Do you know from where or who the word "Hack" later "hacker" used in coding environment comes from?

Disagree completely. The term hacking is used for a number of different things. If I were trying to sum it up, it might be "doing things via an alternate, not officially supported route". Being a hacker means someone is capable of hacking, not that they can only solve problems that way, so I'd say it's usually a compliment, sometimes a neutral statement. The only negative connotation is the criminal one, and even then it's an insult to their ethics, not their technical ability.

Secondly, even when speaking of some code being "a hack", it may or may not be a negative thing, it depends on context. A hack could be a kludge, but it could also be an unorthodox but effective method. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root, for instance.

 

How am I ignoring burden of proof when I'm specifically saying there is no proof?

Like I pretty clearly said, I'm not arguing one way or another on the Hack thing. What I took issue with is the idea that it's safe to assume something based on a lack of evidence from a period of time when we were particularly terrible at recognising specifically what's being discussed.

 

Lack of evidence for a thing A, and evidence for thing B which contradicts thing A, is usually considered sufficient to dismiss thing A.

You can't have it both ways. Either she made a contribution to computers and had a computer term named after her or her contribution to computers was suppressed by the male dominated environment. You can't have 'a woman who made such a contribution to computers that her male colleagues took her name and suppressed her contribution to computers'. Its contradictory.

Plus she was a feminist and scientific activist during her latter years. If she genuinely did have a hidden contribution to computers, she would have brought it up. Its exactly the type of thing she was campaigning for.

 

But I'm explicitly not saying either of those things. I'm saying we might not know either way.

 

I'm disagreeing with you. I'm saying we have enough evidence.

The OP provided us with a premise: "The word 'hack' comes from Margherita Hack."

I'm saying that premise requires that "Margherita Hack made a sufficient contribution to computer science for her name to be used in connection with computer science, and that contribution was not recorded anywhere."

This is an inherently contradictory position. If she made a contribution, but it was suppressed by the environment, then her name wouldn't have been used in connection with computers. If she did make a contribution that was sufficient for her name to be used in connection with computers, then it could not have been suppressed by her environment.

Basically the two are connected. I can't conceive of a way her name could become commonly used by her colleagues while at the same time her contributions to computers were not recognized by her colleagues. The contradiction inherent in the OPs premise is sufficient evidence to dismiss the story.

 

Right, I'm cool with that. I think I was having a "can't see the forest for the trees" (or vice versa) moment there. I was responding specifically to the segment I quoted, so I was thinking about the possibility of a contribution in general, not about the connection to the word "hack".

More broadly speaking, I do genuinely believe there's the possibility of many people having made contributions that aren't widely known.

 

Yeah, we are on the same page now.

Its entirely possible she did make a contribution to computing. I'm still saying its likely she didn't, but we don't have enough evidence to prove that. In modern times, which includes last century, most scientists tend to be specialists within their domains. The days of the Newtons or Da Vincis who could make break throughs across the board are mostly behind us.

 

An interesting thought except for one basic problem. I'm genuinely not very good with names. I've legitimately forgotten the names of most of my teachers and fellow students in high school let alone middle and elementary. Faces are a completely different story and I'm very easily able to remember many of their faces. I just can't put names to them.

Roberta Williams immediately comes to mind. Okay, the company she co-founded (Sierra) and the logo for it came to mind and I had to struggle to remember her first name followed by Googling to remember her last name, but I knew about her without having to use Google.

Jennifer Diane Reitz came to mind (I remembered her game, which then led to remembering the company, which led to Googling because I suck at names) after I remembered that the puzzle game Boppin' was developed by a woman. That's an early 90s title though so it may not count as an "early contributor".

Finally, and this one doesn't count in my opinion because I only knew it barely, Amy Briggs developed Plundered Hearts as an employee of Infocom in 1987. Like I said though I only barely remembered that there was a female employee at Infocom that had developed a title.

Going back to very early computer science though... I can effortlessly name Ada Lovelace who is credited as being one of the earliest programmers though since Babbage was awful at completing anything the system she supposedly wrote "code" for was never completed. She was a mathematician.

Furthermore I can effortlessly remember Grace Hopper (and her photo on Wikipedia because I have read the article multiple times and point people towards her when the discussion is about women in the computing fields) who made a significant impact on computer science.

 

1951 I'm assuming the <cough> PC in question was the Whirlwind I as it seems to be the first MIT computer that would have had a separate access terminal. The receiving data from a satellite makes no sense at all before 1957's Sputnik launch, so I'm assuming she was working on data on a satellite terminal (or with data about natural satellites like the moon). Assuming such use would even be allowed on a US Navy project.

April 1955 First documented use of 'hacking', in relation to MIT model railways electrical system, a context which favors a badly done 'track' cutting looking like it was done with an axe

That sets a time frame for when Margherita would have to have been at MIT. Do you have anything more definite than sometime in the 50s?

I'm pretty sure hacking as a term predates any computing context, telephone whistlers come to mind (edit: wrongly, they were phreakers) and that also makes me wonder when switchboard cord panels got renamed to patch panels. The early analogue computers with patch cables to define the functionality seems to be the point where hacking was adopted as a product feature.

