I'm not sure that hacker great programmer.
2.) Anyone ranking very high on competency for a specific field is going to be hard to find, let alone hire.
3.) Once you've expended all of these resources finding a laborer...what's their day to day task? nmap all the machines on the network and look for outdated software? Sounds like an IT job...

Caveat: i make no claim to be an IT expert, but this sounds like poor planning or hiring.

Re:Just one?

[ThorGod]

edit: "I'm not sure hacker = great programmer"

Bullshit

[holmedog]

One of the most annoying things I deal with at work is people who think they are "hackers". The best and brightest people follow the rules - that's why they are the best. They break the rules in great times of need. When a project blows up on the weekend and we are going to miss an SLA, etc.

The idea that you want to work with someone who spends their time trying to half-ass things to save themselves time is not only stupid, it's completely the opposite of what you want in a professional environment.

"Hack" in your spare time. Enjoy it, have fun. I know I do. My home-grown projects have none of the constraints my work does. But, don't do it on my company time.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

The best and brightest people follow the rules - that's why they are the best.

Really? Maybe where you're from the "best and brightest" aren't very bright.

Re:Bullshit

[Bob9113]

The best and brightest people follow the rules - that's why they are the best.

Following the rules is orthogonal to greatness. Joan of Arc, Steve Jobs, Richard Feynman -- not big on following the rules. Alan Greenspan, Warren Buffet, W. Edwards Deming -- big rule followers. Each extraordinary in his or her own way.

Re:Bullshit

[drinkypoo]

One of the most annoying things I deal with at work is people who think they are "hackers". The best and brightest people follow the rules - that's why they are the best. They break the rules in great times of need. When a project blows up on the weekend and we are going to miss an SLA, etc.

Congratulations! You've just described the majority of hackers I know. You do things "right" when you have time, and when the chips are down you just do whatever will get you limping down the road. This becomes a problem when you're not given time to do the job right to begin with, which is pretty typical of any job really. Then you have to get hackish. That's when you REALLY want that guy, because instead of just failing, he keeps you going until hopefully you get out of the hole you're in and can afford to give him the resources he needs to do things right again. Or, you know, you pull your head out of your ass and start giving him that time in the first place, if we're talking about a typical IT job that would be a more accurate description of what could happen.

Re:Bullshit

[Maximum Prophet]

The best and brightest people follow the rules - that's why they are the best. They break the rules in great times of need. When a project blows up on the weekend and we are going to miss an SLA, etc.

The best and brightest don't follow the rules, they make the rules. Their projects don't blow up.

Where I work, the challenge is to take a $20 million project, and make it work for $10 million. Blowing up is not an option.

Re:Bullshit

[Tough Love]

Why didn't you just write "I disagree with the entire premise of the article", because that is what your words mean. And in the process you redefined the definition of "hack" to mean "write crap code". As if you didn't read the article, or have never met a real hacker. I hope you don't consider yourself one at this stage. By all means continue with the home-grown projects, but keep in mind that just being home-grown does not mean it has to be crap.

Re:Bullshit

[betterunixthanunix]

The best and brightest people follow the rules - that's why they are the best

I think you are confusing "best and brightest" with "most conservative."

Re:Bullshit

[JaredOfEuropa]

It really depends on what role you are playing. Thinking outside the box, trying a few things here and there, quickly cobbling crap together with whatever tools lie to hand, no process or documentation, modify stuff on the fly? Not such a good idea on a project, even when its stuck badly. But great when doing a quick proof-of-concept on a dime. In PoCs and pilots, you need a lot of agility, and outside-the-box thinkers who might not be the best and brightest but who are good generalists rather than specialists, with knowledge of a vast array of tools and skills they can apply or quickly master as needed. Not someone who cares overly much for office politics but also not someone who smells so bad that you can't let him or her anyone near business people. On the contrary, the ability to speak to "real people" in their own language is important.

I fulfill this role from time to time for one of my clients, doing pilot projects and proof-of-concepts of an innovative and rather volatile nature. I'm not extraordinarily good or bright, and even in an increasingly specialized and compartimentalized IT world I am not the only generalist, but my client thinks I have some rare skills to fill a rare role, and gives me free reign to get their PoCs off the ground (nice work if you can get it, by the way). They do that because I get them results, much cheaper and much faster than a regular project team ever could, while knowing which regulatory and security boundaries not to cross.

Re:Bullshit

[sjames]

If you have people who break rules so they can half-ass things, they may fancy themselves to be 'leet hackers, but they're certainly not.

A proper hacker does not half-ass. If anything, they tend to over-do.

