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From: chenr@tilt.FUN (Ray Chen)
Newsgroups: net.college
Subject: Re: Programming vs. marks vs. initiative vs. hackers...
Message-ID: <218@tilt.FUN>
Date: Sat, 15-Dec-84 01:25:58 EST
Article-I.D.: tilt.218
Posted: Sat Dec 15 01:25:58 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Dec-84 05:04:51 EST
References: <331@lll-crg.ARPA> <3147@utah-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Princeton University EECS Dept
Lines: 27

> Hacker (definition used by the media) - A crook who gets his jollies from
> stealing credit card numbers out of TRW, etc.  This person should be
> locked up.

> Hacker (my definition) - A person who can sit down in front of a
> terminal and "hack" code.  This person often produces code that only
> that person can understand.  This person also likes to work nites and
> prefers computers to people (:-).

I use two definitions, depending on who is involved.

Hacking:

	1) the act of producing a good design/implementation that
solves a problem in a clean and effective manner by primarily using 
already-understood concepts in possibly novel ways.

	2)  the act of producing code which is needlessly complex,
difficult to understand, and not necessarily correct.  Such code is
often referred to as being "brain-damaged", "stupid", and/or "broken".

Hacker - a person who hacks.

Hack - a piece of code or algorithm produced by hacking.

	Ray Chen
	princeton!tilt!chenr