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You aren't getting any better

robertheaton.com

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Re: You aren't getting any better

#71

Post by polyfractal »

coldtea wrote: post #62
przemoc wrote: post #32

"My limited and very biased samples suggest that hackers have a much greater intrinsic desire to improve their skills than those in other professions. We want to be ninjas not just because it will mean better-paying and more exciting jobs, but because there is something innately cool about knowing how to properly wield Javascript, Erlang or Clojure." ENOPARSE. Beginning looked promising, but examples of what is cool…

> Hackers are behind stories like You are probably a little behind the times. Like 15 years. The term "hacker" has stopped meaning exclusively these kind of guys for agres...

I think that was the parent's point...the term "hacker" has been diluted to where it can mean anything and everything. Just like the "pivot", "traction", etc.

Re: You aren't getting any better

#72

Post by coldtea »

polyfractal wrote: post #71
coldtea wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hackers are behind stories like You are probably a little behind the times. Like 15 years. The term "hacker" has stopped meaning exclusively these kind of guys for agres...

I think that was the parent's point...the term "hacker" has been diluted to where it can mean anything and everything. Just like the "pivot", "traction", etc.

Well, words do change with the times. The world hacker once meant the guy with an axe, hacking things.

But it's not like its diluted to the point where it can mean "anything and everything".

Now, the original meaning that the parent laments (something like the historical MIT hackers), has been long gone (as an exclusive meaning).

All through the late eighties - nineties "hacker" in the mass media meant the computer intruder. Like the movie "Hackers" and all. Geeks have tried for years to get them to use "cracker" instead.

Later (circa 1998-2000), it was mostly re-associated with the OSS crowd, Linux, the Mozilla guys, et al.

Nowadays, it seems to mean the developer in general (when used casually) and the more "adventurous" kind of developer --e.g one that dabbles in multiple languages, knows his Lisp etc (when used in a more positive way).

Perhaps the only kind of developers disqualified by the current use of the terms are "corporate drones", Java/Visual Basic guys making tedious enterprise stuff and the like.

Re: You aren't getting any better

#73

Post by przemoc »

coldtea wrote: post #62
przemoc wrote: post #32

"My limited and very biased samples suggest that hackers have a much greater intrinsic desire to improve their skills than those in other professions. We want to be ninjas not just because it will mean better-paying and more exciting jobs, but because there is something innately cool about knowing how to properly wield Javascript, Erlang or Clojure." ENOPARSE. Beginning looked promising, but examples of what is cool…

> Hackers are behind stories like You are probably a little behind the times. Like 15 years. The term "hacker" has stopped meaning exclusively these kind of guys for agres...

> You are probably a little behind the times. Like 15 years. The term "hacker" has stopped meaning exclusively these kind of guys for agres...

No. What we're dealing here actually is the effect of the urge of wannabe-hacker kids using inflected forms of "hacking" in unheard before ways next to achievements often barely worth mentioning, especially under the "hack" hat.

I'm hacking new code - I'm programming new code.

I'm hacking in a new language - I'm learning new language.

I'm hacker - I'm a bit above average programmer/web developer/whatever.

...

I simply cannot agree to these alleged redefinitions. To be honest, I also don't care if it feels so-15-years-old or so-70s. HN as a community is the last place I would like to see wholeheartedly accepting casual things as hacking. Hacking is about deep, profound understanding of computer-related stuff and things (far from trivial) you're able to achieve thanks to that.

Re: You aren't getting any better

#74

Post by yareally »

cooldeal wrote: post #21

Please get some contrast and also test your site on computers that don't have retina displays or are not Macs. http://contrastrebellion.com/

It's not overly easy to read on a 1920x1200 23" IPS display panel monitor either.

Viewtext.org makes it a bit easier: http://viewtext.org/article?url=http%3A%2F%2Frobertheaton.co...

Re: You aren't getting any better

#75

Post by sp332 »

define_eprime wrote: post #64
NickPollard wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a form of English called E-Prime [1] that does this, the idea (I believe) is to clarify what you mean and be clear about how your ideas of things came about. It stops lazy assertions and gives you perspective. For example, you can't say: Lua is better than Python[2] Instead you say: I prefer Lua to Python Or perhaps you say: More projects that I rate highly use Lua over Python. Or maybe: Lua scores more highl…

Has anyone ever defined E-prime in E-prime? The wikipedia page doesn't offer one but I'd imagine it would have to be a series of prolog-like assertions about E-prime. You obviously can't just say "E-prime is ..."

E-prime begins with English and then removes the being verbs.

E-prime removes all conjugations of "to be" from English. <-- Not sure if quoting "to be" as a noun counts. :)

Re: You aren't getting any better

#76

Post by zackham »

NickPollard wrote: post #41
happimess wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, would you elaborate on your reasons to avoid "to be" verbs?

