The Fall of Hacking

>"It's too easy now. You don't have to love hacking to build something with computers. You don't have to have passion to build, you just throw some parts together, copy and paste some graphics and change the colors in photoshop to match a named swatch you found at colourlovers. It's kind of sad."

But this is what we've worked for all along. The inevitable result of "Don't Repeat Yourself" and open source. Isn't this what we wanted, to get to a point where programming is easy?

What this really sounds like is a rant about how Hacker News is not a very precisely named website.

Hacker culture is alive and well, and there are plenty of heroes hacking the night away staring at their monitors (though LCD these days), just as there 'always' has been. There are probably more now than there ever has been, actually. There's just a lot more parasites and poseurs around, because computers are mainstream now and there's a lot more money around.

There is a lot more to hacker culture than web startup culture! I don't even consider virtually anything you mentioned a part of hacker culture. PHP and databases? "Software Visionaire/Ruby Ninja"? (bad) business ideas?

Of course people understand the internals of the Linux kernel. You think the people working on it don't understand it? That's a pretty good example of an island in contemporary hacker culture. You don't have to look far in a sea of recreational kernel hackers to find... hackers. The associated mailing lists generate quite a bit more discussion than HN does...

There have always been poseurs and businessman hangers-on, and there always will be. They are obviously not hackers.

Hacker culture, and the existence of true hackers, can never die out. It's hard wired in.

My apologies for being slow on the uptake, but is there an analogy here or is this just a simple pun?

Sorry, I was referring to VPRI's project.

You are truly oblivious, just blind to what exists in the world.

You're setting up an impossibly strict definition of a word whose definition is not widely agreed upon ("hacker"/"hacking"), then listing things that don't fall under the definition. Good for you. Bad for argument.

> Hacking started as an art, without regard for commerce

How far do you want to trace it back? 60's, 40's? How about a few hundred BC? Doing more with less, finding one's ways around limits has always been around and will always continue to be around.

Dipshit posers wiping their buddies hard drives will always be around, too. Does this make you happy? Is this what you want to be a part of? Would the world be a better place if we were all doing this?

> Writing software is now a team effort

WTF? Lots of stuff is a team effort. Lots of stuff is not a team effort. Don't join a team if you think it'll hold you back. What's your point?

Newton, "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants." He was just some dilettante using the knowledge discovered and shared by the folks who came before him in a new and interesting way, I guess. Not much effort, there, just a bunch of cut-and-paste of existing code (ideas).

> having an corporate job or starting a Web 2.0 CRUD start-up makes you beholden to either your boss or your potential customers

And turning your computer on makes you beholden to Apple (or Lenovo, or Dell, or ...) and your power and data providers. It's turtles all the way down.

> van Gogh

Are you serious? Yes he did seek commercial approval of his art (Nuenen (1883–1885)) and yes he did choose colors based on what was popular and appearing in the museums of his time (Antwerp (1885–1886)). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh

> the best art inspires, challenges and mocks the audience, but it never panders to its audience

[citation needed]. "Art" is a lot bigger than you're allowing for. Define it however you like. Put that definition in your wallet and show it to people at parties, but please don't assume your definition is bigger, better, or more perfect than everyone else's (says the little postmodernist living in my brain).

> Lack of Encouragement in the Community to Buck the Status Quo

Now you're taking the thing that defines the status quo--"Community"--and then complaining that it wants to follow what it defines? By definition, that's what the community does. Or do you mean that someone whom you believe should be encouraging you to do interesting things is not doing so? What, precisely, is it that "the community" owes you?

> early 90's at the dawn of personal computing

You mean almost 20 years after the introduction of the Apple II (in 1977)? Was that just pre-dawn? Early 90's already had Microsoft running more PCs than any other OS on the planet. That was pretty awesome for innovation and "anything's possible", huh?

> While occasionally Hacker News feature posts

Now you're just whining. If you want the HN scene to be more awesome for you then hang out, post more, and make it awesome. Otherwise, go back to your "real hacking is dead" sub-reddit and mope around there. This is what it is. Hacking is what it is. If your blinders prevent you from seeing awesome, take them off. You are info-rich and thought-poor, you are not entitled to have others filter the world in whatever way you want. If the community you find here isn't the community you want to be a part of, then run away like you're on fire.

> Where are the implementation of the next generation's ideas?

"Where's my flying car?" amiright? Implementations of "the next generation of ideas" are constantly fomenting. Many try, many fail. You've been reading too much futurist sci-fi.

> my commentary turned out to be still pretty liberal artsy

More "trolly" than liberal arts, I'd say.