 

Going back to the OPs origin story

Thought : If the term 'hack' was already in use at MIT/wherever, and she had contact with places where it was established, Margherita Hack's attribution of the the term as being based on her own name could be explained as a mistaken assumption (albeit a wee bitty presumptious). That would explain the discontinuity between her explanation and the more established one.

 

The shift,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kludge#Computer_science

Relevant names with computer skills
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack_(name)

Murgilod, I will cover my parts with this 60s tool until better source.

 

A shift would imply that people are largely using one word in favor of another. Kludge is just an alternative term in the same sense that "soft drink", "fizzy drink", "soda pop", etc are alternative terms for "soda".

Yes, because Maria Hack (1777-1844) had computer skills. It's nonsense like this that is destroying any chance at people believing your assertions that Margherita Hack contributed to computer science.

Classifying the Olivetti Programma 101 as the first personal computer is debatable. Like I mentioned in a previous post we would need to define the qualifications a machine must meet to be a personal computer because it's definitely not the first computer with a reasonable footprint.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_(computer)

Spoiler

 

Yes sorry for Ryiah I was trying to be compact. I pass the Hack name list because is short to point out that there are few notable people that can make a contribution to the word Hack (computer science). Is not important. An inelegant but effective solution to a computing problem. The shift was in America specific in the computer science. If you look
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack
Hack (computer science) takes you to Kludge

 

If you read the text that the redirect sends you to it suggests that it's just an alternative word.

Wiktionary adds credibility to this by mentioning that the use of the word in this manner may have been military slang in Europe which is one of the ways the use of the word "hack" in this manner was said to have originated.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kludge

Additionally Wiktionary lists "kludge" as a synonym of "hack" under the category of "expedient, temporary solution".

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hack

 

In the etymology description
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hack#cite_note-ny-1

(at least 1955) creative problem solving
(1963) negative connotations <------------<<<

take you to the NewYorker article.
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/a-short-history-of-hack

The Jargon File, a glossary for computer programmers that was launched in 1975, lists eight definitions for “hacker.”

http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/H/hacker.html

Point number 6. take me out a smile.

what is "TMRC"?

I'm still searching the video that I think is the only source that can help.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tech_Model_Railroad_Club

 

Hack is a very old english word (along with hacking and hacker and even "to hack together"). There's a lot of retconning for these stories, unless there's evidence for the re-purpose attribution then it's just a cute story.

It's worth remembering that just because you encounter a term and story doesn't mean that's the genesis of that word for popular usage. Common english words are used, well, commonly. The time they capture the popular imagination in a repurposed form for a new field comes from the time an influencer uses it first, the word will have been used many times before and not necessarily within a single connected thread, not necessarily to mean the same thing.

 

I've actually never heard a programmer be offended by it. In my "upbringing" in the programming world, people widely call coding "hacking", pretty much interchangeably (although the former more often than the latter).

And most companies that I have worked for have some "Hackathon" where we all get a chance to work on whatever we want in our game/program - essentially something we feel would be good for the product, and can't get business to sign off on officially.

Generally, I find that people use "coding" in the greater umbrella sense of writing code. But when someone is planning to sit down and engross themselves in code for a single session, I often hear people say, "I'm gonna go hack away for awhile."

As with many words, it has contextual meaning. Outside the industry, basically anyone will associate it with illicit access to some program that someone is not intended to have. Inside the industry, it is not a bad word. But people will still use it with the common meaning - but when we do use it like that, it is clearly referring to that in the context it is spoken.

 

I can be wrong.
MIT was the place, the story fit. She was a pretty influence person. In Europa and SudAmerica media used this word for illicit and privacy. Was there any "illicit" connotation related to "privacy" in the very old English word? (in the coding environment) at some point in time media started using it for that? is possible to put that in time inside tolerance. If this cute story is inside that gap, and inside MIT from my side is worthy of mention. So I'm still searching for her video declaration. No special evidence here [video] Her telling that she was in America for the first time {and in Italian it means she went more than one time} and that she enjoy looking at the sea. She mentions in vacation the first time and only vacation she took, only one. At the moment doesn't prove anything.

Women were very ignored 1800 more than 1700 and this discrimination was increasing.

With this, a video to say have a good Hack-Week

 

That conflation didn't gain traction for decades; not really until the mid to late 90s. When the film Wargames (1984) came out, the term wasn't even used. Nor in Sneakers, 1992. The full title of Takedown (1995) refers to Mitnick as 'computer outlaw' not hacker. If the term were being generally used by those points, I think its safe to say it would have been in those cases.

Anyway, its quite clear 'security hacker' is to 'hacker' what 'electrical engineer' is to 'engineer', and I doubt if Ms Hack was known for computer infiltration anywhere, so I'm not sure what your point is. Trying to muddy the accepted origin this way doesn't assist your hypothesis, in fact it does the reverse.

 

How you can be sure of what she was capable of. As for example, changing cables in a router is not so complex.

She used to works with her hands on electronic lab since the university and she was going to finish the University with a thesis in Electronics in 1945 and you do not look to the stars, she was
a stellar spectroscopy radio astronomer almost all her life. Used to be at the computer for looking the radio o sat data. She used the computer until her last days. Contribution aside, she pushed for the construction of new satellites and radio telescope form tech up including bureaucracy. An expert insider in this field can tell you more about this Dr.