At 04:46 PM 5/26/2004 -0700, you wrote:
> > [snip]
> > Perhaps you'd like to come up with some alternative term for
> > 'hacker' in
> > [snip]
> > -tony
>
>I remember a very knowledgeable acquaintance of many years ago whose
>business card read "Software Craftsperson". I much prefer that to "hacker"
>and it's been something I've always aspired to, because in any non-computing
>context, craftsmanship is usually better than hacking (say, in woodworking
>for example). --Patrick :-)
Even in computing contexts, many people would say that methodical and
consistent development work, i.e. the kind of thing someone familiar with
Knuth and who is a trained software engineer, is better than something
'hacked together' by one guy at 4 in the morning.
This is a very debatable topic, of course. But the myth of the 'greatest
software' coming out of hacking sessions is generally rather dubious. Said
'greatest software' (i.e the much lauded Open Source/Free Software) usually
comes out of _many_ so-called hacking sessions, with a huge amount of
social interaction glueing the development together.
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Received on Wed May 26 2004 - 19:00:55 BST