From: utzoo!decvax!watmath!csc Newsgroups: net.misc Title: An Outsider's view of "hacks" Article-I.D.: watmath.2607 Posted: Sun Jun 13 18:01:14 1982 Received: Mon Jun 14 01:01:35 1982 >From Rolling Stone, June 10, 1982, pg. 69 in an article on video games: "Atari ... is like one of those big old-time Hollywood studios with a stable of high-priced talent grinding out release after release. ... The talent -- the people who actually design the games for home and arcade -- aren't at all like the stereotypical "hackers" of academic lore. They aren't all pasty-fleshed wimps wired through their fingertips into the keyboard of a VAX or IBM computer. They're simply a bunch of people who have a knack for hashing machine code into entertaining patterns. Unlike the pure hacker, the video game maker is more concerned with communicating THROUGH the computer than WITH the computer." My comment: Disregard the technical mistakes and hyperbole, except to note that this is what at least one person thinks about hacks. But note the last sentence, which implies that a hacker is primarily concerned with communicating with the computer, being fascinated by the machine, rather than doing something with the computer, something that has meaning in a larger context. In this sense, I feel that obsessive hacking is harmful as it contributes to a lack of perspective, leading to poor decision-making ("tunnel thinking"). Still, though I've heard tales of obsessive hacks, I have yet to meet one: the people interested in computers that I know have quite diverse interests (cf. the number of newsgroups). As for alienation being good for society, I disagree. Non-conformity is healthy, even necessary, particularly if it leads to innovation. But alien- ation is a feeling of lack of community, of not being able to talk with someone who understands and/or cares. My hope is that networked computers will actually alleviate alienation, by conquering geographic boundaries that keep people with special interests isolated. It might be fun to propose "computers as controlled substances" legislation on the net to get a reaction, but my heart wouldn't be in it. I agree with the libertarian views on this that have already been expressed. peter rowley, u. waterloo