There is a book writen by Paul Graham, creator of HN: Hackers and Painters[1]
And there is one tradition to call a hacker to someone who hacks(with software and hardware)[2], doing clever and/or ugly things, and that is not exactly to be a programmer (and also not exactly a security breaker, the other tradition for the hacker name[3])
I think that following the first tradition, the name of the site is well deserved.
> Therefore, the hacker culture originally emerged in academia in the 1960s around the MIT's Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) and MIT AI Laboratory.
> Richard Stallman explains about hackers who program:
> What they had in common was mainly love of excellence and programming. They wanted to make their programs that they used be as good as they could. They also wanted to make them do neat things. They wanted to be able to do something in a more exciting way than anyone believed possible and show "Look how wonderful this is. I bet you didn't believe this could be done."
Tangentially, abusing code blocks for quotes is ugly on desktop and basically unreadable on mobile (the latter because it prevents proper reflowing based on screen width.)
There's also a tradition for peers to "bestow" that title on someone who they feel deserves it. You don't call yourself a hacker just like you don't call yourself a maestro.
And there is one tradition to call a hacker to someone who hacks(with software and hardware)[2], doing clever and/or ugly things, and that is not exactly to be a programmer (and also not exactly a security breaker, the other tradition for the hacker name[3])
I think that following the first tradition, the name of the site is well deserved.
[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/hackpaint.html
[2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hack
[3] http://duartes.org/gustavo/blog/post/first-recorded-usage-of...