Re:Bullshit

[holmedog]

I'm sorry. I thought writing "bullshit" would more than clarify that I don't agree with the author. Hacking has its place, but it is not in the work environment. Standards and procedures are a good thing for a reason. Being a "loose cannon" as the article says is a terrible thing in a work environment. Every time I have to work on some "genius hacker's" code I get pissed off. It might be the most brilliantly written thing in the world, but if it is "hacked" together - by the very definition of the word - it's going to be garbage to maintain or upgrade.

I work with a guy who is the most brilliant "hacker" I've ever met. He's also a great programmer, developer, and architect. However, when he is at work he is a developer and/or an architect. He leaves the hacking at home. Where it belongs.

Re:Bullshit

[Cro Magnon]

One of the most annoying things I deal with at work is people who think they are "hackers". The best and brightest people follow the rules - that's why they are the best. They break the rules in great times of need. When a project blows up on the weekend and we are going to miss an SLA, etc.

Congratulations! You've just described the majority of hackers I know. You do things "right" when you have time, and when the chips are down you just do whatever will get you limping down the road. This becomes a problem when you're not given time to do the job right to begin with, which is pretty typical of any job really. Then you have to get hackish. That's when you REALLY want that guy, because instead of just failing, he keeps you going until hopefully you get out of the hole you're in and can afford to give him the resources he needs to do things right again. Or, you know, you pull your head out of your ass and start giving him that time in the first place, if we're talking about a typical IT job that would be a more accurate description of what could happen.

IME, what happens is the hacker doesn't dig you out of the hole, he just keeps the dirt moving. Then he quits and moves to Florida, and the next poor sucker has to fix the problem that he (or management with insane time schedules) caused. My experience, of course, is as the next poor sucker. :-P

Re:Bullshit

[drinkypoo]

My experience, of course, is as the next poor sucker. :-P

Well, I've been both of those suckers, both the guy who never got out of the hole and the guy who had to climb into the hole that the other guy never got out of. Neither one is a particularly attractive position, but they both pay the bills. The guy who starts in a hole is arguably going to feel better about himself, though.

Re:Bullshit

[Tough Love]

I thought I made it clear that I disagree with your disagreement with the author, and that you do not understand what true hacking is. You think it is a synonym for crappy work. Sorry, but you are way off base.

Anyway, you are obviously no hacker so what makes you think you are a good judge of who is and who is not a great hacker?

Re:Bullshit

[JonySuede]

You must be a part of a small team <10 since a loose cannon is essential to unjam a project in a moderately sized team 10<n<50. In a good development shop, requirement gathering flows to design then, to implementation and then finally, to QA.*1 Software development is pretty much like going down a busy high, and like and it was shown that Rude Drivers Reduce Traffic Jams when you have then in a small percentage that is around 15% if I remember correctly.

Most of the time the code I wrote do not to adhere to the coding standard of the company, yet my code is revered as examples of lean encapsulated design. However I must be the only one not following the rule as we are less than 100. But as you says, when I work, I do not let standard violating code into production, I have it entreprisified by a rules following developer.

1- It do not exclude agile methodologies, nor does it excludes cascades like ones, but if you skip any of those steps, except implementation*2, you do so at the projects peril.
2- Where if you do ignore implementation, you get nothing except maybe, if you are incredibly lucky or have/are an awesome project manager, a plan for implementing and testing something that respond to a group of people needs :)

Re:Bullshit

[JonySuede]

Oh shit: 40% is optimal, when can be to and a half ;)

Re:Bullshit

[dbIII]

The best and brightest know when the rules should be rewritten, and if office politics permits get it done. That's one thing that lets small organisations work while large ones need complicated rules to cover edge cases exploited by clueless arseholes that wouldn't be able to hide in a small place, or have the rules written by those very distant from the actual processes (eg. QA procedures written by the new kid because it's boring documentation work).
It's sad really when stupid rules are actually necessary. The rule that stops a competant person from getting the job done quickly is often a valid defence against the person that looks like they know what they are doing from triggering a huge and expensive financial disaster (or actual physical accident causing injury).

Re:Bullshit

[strikethree]

The idea that you want to work with someone who spends their time trying to half-ass things to save themselves time is not only stupid, it's completely the opposite of what you want in a professional environment.

You clearly have no idea what the term hacker means in the context of the article. Hackers do not do such stupid things as you describe. They do their job more efficiently than everyone else and are capable of "thinking outside the box" and will implement such solutions when required.

In other words, if you see a "hacker" acting like you describe, that hacker is NOT interested in working for you or you are giving them excessive amounts of free time.

Re:Bullshit

[pnutjam]

I consider myself a hacker, and I mostly follow the rules. In my experience it's usually the big guys that break the rules left and right. They avoid interoperability and design their own "standards".

Re:Bullshit

[Bob9113]

He bears a great deal of responsibility for tanking the economy.

