Slashdot Mirror
'The Word Hack is Meaningless and Should Be Retired' (thenextweb.com)
An anonymous reader quotes The Next Web:
The word 'hack' used to mean something, and hackers were known for their technical brilliance and creativity. Now, literally anything is a hack -- anything -- to the point where the term is meaningless, and should be retired. The most egregious abuse of the term "hack" comes from the BBC's Dougal Shaw. In a recent video of his, called "My lunch hack," Shaw demonstrates that it's cheaper to make your own sandwich each day than it is to buy a pre-packaged sandwich from the supermarket. Shaw calls that a hack. I call it common sense.
And that's not nearly the worst example. I haven't touched on "life hacks" yet. This term is nebulous. It means nothing and anything. It's used to describe arts and crafts... That said, the worst dilution of the term "hack" comes from growth hackers... Anyway, I regret to inform you that the word "hack" is now bad, and should be avoided.
A request for alternative words first went up on Slashdot back in 1999 -- but nothing's been settled. Back in 2014 a Gizmodo reporter wrote an impassioned plea titled "Please stop calling everything a hack" -- while others have argued the opposite.
in 2015 the editorial director of Make magazine cited hack's definition in The New Hacker's Dictionary as "an appropriate application of ingenuity," arguing that "my and other Make contributors' use of the term for clever shop techniques, ingeniously simple projects, and epic 'kluges' (i.e. Rube Goldberg-level hacks and fixes) is entirely appropriate."
And that's not nearly the worst example. I haven't touched on "life hacks" yet. This term is nebulous. It means nothing and anything. It's used to describe arts and crafts... That said, the worst dilution of the term "hack" comes from growth hackers... Anyway, I regret to inform you that the word "hack" is now bad, and should be avoided.
A request for alternative words first went up on Slashdot back in 1999 -- but nothing's been settled. Back in 2014 a Gizmodo reporter wrote an impassioned plea titled "Please stop calling everything a hack" -- while others have argued the opposite.
in 2015 the editorial director of Make magazine cited hack's definition in The New Hacker's Dictionary as "an appropriate application of ingenuity," arguing that "my and other Make contributors' use of the term for clever shop techniques, ingeniously simple projects, and epic 'kluges' (i.e. Rube Goldberg-level hacks and fixes) is entirely appropriate."
You have to go down 14 definitions of "hack" to get to to this:
---------
Computers.
to modify a computer program or electronic device in a skillful or clever way: to hack around with HTML.
to break into a network, computer, file, etc., usually with malicious intent.
http://www.dictionary.com/brow...
----------
Hacking may have been popularized to describe computer hacking, but it means MANY OTHER THINGS TOO.
As it so happens, one of the definitions of "hack" is "a writer or journalist producing dull, unoriginal work".
Is that relevant? It sounds relevant.
English is a hack and you can't do diddly shit about it!
Table-ized A.I.
1) To circumvent a restriction (usually technical) through the application of obscure knowledge or by exploitation of unexpected behaviors of a system.
"This stupid thing's security routine has tripped again-- Can you hack it for me Bob?"
Hack (n):
1) An implementation of an exploit or technical circumvention of an imposed restriction on a system. Usually technical.
"I wrote a dirty hack to get root access to fix Steve's login problem; The security model of this system needs some serious revision."
2) A person who is unqualified for their current vocational position.
"I met the new database administrator today. The guy is a total hack; could not put together a tuple query to save his own ass."
So-- Am I using these words wrong in terms of modern parlance?
The unwashed 'you' listened so well when the community dictated that 'hacking' was to be reserved for productive uses of technology rather than malicious 'cracking.'
The unwashed 'you' listened so well when the community dictated that 'hacking' was to be reserved for uses that required technical skill rather than script kiddies' ignorant throw-it-at-the-wall uses of others' prepackaged tools.
But now, now the unwashed 'you' will listen to advice to avoid calling everything 'hacking' and the results a 'hack.'
Bwahahaha... keep dreaming.
There's a little-known language hack that can help you feel less stressed out by things like this. It's called a homonym.
That's when different words with different meanings have both the same spelling and pronunciation. Strange, but true.
How can you tell them apart? Well, you have to use context:
If somebody is talking a about a "hack" that uses apple cider vinegar, then you know that it's some silly folk remedy.
If somebody is talking about a hack that involves breaking into a computer system, then you know that they're talking about cybercrime.
