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I've been programming since I was 10, but I don't feel like a 'hacker'

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Re: I've been programming since I was 10, but I don't feel like a 'hacker'

#41

Post by zozbot234 »

psyc wrote: post #37
exporectomy wrote: post #33

Yea, if you're driven by social support, you'll need social support to be driven. That's not really traditional hackerism.

I have no other reply to this essay. I am unmoved by anybody who requires social cues in order to decide how to spend time. When I got heavily into programming, nobody I knew had the faintest idea of what it was or what I was doing. I couldn’t be bothered, because I was too busy programming.

> When I got heavily into programming, nobody I knew had the faintest idea of what it was or what I was doing. I couldn’t be bothered, because I was too busy programming.

That's certainly typical for fledging hackers in 'larval stage', but many people would disagree that this suffices for calling oneself a hacker as a non-novice professional. Some contact, if perhaps only fleeting, with a community of fellow coders and tinkerers would seem to be required for that.

Re: I've been programming since I was 10, but I don't feel like a 'hacker'

#42

Post by notanzaiiswear »

I don't think boys were generally encouraged to get into programming. A friend of mine who was openly into computers was ridiculed by the whole school. To this day parents are suspicious of "screen time", I am constantly fighting my wife to let her allow my son use the computer. There were specific jokes about people in Engineering at university, as to them being all male and never getting laid.

Schools started to have "computer rooms" but teachers were not well qualified to use them or to teach students about their use.

My male friends who were into computers would have loved it if girls were interested in that. They just weren't, unless they needed help with their homework or something.

In my Maths degree women did get a lot of encouragement and people are always eager to help. For example a friend of mine received a stipend for her achievements after the first year of study. By her own admission she wasn't the most brilliant student, although at least I think she was very "straight" (always doing her homework, always studying in time for tests, and so on). Only with hindsight did I realise that she probably got the stipend because she was a woman (to generally encourage women in Maths perhaps).

Re: I've been programming since I was 10, but I don't feel like a 'hacker'

#43

Post by beermonster »

kodah wrote: post #10

I never even really hear the term "hacker" anymore. I'm not sure what's driven it out of the industry. I've been programming since I was nine and I was never called a "hacker", even to date. I was called a "nerd", a term which used to be a pejorative for young boys who spent a lot of time on a computer and had a-typical interests and attire. I was made fun of for reading programming books when I finished my other wor…

I think hackers call themselves hackers. Linus describes himself as a hacker unless he’s talking to the press. In which case he uses the term programmer as they do not understand the term and it only leads to confusion.

Interesting couple of articles from The Register

[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/03/debate_hackers_for/

[2] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/09/debate_hacker_result/

Re: I've been programming since I was 10, but I don't feel like a 'hacker'

#44

Post by zozbot234 »

bencollier49 wrote: post #39

Reading this article, I think the reason that the author doesn't feel like a hacker is that it's a cultural label and a lifestyle (almost like "goth" or "punk"). The author recounts three or four occasions when they did some programming at school. They're quite right - that isn't being a "hacker". IMO that requires a level of monomania which means that a significant portion of their spare time is spent on computer pr…

> The author recounts three or four occasions when they did some programming at school. They're quite right - that isn't being a "hacker".

It's a difficult assessment, because OP seems like they had some spontaneous appreciation for 'hack value', in that they chose to go well beyond the requirements of their LOGO assignment. Ultimately, though, OP was unable to join a supportive community of hackers, and this stunted their intellectual growth and left them with a dislike for the very idea of becoming a hacker. I don't think this has much to do with OP being female; it's quite clear that OP was badly taught, at a time when coding was far less regarded than today.

Re: I've been programming since I was 10, but I don't feel like a 'hacker'

#45

Post by darksaints »

zem wrote: post #14
kodah wrote: post #10

I never even really hear the term "hacker" anymore. I'm not sure what's driven it out of the industry. I've been programming since I was nine and I was never called a "hacker", even to date. I was called a "nerd", a term which used to be a pejorative for young boys who spent a lot of time on a computer and had a-typical interests and attire. I was made fun of for reading programming books when I finished my other wor…

i think two things drove it out: 1. the long-standing confusion between "someone who tinkers with programs" and "someone who maliciously breaks into systems" the tinkering contingent fought diligently against letting the black hat contingent coopt the term, but then 2. the tech-bro/marketer crowd caught hold of it, and it became associated with other cringy terms like "ninja" and "rockstar". (tangentially, "wizard" a…

Hacker culture and cracker culture go hand in hand, and it has been that way since the very beginning of it all. Hacker culture primarily evolved from phreaking culture, which was reverse engineering and security bypassing...cracking, essentially. And for personal gain, no less. Nearly all of the famous hackers have histories of legally questionable actions.