One gigantic and catastrophic fuckup does not a fool make. Napoleon was a great general despite his march on Russia.

Warren Buffet is not a rule follower. His value approach to investing is the exception when viewed in relation to most other investors.

If the majority do not follow rules, then being not in the majority does not preclude one from being a rule follower.

BURN THE WITCH!

[girlintraining]

You're joking, right? A hacker is, by definition, someone overqualified for every job where the dress code includes the word "business" in its description. Why the hell would someone like that want to work for peanuts, creating miracles out of thin air with no budget? Because they find it challenging? Bitch, please -- we want to get paid, and if I'm working for a place that values IT so little they can't even come up with a budget for things that would (by your own definition!) render improvements to their infrastructure, what are the odds of promotion? A raise? Benefits? Answer: Zilch. Nothing. Nodda. Zero.

I know it's an unrelated field, and some of you will probably laugh, but when I was in school for graphic design (I already know enough for a degree in IT), one of the things my first teacher told me is: Don't work for free. You're not going to get any exposure, leads are worthless, and charity work doesn't get the bills paid. As a graphic designer, most of us are self-employed and it's essential we know to the nearest half-hour mark how long a project is going to take in billable hours. We need to make our own budget for every project, and everyone and I mean everyone is looking for free work or thinking they can do it themselves with photoshop.

IT is approaching the same commoditization of labor -- Many of us are "contractors" already, but eventually people are going to wise-up and become self-employed because contractors are paid shit and treated as such. Be ahead of the curve people: Don't work for peanuts, and if someone says "there's no budget for what you do," take the hint and move on.

Re:BURN THE WITCH!

[CanHasDIY]

You're joking, right? A hacker is, by definition, someone overqualified for every job where the dress code includes the word "business" in its description. Why the hell would someone like that want to work for peanuts, creating miracles out of thin air with no budget? Because they find it challenging? Bitch, please -- we want to get paid, and if I'm working for a place that values IT so little they can't even come up with a budget for things that would (by your own definition!) render improvements to their infrastructure, what are the odds of promotion? A raise? Benefits? Answer: Zilch. Nothing. Nodda. Zero.

Oh, in the name of all that's Holy, this.

I've been that guy - tasked with the nigh-impossible, no budget to speak of, and oh yea, paid $10/hr to make it happen.

I got the job done every time, often doing more than was required, and typically for even less money than the meager pittance I was given for the project. Did it make an appreciable difference regarding my employer's attitude towards IT? You be the judge: I got fired for asking for a raise a week after finishing the most elaborate project ever for said employer (Totally automated, solar powered, Wifi enabled outdoor camera system, one I was quite proud of considering I literally cobbled 90% together from parts laying around the shop).

I am a hacker in the classic sense, in that I make shit work, but not for what these asshole employers are willing to pay. Not anymore.

Re:BURN THE WITCH!

[Tough Love]

Why the hell would someone like that want to work for peanuts, creating miracles out of thin air with no budget?

The article did not say anything about working for peanuts, just not having resources... that is, not being in a position to command a dozen code monkeys to go write crap code based on specs concocted on powerpoint slides and design documents not worthy of the name. I am not sure I agree with the premise that a great hacker cannot be even greater by being able to farm out some of the work. But that is not the main point.

On the contrary, great hackers usually become widely recognized as such, to be in demand, and to come in at the top end of the salary scale. If they chose to work for anyone that is.

Re:BURN THE WITCH!

[girlintraining]

I got the job done every time, often doing more than was required, and typically for even less money than the meager pittance I was given for the project. Did it make an appreciable difference regarding my employer's attitude towards IT? You be the judge: I got fired for asking for a raise a week after finishing the most elaborate project ever for said employer (Totally automated, solar powered, Wifi enabled outdoor camera system, one I was quite proud of considering I literally cobbled 90% together from parts laying around the shop).

I assume you've learned your lesson then. I feel for you, I really do. I've had similar experiences; I once saved a Fortune 500 company from hiring about 50 people at $14 an hour to retrigger deployments by writing an application over a few lunch breaks that automated the process. Another department became so worried about this development they agitated with infosecurity to change the policies to prevent its use, and then fired me for violating said new security policy. As a society, we lose hundreds of billions yearly because of this kind of political gameplay and a lack of understanding or awareness by management of the actual value of their labor resources, the policies that constrain them, or the budget for various things. Everyone here that's got a shred of professionalism and talent has a similar story. Everyone.

It's a hard lesson to learn, but as a professional in this industry, it is not your job to fix these problems. Your job is to do the best you can with the limited resources given to you. If, in your professional estimation, you feel your work is undervalued, the budget is insufficient, or management lacks the necessary leadership qualities for you to do your work with a minimum of hassle... then do the minimum amount of work necessary to keep suspicion away and spend the rest of your energy finding another place to work. Some dumb 20-something kid with his degree from "PC Tech" college will be happy to slave away at it for peanuts -- and when that fails, they'll just import a billion dirt-poor workers to do it.

