A Modern Parable

[noone@nowhere.org (Bart)]

The evolution of a Hack:

Back in the Early Mid-Bronze Age of Computers (the mid 70s), when Mainframe 
was king, we would be trying to get some recalcitrant part of the operating 
system to do a task the system was not quite designed to do  (like format data 
on a disk in a rational way).  A program or modification would be written to 
do this.  It would be called a "System Hack".   Therefore, the guy who wrote 
it became known as a "Hacker".  Hackers were admired for their ability to get 
things done.  

As the 70s rolled into the 80s, more and more the early nerds and geeks who 
worked the computer center moved on (usually to the Apple II), and the suits 
took over Mainframe land.  "Hackers" were now PEEKing and POKEing their way 
into cool mods for the II.   But soon, the Suits took over at Big Green and 
that was the end to the Hackers in Apple-land. So the Hacker moved to the 
Internet. 
 
By now the suits, feeling their natural inadequacy, saw how HUGE the internet 
was, how comfortable the hacker was in this new space, and how if business was 
to survive there, the Hacker needed to be decried, vilified and generally cast 
out.  
To do this, the very term Hacker had to undergo a change.  Witness the 
evolution of a word

Computers are like the early frontier: the skills needed to blaze the trail 
are admired at first, then later considered not quite up to polite society 
standards. 

No matter the platform, no matter the environment, the Suit will follow as 
sure as night follows day...

thus endth the leason....