And it should be that way. If you want any chance of knowing how to build good things, you need to know how to break them. That's as true for a bridge engineer as it is for Woz.

Personally, I find the attempt to distinguish between hacker and cracker to be some sort of no-true-scotsman retcon. I've always viewed the whole concept of hacker culture to be amoral...and the attempt to distinguish between "good" or "bad" hackers has just watered down the term.

Re: I've been programming since I was 10, but I don't feel like a 'hacker'

#46

Post by jltsiren »

beermonster wrote: post #43
kodah wrote: post #10

I never even really hear the term "hacker" anymore. I'm not sure what's driven it out of the industry. I've been programming since I was nine and I was never called a "hacker", even to date. I was called a "nerd", a term which used to be a pejorative for young boys who spent a lot of time on a computer and had a-typical interests and attire. I was made fun of for reading programming books when I finished my other wor…

I think hackers call themselves hackers. Linus describes himself as a hacker unless he’s talking to the press. In which case he uses the term programmer as they do not understand the term and it only leads to confusion. Interesting couple of articles from The Register [1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/03/debate_hackers_for/ [2] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/09/debate_hacker_result/

Hackers are those recognized by other hackers as hackers. It's like the tech equivalent of an artist. Describing yourself as one usually sounds pretentious, unless it's clear other hackers/artists recognize you as such.

Re: I've been programming since I was 10, but I don't feel like a 'hacker'

#47

Post by bencollier49 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #44
bencollier49 wrote: post #39

Reading this article, I think the reason that the author doesn't feel like a hacker is that it's a cultural label and a lifestyle (almost like "goth" or "punk"). The author recounts three or four occasions when they did some programming at school. They're quite right - that isn't being a "hacker". IMO that requires a level of monomania which means that a significant portion of their spare time is spent on computer pr…

> The author recounts three or four occasions when they did some programming at school. They're quite right - that isn't being a "hacker". It's a difficult assessment, because OP seems like they had some spontaneous appreciation for 'hack value', in that they chose to go well beyond the requirements of their LOGO assignment. Ultimately, though, OP was unable to join a supportive community of hackers, and this stunted…

You know, as regards young female hackers - and reflecting on what sustained me as a boy - there is some element of self-reinforcement going on. If we work on the basis that it's more common for boys to show an early interest (for whatever reason), then their overwhelmingly same-sex friends are more likely to be showing an interest, and that's more likely to lead to an obsession of the type which turns one into a "hacker".

But equally, having tutored programming in my late teens, the boys were self-starters whose parents recognised that they had no friends who were interested, so perhaps this argument is not quite right. They seemed like they were on the spectrum a bit.

Re: I've been programming since I was 10, but I don't feel like a 'hacker'

#48

Post by axelroze »

watwut wrote: post #31

IRL, I have heard the term hacker only as a term for "badly written code that kinda works, but is a mess". It was never something positive.

Words change their meaning as languages evolve. Nothing unusual. I can share this experience that in a more professional setting hacky code is bad code.

But originally back in the 80s and 90s and even the 2000s a hacker was someone who did something different with their devices just for the sake of it. It was a way of interacting with technology. Finding new uses for technology, finding ways to break it. Pure exploration. From the 2000s with massive expansion of personal computing hacker culture died down. No one wants to be associated with ransomware and silk road. Also cryptocurrencies and all the speculations with them made a huge disservice to the hacker community.

It is not 100% dead tho. There is probably some sort of a community hacklab in the place where you live. Give it a visit (after corona dies down a bit).

Re: I've been programming since I was 10, but I don't feel like a 'hacker'

#49

Post by beermonster »

jltsiren wrote: post #46
beermonster wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think hackers call themselves hackers. Linus describes himself as a hacker unless he’s talking to the press. In which case he uses the term programmer as they do not understand the term and it only leads to confusion. Interesting couple of articles from The Register [1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/03/debate_hackers_for/ [2] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/09/debate_hacker_result/

Hackers are those recognized by other hackers as hackers. It's like the tech equivalent of an artist. Describing yourself as one usually sounds pretentious, unless it's clear other hackers/artists recognize you as such.

Yes and of course their peers who are hackers. But certainly not other IT staff they may work with unless they’re very lucky IMHO

Re: I've been programming since I was 10, but I don't feel like a 'hacker'

#50

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

7thaccount wrote: post #32
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, exactly same experience. I clearly remember some of my friends stating "I don't want to be 30 an still be playing videogames"... As if it was a bad thing. I thought it was weird at the time to make such statement.

Maybe they meant it like "don't want to ONLY be playing video games" as in they'd be fine with video games in moderation as long as they had a social life, career, money for vacation and travel, a good hobby, family...etc.

No, at the time it was definitely zero videogames intended. We were like 13 at having a partner and playing videogames were more or less mutually exclusive in our teenager's brain
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