Those kinds of employers are predatory, and they get their business karma returned to them eventually in the form of high labor costs, low efficiency, and tiny profit margins. Eventually, they strangle themselves... but it takes time, sometimes decades, before the economics of the situation can no longer be ignored. The H1B visa program was designed to give extra life to these otherwise dying predators... and even that's running out. India has its own infrastructure right now, and they're giving a hearty "F U" to labor exploitation... many such employers have "in-sourced" and discontinued the practice, and the rest have moved on to exploit the Phillipines.

I'm only explaining this because if you are a hacker, you won't be content with just knowing what to do, you'll have to know why. Well, now you know. So don't concern yourself over-much with this state of affairs; Just focus on getting slotted in with a company that doesn't engage in exploitative behavior, and trust your instincts about it. If something doesn't feel right, it's because it isn't -- if you get that vibe, don't drop anchor there.

Re:BURN THE WITCH!

[MickyTheIdiot]

One of the major problems in I.T. is that when you work your ass off and perform a miracle that usually your employer is not smart enough (about I.T. or just plain dumb in general) and the very next day they ask you for an even BIGGER miracle instead of patting you on the back. Since everyone is human its not a cycle that can last for all that long.

I too have worked in areas like that. To be any good and have any longevity you've got to be mediocre.

Re:BURN THE WITCH!

[SuricouRaven]

This is slashdot. Most of us have been there. It took me a couple of years to lose my youthful illusion that anything I do would be properly welcomed, and now I spend the time at work enforcing the AUP with all the enthusiasm of a Gestapo officer. One of the nice things about working at a school is being allowed to abuse your authority just a little to put the Fear of the IT God into the little brats.

Re:BURN THE WITCH!

[TheSpoom]

I have also been that person ($12 instead of $10, mind you). Thankfully I quickly realized I was selling myself short. I only made that mistake once, at the beginning of my programming career. Schools need to tell students about what decent market rates are or they'll do the same thing.

Re:BURN THE WITCH!

[CanHasDIY]

I assume you've learned your lesson then.

Yea, the lesson being a good work ethic and genuine interest in what you're doing will fuck you over faster than a shady underling looking to steal your job (been there as well; joke's on him, that job sucked!).

If, in your professional estimation, you feel your work is undervalued, the budget is insufficient, or management lacks the necessary leadership qualities for you to do your work with a minimum of hassle... then do the minimum amount of work necessary to keep suspicion away and spend the rest of your energy finding another place to work

I still can't get over how having a strong work ethic and genuine interest in what you do is more harmful to a career than being one of those lazy, bare-minimum fuckers I often end up cleaning up after. That's what I get for being raised by people who felt it was important to instill a sense of pride in workmanship in their offspring.

I'm only explaining this because if you are a hacker, you won't be content with just knowing what to do, you'll have to know why. Well, now you know. So don't concern yourself over-much with this state of affairs; Just focus on getting slotted in with a company that doesn't engage in exploitative behavior, and trust your instincts about it. If something doesn't feel right, it's because it isn't -- if you get that vibe, don't drop anchor there.

Thanks for the kind words and consideration. These days, I'm a heck of a lot better about not giving a shit about my work than I used to be.

Re:BURN THE WITCH!

[adolf]

You're a self-employed graphic artist?

Please do drop me an email. I have a simple hand-drawn logo that I need cleaned and vectorized for my small-time PC-fixit business. Limited budget (isn't it always?), simple black-and-white, and easy for anyone skilled with the toolchain (but not for myself or the others that I've asked), but not free.

It just needs to be good enough for business cards and web pages for now. Billboard- and newsprint-scale detail (if it ever makes it that far) will pay more, if you're still game.

Re:BURN THE WITCH!

[pnutjam]

DING, DING, DING, we have a winner... It sucks to get sucked into a bad situation, but move on as quickly as possible with as little damage to yourself. If you stick around the damage just intensifies (psychological, financial, and often physical). It mystifies me why so many people stick around in crappy jobs.

Every IT department needs an English major, too

[sandytaru]

Someone who has coding chops but whose happy place is 50 pages deep in documentation.

Me?

[SJHillman]

I suppose I'm my department's hacker. One of the more fun things is I've begun repairing touchscreen wallmount PCs in-house rather than sending them out for repair at $350-$1000 each. A shame the money I save likely won't be rolled back into my salary.

Re:Me?

[Inda]

That's why I stopped.

