[originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe]
1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems
and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who
prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. RFC1392, the Internet
Users' Glossary, usefully amplifies this as: A person who delights in
having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a
system, computers and computer networks in particular.
2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys
programming rather than just theorizing about programming.
3. A person capable of appreciating {hack value}.
4. A person who is good at programming quickly.
5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work
using it or on it; as in `a Unix hacker'. (Definitions 1 through 5
are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.)
6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy
hacker, for example.
7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming
or circumventing limitations.
8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive
information by poking around. Hence password hacker, network hacker.
The correct term for this sense is {cracker}.
The term `hacker' also tends to connote membership in the global
community defined by the net (see {the network}. For discussion of
some of the basics of this culture, see the How To Become A Hacker
FAQ. It also implies that the person described is seen to subscribe
to some version of the hacker ethic (see {hacker ethic}).
It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe
oneself that way. Hackers consider themselves something of an elite
(a meritocracy based on ability), though one to which new members are
gladly welcome. There is thus a certain ego satisfaction to be had in
identifying yourself as a hacker (but if you claim to be one and are
not, you'll quickly be labeled {bogus}). See also {geek}, {wannabee}.
This term seems to have been first adopted as a badge in the 1960s by
the hacker culture surrounding TMRC and the MIT AI Lab. We have a
report that it was used in a sense close to this entry's by teenage
radio hams and electronics tinkerers in the mid-1950s.
[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {code grinder}{cowboy}{cracker}{geek}{gweep}{hack}{insanely great}{neep-neep}{superprogrammer}{veeblefester}{wannabee}{whacker}{wizard}]