Re: What design is: 911 vs. Fleetwood

[Dan Weinreb <address@hidden>]

   Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2001 17:19:41 -0500 (EST)
   From: kragen@pobox.com (Kragen Sitaker)

   Dan Sugalski writes:
   > "Real hackers" generally ought not be allowed to touch production code. 

   If production code is not written by real hackers, it will tend to
   contain boneheaded idiocies like using floats to hold money amounts,

I think what we have here is a failure to communicate.  It appears to
me that Dan Sugalski is using the term hacker to mean, roughly,
"someone who just codes without any sense of design or taste", whereas
the original mail and Kragen Sitaker's mail is using "hacker" in the
classic sense which is more like "a very skilled and excellent
programer" (I'm simplifying a lot, see the Jargon File for more
accurate definitions).  (At least nobody here is using "hacker" in
the sense of "someone who maliciously breaks into computers"...)