We ran a &#226;&#8218;&#172;2b project on Access databases, spreadsheets and Word documents. All because the fast pace of the project meant there was no time to buy big off-the-shelf software. I spent three weeks writing, one week testing and six months debugging and feature creaping on a live system.

Five years later and the sucsessful project is coming to an end. All this time other departments have been flying all over the world looking for a "final solution" (yeah, I work for ze Germans).

Sharepoint, Sharepoint modules, and all manner of multi-functional project management software. 250,000 GBP was the last quote for software I deemed unsuitable. 500,000 GBP has been spent trying to source software.

My hack job cost less than 10,000 GBP. It's still runnning today, bug free, with the ability to export the data to a "better" system with a single finger press.

What did I get out of it? Reduction in workload(!), meaning no chance to progress in the company, and reduced benefits and pay.

I do no hacking for the company now. It's not worth it when my peers aren't expected to do the same.

Making it "bug free" was my largest mistake.

You!

[freeze128]

The skills you get from that activity have a value all their own. You could become proficient enough to start your own repair company. It's like kickstarter for your hobby.

Re:You!

[TheSpoom]

This, but make sure you get other clients too. Your boss won't be happen when they inevitably realize they're contracting out to their own employee. Oh, and, y'know, make sure your plan is actually legal. The word "fraud" comes to mind.

hack repairs / MacGuyver fixes can end up down the

[Joe_Dragon]

hack repairs / MacGuyver fixes can end up down the road being a big issues or just become some leftover thing that no one know why it's there and keeps it there even after what it was trying to fix got fixed so now it's just setting there doing nothing.

This can be even worse in places with lot's red tape where so one puts something in with little or no docs on it to get the job done.

yes tech writer but don't make the techs do the

[Joe_Dragon]

yes tech writer but don't make the techs do the documentation. Let the tech guys do the tech work and the writer do the documentation work.

Re:yes tech writer but don't make the techs do the

[sandytaru]

Well, not all technical writers are created equal. Someone who was trained to write grant requests for the school's horticulture department may not be the best fit for an IT department. You still need to have someone who can recognize an SQL query and point out that you forgot to include a unit test for one of your classes.

Not on my watch....

[erp_consultant]

I can how it might be fun to be the "hacker" in that scenario but if I'm the IT manager there is no way I'm going to let some code cowboy run around doing this and that without any oversight. Sure, in the short term you can get some problems fixed quickly but in corporate IT all the I's are dotted and all the T's are crossed. You've got to follow procedures and get the proper authorizations and buyoffs for things otherwise you (the IT manager) will get hung out to dry if anything goes wrong.

Re:Not on my watch....

[Maximum Prophet]

... but in corporate IT all the I's are dotted and all the T's are crossed. You've got to follow procedures and get the proper authorizations and buyoffs for things otherwise you (the IT manager) will get hung out to dry if anything goes wrong.

In some shops, you'll get hung out to dry if you don't meet your deliverable date. You might have 6 weeks to deliver, but following process will take 6 months. Sometimes it's damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Your choice.

Ed Yourdon describes this in "Death March". Usually, if you get one of these projects, the only thing to do is polish your resume, you're going to get canned. Ed's advice is for the *next* manager. Before taking the already behind project, get firm commitments to bypass red tape that can be bypassed, get extra budget, and extra time. Get all this *before* taking the job.

Re:Not on my watch....

[betterunixthanunix]

A good manager knows how to make use of each person's skills. I do not think anyone is saying that you should have nothing but hackers in your IT department, but rather to have one or two hackers whose unique skills can be used when needed. You know, those situations where it is more important to get something working or to fix something that is broken than it is to make sure proper procedures were followed.

Re:Not on my watch....

[sjames]

While you're busy incentivising the synergistic stakeholders at the jamboree, your competition will be busy eating your lunch. HAND.

That's not to say you should give the guy carte blanche and a fifth of tequila, but surely there is some middle ground!

Instead of a highly skilled hacker

[houghi]

why not go for the socially skilled hacker? You know, one that is not thinking that the company is there so the IT department exists.

I know, many will say that without IT the company would not exist. Well, that goes for any other department as well. If the company could do without them, they would not exist.

Re:Instead of a highly skilled hacker

[SuricouRaven]

Such a person is exceptionally rare. The power of the hacker comes from total dedication to their field to the point of obcession. This is why such a high proportion are diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. They don't develop social skills, because while the normal people were out with their friends the hacker was sitting at home writing code or learning circuit design. In any field, those at the very top are always going to be barely-social eccentrics, because that is what it takes to make it to the very top.

Re:Instead of a highly skilled hacker

[TheSpoom]

Eh. I find this is more of a stereotype than a reality. Sure, at the VERY top, you'll probably find more socially inept people, but you can still find some very smart, very agile hacker professionals out there, and in most cases those people are better than the ones at the top anyway.

