[very common]
1. n. Originally, a quick job that produces what is needed, but not
well.
2. n. An incredibly good, and perhaps very time-consuming, piece of
work that produces exactly what is needed.
3. vt. To bear emotionally or physically. "I can't hack this heat!"
4. vt. To work on something (typically a program). In an immediate
sense: "What are you doing?" "I'm hacking TECO." In a general
(time-extended) sense: "What do you do around here?" "I hack TECO."
More generally, "I hack foo" is roughly equivalent to "foo is my
major interest (or project)". "I hack solid-state physics." See
{Hacking X for Y}.
5. vt. To pull a prank on. See sense 2 and {hacker} (sense 5).
6. vi. To interact with a computer in a playful and exploratory
rather than goal-directed way. "Whatcha up to?" "Oh, just hacking."
7. n. Short for {hacker}.
8. See {nethack}.
9. [MIT] v. To explore the basements, roof ledges, and steam tunnels
of a large, institutional building, to the dismay of Physical Plant
workers and (since this is usually performed at educational
institutions) the Campus Police. This activity has been found to be
eerily similar to playing adventure games such as Dungeons and
Dragons and {Zork}. See also {vadding}.
Constructions on this term abound. They include happy hacking (a
farewell), how's hacking? (a friendly greeting among hackers) and
hack, hack (a fairly content-free but friendly comment, often used as
a temporary farewell). For more on this totipotent term see The
Meaning of Hack. See also {neat hack}, {real hack}.
[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {bodge}{gweep}{hack on}{hack up}{neat hack}{noddy}{randomness}{real hack}{tool}{vadding}{wank}]