[dragonwriter]

It suggests (but certainly does not, as described, certainly establish) that the associating the term with a particular kind of affection for a vocation may be tied to gender, and therefore that suggesting that identifying with the use of that term in that relation as a qualification for a program like Hacker School may be an unintentional gender filter.

Interestingly, I'd never thought about that previously but as soon as I saw a reference to it I realized that I'd much less frequently seen women use the term in that context (with regard to vocational activities) compared to men, so, while I don't know that different word usage by gender is really the issue, I see that it certainly could be, and that it makes sense to avoid that usage in the context Hacker School was using it.

[Torgo]

I am not surprised at all a study found that less women say they "love" programming. In my career I have worked with many women, and none of them would I consider less than well-rounded as a person. But I have met many, many males who are heavily skewed toward the "hacking is life" mindset. Nevertheless, the two best programmers I have ever known are women, and they did not identify as "hackers."

Hacking is a culture, not a job description, and in my experience, singleminded dedication to programming is not an indicator of ability. So I guess the real problem with "Hacker School" is that it's a programming school not a hacker school. A hacker (programming) school could never say anything like "you don't have to love programming" because being a hacker is pretty much defined by loving it.

[hdevalence]

You don't get to define what the word "hacker" means, though.