If somebody is talking about a hack that involves a clever and unorthodox programming method, then you know that some geek figured out a labor-saving way to solve a problem.
If somebody is talking about a hack and it involves felling a tree, then you know that they're wielding an ax.
The list goes on, but you get the idea. This is how human language works. If you accept that, then you will live a less stressful life.
I think you missed #7. The first six are all variants of "cut, crudely". The first definition other than "cut" is:
Computers.
A) to modify (a computer program or electronic device) or write (a program) in a skillful or clever way:
B) to circumvent security and break into (a network, computer, file, etc.), usually with malicious intent
As a career "hacker", I'd say that 7b could be refined to better indicate what is meant by "circumvent security" or "break" into. Knowing somebody's password isn't breaking in. That's just going in. Circumventing, breaking into a computer, requires doing something clever or skillful. It is therefore a subset of 7a.
That definition is also overly specific - people hacked the phone system, and specifically pay phones, before they hacked computers. They used the word hacking for that, as well as phreaking.
In my opinion and usage, to hack means to manipulate a system in order to use it in a way very much not intended by the creators of the system. Especially manipulating it to use it in a way that the creators sought to prevent.
Hacking old, out-of-print, unsupported software could be for good motives, such as retrieving data for the user. Hacking Slashdot could be done for bad motives. The commonality is that the creators didn't intend to allow or facilitate the action.
I've modified the compiled binaries of swf files long after the source code was lost, in order to keep a site working. I hacked the files - nobody ever intended for swf files to be updated by directly modifying them, such as with hexedit.
It is in the nature of words to have more than one meaning, and to acquire and lose ones depending on the cultural environment and the shifting sensibility. The very usage of the word "hack" to mean "to program" is the result of a fad in a certain scene. Don't play the dictionary police, it's infantile and counterproductive.
Just because something has multiple meanings doesn't make it meaningless, technically it makes it quite the opposite.
Here's a simple litmus test for if a word should be "retired":
1. Use word in context. Does someone know what you're talking about? > Don't retire word.
This language hack brought to you by someone who's not at war with the ability to communicate with others.
Don't like the word hack? You have 3 options:
1. Find an english community that doesn't use it.
2. Pick a language that doesn't use it.
3. Sit around miserable and hope that one day it will change.
The original usage was someone who "hacked" at something, instead of crafting it. It was pejorative. If someone was a "hack", they worked without thinking and didn't really know what they were doing, and a "hacker" was the same thing. Then TV shows and news reports came out glorifying this, and the meaning became congratulatory.
Most things lose their value because we get used to them.
The more people exaggerate, using hyperboles and strong terms for nothing, the more those words will wear off.
Being at home in multiple cultures and languages, I find it interesting to see the much faster "recycling" of words and phrases in english than, e.g., in german. Somehow, the english/US culture seems to be more geared towards "selling" (not always literally w.r.t. goods, but also in trying to convey ideas to the public at large) and advertisement.
Thus, you see a fast inflation of the meaning of words in english, and a constant popping up of new words to recapture the original meaning of older words. It is kind of confusing and not very productive, IMHO.
German, in contrast (note that I'm not a native german speaker, just my outside observation), has a much lower pace of new words, and the meaning of existing words seems to wear off not so fast. Probably just a result of a more conservative and reserved culture.
Icelandic and finnish are even more conservative (as a language) and hardly have changed in the past 1000 years.
Last I checked, "hack" was far older than computers. Older, even, than ingenuity.
https://www.etymonline.com/sea...
https://www.etymonline.com/wor...
chopping wood, coughing, routine work...
Nice that 700 years later, computer criminals adopted it too. Not surprising that this particular word has finally made it back to its roots.
Next you'll be saying that "gay" is suddenly being used to describe everyone who's happy. Wait for it.
The origin of 1 (noun and verb) is from "hack saw". The verb "hack" means literally to use the hack saw. It then was used to mean doing a simple ugly fix using the hack saw, a kludge,or a bodge.
It seems I did some real hacking in the late 80s. I used a hacksaw to cut a hole into the side of my PC case so I could get the 80386 In Circuit Emulator plug and cabling to the CPU socket. I couldn't just leave the case open, it was my monitor stand. :-)
We were on the same floor as the CEO. He wandered into my cube to find out what the hell that god-awlful noise was about, took one quick look, uttered "I'm not even going to ask why", turned around and left.