[bencollier49]

Reading this article, I think the reason that the author doesn't feel like a hacker is that it's a cultural label and a lifestyle (almost like "goth" or "punk").

The author recounts three or four occasions when they did some programming at school. They're quite right - that isn't being a "hacker". IMO that requires a level of monomania which means that a significant portion of their spare time is spent on computer projects.

I'd agree with them that "hacker" doesn't necessarily imply "good computer employee" though, and this will increasingly be the case as in the industry matures, but it does mean that the person concerned deeply loves the field, and that's someone you probably want to work with, if they're not also a sociopath.

I know a few people from school who weren't remotely interested in computers at the time, but ended up on CS programmes. Typically those are the people who became managers in the end. A lot of the "hackers" are still programming. I don't think this has anything to do with the Dilbert principle. It's more to do with their having developed decent people-skills in their youth, possibly due to their lack of monomania (or reverse causation). But it also speaks to their motivations.

The article suggests that we not focus on the "hacker stereotype", but it's a stereotype because it's a thing. Ignoring it seems silly as well. Deliberately trying to undermine or change it culturally seems like vandalism. The answer is probably to highlight the fact that a team with only "hackers" on it will probably not do quite as well as a more mixed team including a bunch of people from other backgrounds as well.

[zozbot234]

> The author recounts three or four occasions when they did some programming at school. They're quite right - that isn't being a "hacker".

It's a difficult assessment, because OP seems like they had some spontaneous appreciation for 'hack value', in that they chose to go well beyond the requirements of their LOGO assignment. Ultimately, though, OP was unable to join a supportive community of hackers, and this stunted their intellectual growth and left them with a dislike for the very idea of becoming a hacker. I don't think this has much to do with OP being female; it's quite clear that OP was badly taught, at a time when coding was far less regarded than today.

[bencollier49]

You know, as regards young female hackers - and reflecting on what sustained me as a boy - there is some element of self-reinforcement going on. If we work on the basis that it's more common for boys to show an early interest (for whatever reason), then their overwhelmingly same-sex friends are more likely to be showing an interest, and that's more likely to lead to an obsession of the type which turns one into a "hacker".

But equally, having tutored programming in my late teens, the boys were self-starters whose parents recognised that they had no friends who were interested, so perhaps this argument is not quite right. They seemed like they were on the spectrum a bit.