Re:Instead of a highly skilled hacker

[axl917]

why not go for the socially skilled hacker?

A whatnow?

Re:I can't be the only one...

[St.Creed]

Always use antivirus and firewall while debugging :)

Re:To another extent, no

[Tough Love]

Where I work "hacker" is a derogatory term for coders who write non-maintainable solutions.

Must suck to work there.

Re:I can't be the only one...

[nedlohs]

Is that your way of volunteering for the role?

Re:False

[MickyTheIdiot]

One of the problems I have come up with it that most microserfs believe that "you get what you pay for" applies to everything in the computing world. It doesn't. Some of the best solutions to everyday problems are the cheapest ones, and some of the shit that people like TrendMicro puts out are the worst and the most bloated.

Re:I don't know about you, but...

[Tough Love]

Both your defintions are wrong, nice going.

Re:I can't be the only one...

[crazyjj]

Why Your IT Department Needs To Staff a Hooker

Now *that's* thinking outside the box on employee recruitment and retention!

home grown

[rapell]

hackers are home grown experts. If IT didn't keep sending baby boomers away in favour of gen next, we wouldn't be reading this post. Better still outsource the whole dept.

Re:hack repairs / MacGuyver fixes can end up down

[drinkypoo]

This can be even worse in places with lot's red tape where so one puts something in with little or no docs on it to get the job done.

Documentation is always the problem. Have a policy that says all changes must be documented, and fire with extreme prejudice if documentation is not kept, because it's really all you have after the code, and we all know how that can go. Fine, or really really bad and wrong. This is probably MORE important where there is great secrecy involved, because if someone leaves you'll never be able to talk to them about the project again :p

If your're good at something..

[xtal]

Never do it for free.

http://youtu.be/uYMnAUGFuG0

Sage words.

we don't have $500,000 or even $2k so the hackjob

[Joe_Dragon]

we don't have $500,000 or even $2k so do the hackjob and I will be golfing with a vender the rest of the day.

Who would want this job?

[JDG1980]

Rory Sutherland discusses the need for every company to have a staff member with the power to do big things but no budget to spend

This sounds like the job from Hell. What qualified person would take it? It screams "cheap" – a company that thinks like this probably won't be too generous with raises and benefits either.

(Lots of IT staff, myself included, don't directly control any spending authority. But that's different than having "no budget to spend." What matters is that we get new equipment and/or software when the situation requires it.)

Re:Who would want this job?

[SuricouRaven]

It would be nice to have someone charge of the things so unimportant that no-one else claims authority over them, like checking the signage is correct, the staff room sink gets occasionally cleaned* and the supply of tea is never allowed to run dry. *The cleaning staff at my workplace insist this is not their responsibility. I won't touch it without a hazmat suit.

Re:Who would want this job?

[nebosuke]

I actually have and enjoy a job somewhat like this, and I personally get paid well, but don't have much in terms of a discretionary budget. I'm also embedded in a Line-of-Business unit and often act essentially as a workaround to the IT/IS department. The latter is largely the reason I have an extremely limited discretionary budget--they've manged to enact policy limitations on any tech-related spend that does not originate from their department (that being said, I have a good relationship with the IS guys, and understand why they do what they do).

To illustrate how things work, it usually goes something like this (gory details provided to illustrate the insanity. Apologies in advance for the rambling that's likely to result.):

Business to IS: We have a process involving ~300 project managers performing moderately complex data input across the globe. This input must be sanity-checked, rolled into various reports, and revised multiple times per feedback from upper management. It is currently performed in email, is very error-prone, and it takes us 3 days to turn around reports after latest input. We want it locked down, with turn around in under 10 minutes after most recent input. How do we fix this?
IS to Business: Give us $2M and 2 years, we'll have an enterprise system with ~$200k/annum operating cost that fits the critical requirements. We may also be able to accomodate some nice-to-haves.
Business to IS: Great. Do it.
Business to me: What do we do in the meantime?
Me to Business:: Give me a spare workstation, I'll have something in 2 weeks
.. 2 weeks later
Me to Business: I've put together the following:
*) an Excel-based front-end for data input, using VBA for sanity checking, help, etc., packaged with screencast tutorials for end-users.
*) Version control is managed by having the authoritative current versions of each PM's files on this SharePoint library (SharePoint is essentially MS's CMS offering, and is very popular with many businesses). SharePoint manages version control and retention.
*) VBA in the Excel workbook notifies the server-side software whenever new data is input and confirmed with check-in via a web service.
*) That spare workstation now hosts a CentOS Linux VirtualBox VM. All server-side components reside on that instance and auto-start via init scripts. The VM instance itself auto-starts as a windows service when the physical box is powered up. If you want better fault tolerance, migrate the VM to our datacenter.
*) a node.js web service receives the notification from the excel workbook upon data update, scrapes the data from SharePoint*, normalizes it and puts it into a PostgreSQL database. The node.js server also checks SharePoint for any changes via web service on inital start and once every 2 hours just in case.
*) a separate node.js instance listens for updates and compiles the required reports from the information in PostgreSQL
*) Orchestration of node.js instances is accomplished over redis pub/sub.
Business to Me: Uhh... does it work?
Me to Business: Yes.
Business to Me: What if your "server" crashes.
Me to Business: Reboot it. If the VM image is corrupted, re-start it from this archived virtualbox image--it'll restore current state from the data on SharePoint. As an absolute doomsday-scenario backup--if I get hit by a bus, the system fails, and the IS guys who know VirtualBox are on vacation--this special Excel workbook will iterate through all of the data files in the SharePoint library and generate the same reports when you click this button, but it will probably take a couple of hours to do so given that there will be 300 files it has to open.
Business to Me: Got it. Take it live.

