[qubex]

I concur: the term 'hacking' has become hopelessly diluted by wannabe use applied to unrelated activities that are only very weakly analogous.

A 'hack' is a self-deprecating description of a quick and dirty programming job, anybody who proudly self-describes something they've done as hacking has totally missed the point. It used to be that one could not self-style oneself as a hacker but rather became one when others who are recognised as such begin referring to one as such.

(I used to be referred to as being one, but I gave up my fascination with computer security and exotic computer science concepts in the mid 2000s.)

[shaftway]

Hacking doesn't need to be self-deprecating. I'm proud of some of my work that I consider a hack.

When I worked in finance, I hacked together a bridge between an FIXML order pub/sub service and a proprietary exchange server. Was it my best work? Obviously not. Was it ugly as sin? Hell yes. Did I slap it out in a few weeks? Yup. Did it prop up the business for the 18 months it needed to develop a "real" solution? Yeah.

That ugly hack probably earned the business millions in revenue.

Though I also concur; the term hacker is overused, diluted and twisted in meaning, and I have no interest in bringing it back.