What hacking IS NOT

In the past when I've used the term hacking on a web site, some people have emailed me odd questions like how to generate CD keys for some random piece of software.

So I feel honour-bound to point out what hacking is not:

• It is not intended to crack, pirate or otherwise rob software if people feel the mad urge to charge you for it.
• It is not intended to write a worm, virus or other code to intentionally harm a computer. Computers are our friends and if you disrespect them they will one day turn around and decide we're not worth bothering with anymore. Or at the very least force us to run nothing but DRM'ed Microsoft code.
• It is not intended to play Noughts and Crosses with DARPA computers.

Whereas what hacking is:

• The realisation that the hour you spent writing that 3D star-field in CURSES was time well spent.
• The realisation that the rest of the afternoon to add a spinning cube to the above was even more well spent.
• The realisation that you've spent the last 4 days of the work given to you on writing CURSES hacks. No problem! You can surely code this work-related nonsense in an afternoon... (To all my previous and current managers, this last bit is a joke. Honest. I gave myself a day.)