Why did I do it that way? On the client side, while I don't like Excel as a development platform, all the business users are comfortable with it, and it was the most productive of all possible front-en

Re:I can't be the only one...

[HornWumpus]

Look at your cow orkers. Do you want sloppy seconds after that? Would you even touch a woman with such low standards?

Further proof corporate culture doesn't work

[davydagger]

This is further proof that corporate culture doesn't attract top talent. Conformity, rigid hiearchy, and no space for free thinking don't inspire problem solves, or attract those who think outside the box. i.e. thoose needed to stay ontop of the ball in an ever changing world/economy

Re:I can't be the only one...

[SuricouRaven]

Well, if the alternative is to ork your own cows...

MS-Access

[Tablizer]

MS-Access is the primary tool for quick-and-dirty specialized apps in most orgs I've been in. Sure, it scales poorly and needs a fair amount of babysitting because things break, but that's the trade-off. If a quick-and-dirty app grows in popularity or proves to be useful and lasting, THEN more formal approaches can be done to make a "real" version of the app.

Don't get me wrong, MS-Access has a lot of annoyances and quirks, but it's common enough that somebody is usually available who knows it and thus it's less likely to become an "orphan" app as far as support.

I wish there was a decent OSS replacement for MS-Access. Open-Office has "Base", but it still has too many glitches, missing features, and crappy documentation.

(Actually FoxPro used to be my fav tool for quick-and-dirty C.R.U.D. because the scripting language and query language were tightly integrated, unlike MS-Access. I was twice as productive under it than Access. But it got voted off the island.)

Re:hack repairs / MacGuyver fixes can end up down

[SuricouRaven]

I work in what is in a way the hacker's dream: In about a month the building gets knocked down. About a year ago management decided there was no reason to invest in infrastructure when the building is being demolished and the entire IT system replaced. So we've had a year, minimal budget, giant mountains of scrap parts, and no reason to build anything long-term maintainable. We've got vital equipment held together by chewing gum, our backup is USB2 hard drives, one wing is networked by an ethernet cable slung between two windows because the fiber link broke and several of the laptops have the CPU heatsinks held on by cable ties.

The perfect resident hacker:

[Ensign_Expendable]

Richmond from the IT Crowd.

Stupid Story

[Frankie70]

What a stupid story!

Basically the story says "You should hire a great programmer" - duh!!

Only reason for the story is the use of the word 'hacker'

what the hell - Underestimated!

[flahwho]

That's a buncha bullshit.... The good TRUE hackers are typically highly paid programmers and people with a LOT of experience... those not willing to give it up for legitimacy. They're not your run of the mill IT specialists, or kids who can steal MP3s or rip movies. They often have years of PRACTICAL experience in cracking codes, breaking into shit and stealing even more shit. and certainly NOT the "oh ill take $11 dollars an hour because I'm MS certified... and oh yeah I've hacked my neighbors network" type. You underestimate REAL hackers... and you won't hire them I assure you. Even the been-busted-before ones. You could never put up the money they are accustomed to getting.

wrong

[anonymous9991]

my company is not going to pay someone to fix the problems it already knows about but decides not to fix to save money

Victor "Pug" Henry

[Gim Tom]

"If I do my job right there is no sign of it. Disasters just never happen." --Victor "Pug" Henry, War and Remembrance

Over generalization yet again.

[jklovanc]

To a programmer, “hacker” simply means a great programmer.

I have been programming for over 20 years and my definition of a hacker is some one who writes quick and very dirty code to fix a specific issue for a short period of time. In my experience hackers have a tendency to leave behind fragile, undocumented code that may or may not work in the future. Some hacks stand up over time but most fall down when run long enough. All hacks need to be eventually documented, tested and approved before they become permanent parts of the code base. The worst thing that can happen is to come across a hack a year later and no one know what it does or why it is there. In my experience most hacks need to be replaced as soon as possible.

