Sure, this is fair. I tend to use "hacking" to mean "tinkering", and it could be said that I have a fairly loose usage of the word.
To me, this article gets to the crux of what I find particularly delightful about hacking (tinkering?): unraveling layers of complexity underneath. I feel like I have a little better understanding of what's happening when I punch in `ls`, and I think that particular delight and knowledge is the kind of thing that appeals to tinkerers (hackers? :p) like myself. So - in my view - entirely appropriate for this crowd!
But you have a fair point; there's nothing particularly out-of-the-ordinary of this code or process, and in that sense, isn't newsworthy to hackers.
(I did not downvote you incidentally; I think it's interesting to get a sense of peoples' different thresholds for what constitutes "hacker." I play the saxophone, and an instructor once told me that people always came up to him and said "I want to be a musician. How can I do that?" Well it turns out that the moment you play "hot cross buns" on your instrument, you are indeed a musician. Perhaps not a skilled one, but you have in fact made music. I think of hacking in a similar way, and freely admit that it is a loose use of the word!)
I can totally agree with calling that tinkering - and also that it is interesting, if only (due to my diverging opinion on the merits of the approach) as a warning tale about how far one should go to try and fix a problem.
But, just like you, I consider that not newsworthy to hackers, yet at the moment it is the #1 item on HN and it kinda makes me sad especially because of the threshold - the idea that some people do consider that hacking - here of all places - is chilling :-/
Worse - #2 item is "more people should write". I beg to differ- more people should code, so that fixing a printf and recompiling ls wouldn't be newsworthy.
I'm sorry if it was interpreted as being rude- it was not the point - I just wanted to present alternative approaches to the problem, because reconsidering the problem is sometimes the right thing to do, especially when it escalate quickly in complexity.
I think you're complaining too much about this momentarily being the top story on HN: (it feels to me as if) usually the top story is gossip about how much money some startup raised or an Apple vs Android piece. I find this to be an improvement.
Comments
Sure, this is fair. I tend to use "hacking" to mean "tinkering", and it could be said that I have a fairly loose usage of the word.
To me, this article gets to the crux of what I find particularly delightful about hacking (tinkering?): unraveling layers of complexity underneath. I feel like I have a little better understanding of what's happening when I punch in `ls`, and I think that particular delight and knowledge is the kind of thing that appeals to tinkerers (hackers? :p) like myself. So - in my view - entirely appropriate for this crowd!
But you have a fair point; there's nothing particularly out-of-the-ordinary of this code or process, and in that sense, isn't newsworthy to hackers.
(I did not downvote you incidentally; I think it's interesting to get a sense of peoples' different thresholds for what constitutes "hacker." I play the saxophone, and an instructor once told me that people always came up to him and said "I want to be a musician. How can I do that?" Well it turns out that the moment you play "hot cross buns" on your instrument, you are indeed a musician. Perhaps not a skilled one, but you have in fact made music. I think of hacking in a similar way, and freely admit that it is a loose use of the word!)
I can totally agree with calling that tinkering - and also that it is interesting, if only (due to my diverging opinion on the merits of the approach) as a warning tale about how far one should go to try and fix a problem.
But, just like you, I consider that not newsworthy to hackers, yet at the moment it is the #1 item on HN and it kinda makes me sad especially because of the threshold - the idea that some people do consider that hacking - here of all places - is chilling :-/
Worse - #2 item is "more people should write". I beg to differ- more people should code, so that fixing a printf and recompiling ls wouldn't be newsworthy.
I'm sorry if it was interpreted as being rude- it was not the point - I just wanted to present alternative approaches to the problem, because reconsidering the problem is sometimes the right thing to do, especially when it escalate quickly in complexity.
I think you're complaining too much about this momentarily being the top story on HN: (it feels to me as if) usually the top story is gossip about how much money some startup raised or an Apple vs Android piece. I find this to be an improvement.
In what way is this not hacking?