There's a form of English called E-Prime [1] that does this, the idea (I believe) is to clarify what you mean and be clear about how your ideas of things came about. It stops lazy assertions and gives you perspective. For example, you can't say: Lua is better than Python[2] Instead you say: I prefer Lua to Python Or perhaps you say: More projects that I rate highly use Lua over Python. Or maybe: Lua scores more highl…

I hate to stray so far from the main thread, but anyone who finds E-Prime interesting might enjoy reading about Evidentiality[1]. Some languages allow encoding the nature of evidence in verb forms, with the most cited example (Pomo) having forms to distinguish direct evidence (visual and nonvisual), circumstantial evidence, and hearsay. Somewhat esoteric but pretty cool. Make the observations and give the facts to the listener and let them reach a conclusion - contrast with American English where it is incredibly common to qualify the confidence we have in our own judgement ("It must.." "I suppose.." "I think.." "It probably", and of course all forms of "to be") rather than qualifying the confidence of your knowledge in an objective way.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidentiality

Re: You aren't getting any better

#77

Post by coldtea »

przemoc wrote: post #73
coldtea wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hackers are behind stories like You are probably a little behind the times. Like 15 years. The term "hacker" has stopped meaning exclusively these kind of guys for agres...

> You are probably a little behind the times. Like 15 years. The term "hacker" has stopped meaning exclusively these kind of guys for agres... No. What we're dealing here actually is the effect of the urge of wannabe-hacker kids using inflected forms of "hacking" in unheard before ways next to achievements often barely worth mentioning, especially under the "hack" hat. I'm hacking new code - I'm programming new code.…

>I simply cannot agree to these alleged redefinitions.

How about the most blatant redefinition -- from "a guy hacking trees with an axe"?

>HN as a community is the last place I would like to see wholeheartedly accepting casual things as hacking.

Well, Paul Graham might have been a great hacker (and Robert Morris!), but HN was built more around an entrepreneurial community (YC et al).

As such, a lot of people here don't do deep hacking stuff. They do simple web services (and sometimes, reading some articles they make it sound like they're doing rocket science). Even the most celebrated of them, Facebook, Instragram, Groupon or what have you, are dead simple stuff, CS wise. There might have been some difficulty in handling their scaling, but that too is hardly a hard problem. (Stuff like what Google and Orbitz do are another matter entirely).

So, seeing that HN has tons of introductory or trivial Node, Mongo and similar articles, why should you expect to see the "old meaning" of hacker here? It's not like it's Lambda the Ultimate.

Re: You aren't getting any better

#78

Post by kephra »

"We want to be ninjas" lol

A ninja coder is a coder with experience in liquidation of companies. I can claim, that I'm a ninja, because I liquidated 3 different companies in the last 20 years.

Of course the main work of a ninja starts, after you fired everybody. You need skills to hack into computers, accounts, databases, retrieve source code, and try to get a sense of what was going on in a company, without allowing anybody of the former employed to access any computer.

Re: You aren't getting any better

#79

Post by ritchiea »

przemoc wrote: post #73
coldtea wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hackers are behind stories like You are probably a little behind the times. Like 15 years. The term "hacker" has stopped meaning exclusively these kind of guys for agres...

> You are probably a little behind the times. Like 15 years. The term "hacker" has stopped meaning exclusively these kind of guys for agres... No. What we're dealing here actually is the effect of the urge of wannabe-hacker kids using inflected forms of "hacking" in unheard before ways next to achievements often barely worth mentioning, especially under the "hack" hat. I'm hacking new code - I'm programming new code.…

I don't think it's an insult to anyone that the meaning of the word has changed. People call themselves hackers in admiration of the kind of hacking you point to. Also, as another commenter pointed out, programmers call themselves hackers to speak to say "I would be programming even if it didn't pay the bills."

If anything I'd say your reverence for the term itself is dangerously close to hero worship, if not outright hero worship. Identifying with the culture of the hackers you're referring to helps us keep our sights on being our best selves and serves as a reminder what kind of work is top notch.

Re: You aren't getting any better

#80

Post by pjungwir »

zackham wrote: post #76
NickPollard wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a form of English called E-Prime [1] that does this, the idea (I believe) is to clarify what you mean and be clear about how your ideas of things came about. It stops lazy assertions and gives you perspective. For example, you can't say: Lua is better than Python[2] Instead you say: I prefer Lua to Python Or perhaps you say: More projects that I rate highly use Lua over Python. Or maybe: Lua scores more highl…

I hate to stray so far from the main thread, but anyone who finds E-Prime interesting might enjoy reading about Evidentiality[1]. Some languages allow encoding the nature of evidence in verb forms, with the most cited example (Pomo) having forms to distinguish direct evidence (visual and nonvisual), circumstantial evidence, and hearsay. Somewhat esoteric but pretty cool. Make the observations and give the facts to th…

Greek and Latin can do this in "indirect speech" ("He said that ..."). Depending on the verb forms, the actual speaker can indicate either that he agrees himself, or that it is just an assertion of the other person. So maybe not so esoteric!
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