Impossible

[jmerlin]

Because I did this once. You can save your company ten times your annual salary and not get paid a dime more. Companies tend to think if you can do what we want without spending the money, you don't need the money, and so they throw it at departments that will spend it instead of trying to save the company's money. The real problem: that money is dedicated as "expendable" but marked as "not for salaries." Therefore, you can hire a consultant at $100/hr but you can't give any of your employees even $.01 of it. You probably can't even use it to fund "perks" like free lunches and sodas, etc. Why bother saving massive amounts of time and money when you get ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for it?

The skillset required to do this demands significantly more than the salary companies are willing to offer for it. It's that simple. Therefore it's impossible for positions like this to exist.

HOOKER!

[inode_buddha]

I said, "We need to staff a HOOKER!" Got it now?

Re:HOOKER!

[Legion303]

I read it that way too. "Yes, please."

Re:Why?

[hazah]

You can't fix people.

A hacker remains a hacker ...

[Taco Cowboy]

... until he gains employment

After that, that hacker becomes a programmer

I've been in this field for too long, I've seen the same thing happened to many excellent hackers

It does not mean they do not contribute any more once they are on the payroll - it's that somehow money has corroded that hunger / urge to hack
 

Re:To another extent, no

[TranquilVoid]

This is also the meaning of "hack" used by most teams I have worked with - a quick and dirty mod that avoids refactoring.

Whether or not it has sucked to work with these teams has been independent of their definition of a single word :)

This was a subject at the Hackers Conference.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

To the general public, the term âoehackerâ refers to a user who breaks into a computer system.

Best not to go to your boss asking to hire a "hacker." And I sure wouldn't use that term in writing.

How this misuse came to be was discussed at one instance of tan industry conference I attend. As near as anybody could figure out, it went like this:

In the early days of IT security issues, when the H word was still being used in the "exceptional programmer" sense and IT security was a shiny new subject, a self-appointed "computer security" expert gave a presentation at an upper-management conference. During this presentation he misused the term "Hacker" in the "computer cracker" sense (much to the confusion of the techies in the audience.)

Apparently this was the first time a lot of people at the COB, CEO, CFO, COO, VP level were exposed to the word. So they assumed the misuse was the proper definition and used it that way in their executive suites and at other conferences.

Of course once an idea gets set in the minds of the guys with the golden parachutes it can't be dislodged with dynamite. The rest of management, especially the IT head, had to use the term the way the Big Bosses did - or appear out-of-touch with their own specialty. Middle management followed like the lower-ranking pack members they are.

Then the business press picked it up from them, spread it to the rest of the press, and from there to the general public.

If poorly planned, poorly funded, poorly ...

[Trongy]

If poorly planned, poorly funded, poorly implmented projects got you into the current mess, why do you expect the same process to get you out of it?

That's the question I always ask. If they insist I point out the future support issues the half-assed hack will create in the future and get their acknowledgement in writing. Then I roll up my sleeves and implement it (hoping I won't be around in the future when it goes pear-shaped and counting the paid overtime I'm getting).

Re:hack repairs / MacGuyver fixes can end up down

[DogPhilosopher]

This can be even worse in places with lot's red tape where so one puts something in with little or no docs on it to get the job done.

Hire a hacker to document your undocumented projects!

Seriously, I see this all the time: an outsider is tasked with documenting a project, several years after the fact. Not a job any self-respecting 'hacker' (=highly skilled developer?) would be interested in, but of course the whole story begs the question: why would a highly skilled developer want to join your company in the first place? Are all the other employees dolts? Weren't all the problems caused by clueless PHBs?

Signs point to yes.

criminal journalism

[smhsmh]

>> 'To the media, the term “hacker” refers to a user who breaks into a computer system. To a programmer, “hacker” simply means a great programmer.

I first learned the terms "hack" and "hacker" back in the summer of 1964. I don't know for sure how the meaning of the term changed so perniciously, but suspect strongly that some journalist simply misunderstood the argot. Languages evolve over time, to be sure, but the effective loss of this term of respect really toasts my muffins.

It would be really great of some interested language researcher could find the earliest recorded references to assign the original blame. Meanwhile, when referring to someone who violates computer security I try to use the term "journalist." Better compromise one of their labels than one of ours.

Every compnay needs

[geekoid]

a guy who will solve their big problems for next to nothing.
Having been there, what this means is they want to pay you scraps for you to work 60 hour weeks to save them millions.

Fuck that.

Re:Noted. - EH

[davewoods]

(Mission Impossible Reference)