Good Bad Attitude

Good Bad Attitude by Paul Graham. This was posted on Slashdot this morning. I thought it was a good read until i got to the bit equating hackism to yankism. Why someone would talk about a global movement and think nationally is beyond me. It's still worth a look at, although I'd only recommend the first half. Exceprt follows.

"To the popular press, "hacker" means someone who breaks into computers. Among programmers it means a good programmer. But the two meanings are connected. To programmers, "hacker" connotes mastery in the most literal sense: someone who can make a computer do what he wants-- whether the computer wants to or not.

To add to the confusion, the noun "hack" also has two senses. It can be either a compliment or an insult. It's called a hack when you do something in an ugly way. But when you do something so clever that you somehow beat the system, that's also called a hack. The word is used more often in the former than the latter sense, probably because ugly solutions are more common than brilliant ones."