Hack
This entry is about the meaning of the word hack, see Hack (computer game) for the game.A Hack is a person lacking talent or ability, as in a "hack writer". Within the past few decades, it has also come to mean either a kludge, or the opposite of a kludge, as in a clever or elegant solution to a difficult problem. As a verb, it means creating or participating in a hack. The term word is commonly, but not exclusively, used in relation to computer programming. It is used especially among university computing center staff, such as those at MIT and Stanford in the period beginning approximately in the mid 1960s and ending in the 1980s. Originally, a hack meant a quick fix to a computer program problem. For instance, "That hack you made last night to the editor is working well." A hacker came into the lexicon as meaning one who hacks after this definition. The surface implication, a modest mocking and play on the literary definition, was a casual attempt to fix the problem, but the deeper meaning was something more clever and thus impressive.
The term is still used in this sense in the technical computer community though it has since acquired an additional and now more common meaning, outside that of the original group, since approximately the 1980s. This more modern definition is associated with hacker.
The context determines whether the complimentary or derogatory meanings is implied. Phrases such as "ugly hack" or "quick hack" generally refer to the latter meaning; phrases such as "cool hack" or "neat hack" refer to the former.
Additionally, in MIT's particular lingo, a "hack" is an elaborate and flamboyant student prank. Past MIT hacks include:
- Covering the university's signature "Great Dome" (which seems to be something of a magnet for hacks) with tin foil
- Putting a fake (but convincing) MIT Campus Police cruiser on the Dome
- Decorating the Dome as R2D2
- Hiding the university president's office by covering its entrance with a fake bulletin board
- Inflating a huge balloon on the playing field during a Harvard-Yale football game
For Palm OS users, a "hack" refers to an extension of the operating system which provides additional functionality.
A hack can also refer to the goal of the game hacky sack; in rugby football, "hacking" is kicking an opponent in the shins; in the US hacking is the act of constructing furniture with an axe, which led to the computer-industry compliment of calling a programming effort a "hack".