The ambiguity in blackhat hacker vs. traditional MIT hacker is up for discussion but there is a third kind of hacker that I cannot comprehend.
Why do we call people who develop user apps hackers. I mean if a person is developing a web software with JavaScript, Rails and MySQL then it is not really hacking. Those tools are designed for that purpose so they are not used in a particularly clever/unexpected way to achieve a result. I mean if you are emulating an old OS purely in JavaScript, then that's a neat hack because that's certainly not what the language is designed for but a "location based social network" does not really qualify, does it?
> Why do we call people who develop user apps hackers
Because a/ "hacker" was (is) a title that commanded respect, hackers were seen as something special, and b/ business got wind of it. Once a term like that enters business-speak, and then finds media attention, it's game over, the term becomes meaningless.
So here we are, if you know how to tweak Rails or Android examples found on-line and have above-room-temperature IQ, you're a "passionate rockstar web hacker".
I think it again depends on what you mean by hacker. If a web developer is passionate about web development, learns everything he can about it, enjoys doing it, and approaches it like an aesthete, then according to the author he is a webdev hacker (or whatever you want to call it). There are many other definitions of "hacker" that wouldn't include the aforementioned web developer (I'm thinking of Eric Raymond's essay on the topic). In the end, there doesn't seem to be a broad agreement on the topic.
I find this quote from the article very relevant (and I agree with it):
Equally important, though, is the hacker's attitude. Computer programming must be a hobby, something done for fun, not out of a sense of duty or for the money. (It's okay to make money, but that can't be the reason for hacking.)
Why do we call people who develop user apps hackers. I mean if a person is developing a web software with JavaScript, Rails and MySQL then it is not really hacking. Those tools are designed for that purpose so they are not used in a particularly clever/unexpected way to achieve a result. I mean if you are emulating an old OS purely in JavaScript, then that's a neat hack because that's certainly not what the language is designed for but a "location based social network" does not really qualify, does it?