[Tutor] Please read this and respond to me. [what to do with "hacker" requests?]

[Danny Yoo]

On Tue, 29 Jan 2002, Chris Keelan wrote:

> > > In what context?  The context of this list?
> > 
> > No, in the contest of his post. If he meant hacking as programming, he'd
> > say "programming".
> 
> I read it that way, as well. That's why I posted the Eric Raymond link.
>
[... some text cut]
>
> My appologies if I'm completely misreading this situation.


We do get quite a lot people here who use the work "hacker" in the
positive sense.  Eric Raymond's recommendation that beginner hackers pick
up a language like Python is also a factor that makes the situation
ambiguous.

I personally felt the reprimand was a little too sharp... But in
hindsight, Andrei read the situation accurately.


Anyway, if this situation happens again, let's do make sure that they get
the link to ESR's essay.  If they're truly interested in learning, they'll
come back and tell us we're just a bunch of worry warts, and that of
course they mean "hacker" in the finest sense of the word.

And if they're looking for ways to crack systems, they'll quickly get
bored by our discussion of list comprehension syntax.