I can confirm the same meaning as Don described was common in the UK in the early 70s and across many fields and very common in mechanical engineering and the associated software development.
I can think of at least four similar sides to Don's description from the UK,
The first is that of hacking involving creating prototypes by using or repurposing parts of already existing components or systems. This was often done simply by roughly cutting from one to the other. For example, in one project in which I was involved in a motor company wanted to test using 4 carburettors on a small car. An easy solution was to hack them off a Honda motorcycle and bodge the manifolds together - a hack good enough for a prototype test in an R&D setting.
Second is when software or electronic hardware components were repurposed and sometimes referred to as 'a bit of a hack' when done to less than production quality. For example, Z80/Intel8080 chips in early computers were originally intended for washing machines, lifts and similar embedded systems and became repurposed into desktop computers (ditto the Motorola 6800/0)
Third, the UK custom motorcycle and kit car industry in the late 60s used the term 'hack' widely as in 'hack and chop' (similar to 'cut and shut' and replaced the dated term 'bitza') and from which emerged (in America?) the term 'chopper' to refer to motorcycles with shortened top fames to increase castor.
Fourth in engineering hardware development, the term 'hack' was often used in terms of rapidly creating custom Fortran subroutines by doing cut and shup operations on existing subroutines to make new ones that were then circulated through JANET (the Joint Academic Network) in Manchester. Such routines were often referred to deprecatingly something like 'Its only a hack but ....'.
At the time, I never saw it as 'research through design', but instead a normal part of speeding up and reducing the cost of R&D.
Whether any of this is in the dictionaries I've no idea.
Best wishes,
Terry
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Don Norman
Sent: Monday, 11 July 2016 1:42 AM
To: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: To hack is to innovate
(I will violate a standing rule of this mailing list not to make fun of individuals but rather to debate the ideas, not the people. But in this case, I can't help but make fun of the illustrious Ken Friedman. He goofed.
So he deserves this scolding. (and knowing Ken, he will approve of the
scolding.)
Ken entitled his recent posting
Many designers think they are innovating when they are merely breaking and entering.
Ken is using an incorrect interpretation of the words "hacker" and "hack."
I know: I am an officially certified Hacker. I am a member of the Hacker's Society and i have attended many of their annual conferences. When I was at Apple, I was proud to get Apple to be one of the sponsors of the conference. I've given talks there. Many eminent computer scientists (e.g., Donald Knuth of Stanford) attend. We are proud to be hackers. And as hackers, what we do is hack.
see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hackers_Conference
Hacking, in this sense, is a type of research through design.
*On the proper definition of the word "hack" (The verb form of "hacker")*
Let me correct the eminent Prof. Friedman on his understanding of words.
Although in his recent posting he is quoting from a newspaper article, he claims frequently to be an authority on word definitions, so he should have known that the quote was inaccurate. In his post, the relevant quotation is:
On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 4:15 AM, Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]
>
included this quote from the newspaper article he cited
:
> To “hack” is to cut, to gash, to break. It proceeds from the belief
> that nothing is worth saving, that everything needs fixing. But is
> that really the case? Are we fixing the right things? Are we breaking the wrong ones?
> Is it necessary to start from scratch every time?
The sentiment is wrong because it is a horrible misinterpretation of the word "hack."
Hack, like most English words, has multiple meanings. When I hack, when Facebook prides itself on hacking, when the Hackers Conference meetings, we have in mind a very different definition of "to hack" and "hacker."
I cite two sources.
*First*: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_culture
(Trivial editing -- adding new lines and deleting non-functional note-markers simply to enhance readability No words were changed.)
The hacker culture is a subculture of individuals who enjoy the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming limitations of software systems to achieve novel and clever outcomes.
The act of engaging in activities (such as programming or other media) in a spirit of playfulness and exploration is termed "hacking". However, the defining characteristic of a hacker is not the activities performed themselves (e.g. programming), but the manner in which it is done: hacking entails some form of excellence, for example exploring the limits of what is possible, thereby doing something exciting and meaningful.
Activities of playful cleverness can be said to have "hack value" and are termed "hacks" (examples include pranks at MIT intended to demonstrate technical aptitude and cleverness).
The hacker culture originally emerged in academia in the 1960s around the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)'s Tech Model Railroad Club and MIT Artificial Intelligence 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."
*Second: * http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/H/hacker.html
1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. RFC1392, the Internet Users' Glossary, usefully amplifies this as: A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular.
2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming.
3. A person capable of appreciating hack value.
4. A person who is good at programming quickly.
5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in ‘a Unix hacker’. (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.)
6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example.
7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations.
Finally, because of Ken's mistaken definition (and the mistake of the woman who wrote the book he so clearly admires), he misinterprets the reason Facebook is proud of its hacking.
*Why Facebook is proud of hacking*
Here is the real explanation of how Facebook interprets the word "hack".
If you read it properly, you will see it is precisely how many of us urge that design be done. As the article below says, it is "an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration.
"
That's precisely what I teach my students. Observe, ideate, build, test,
learn: repeat. Continuous improvement and iteration.
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-stock-letter-shareholders
*The Hacker Way*
As part of building a strong company, we work hard at making Facebook the best place for great people to have a big impact on the world and learn from other great people. We have cultivated a unique culture and management approach that we call the Hacker Way.
The word "hacker" has an unfairly negative connotation from being portrayed in the media as people who break into computers. In reality, hacking just means building something quickly or testing the boundaries of what can be done.
Like most things, it can be used for good or bad, but the vast majority of hackers I've met tend to be idealistic people who want to have a positive impact on the world.
The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it -- often in the face of people who say it's impossible or are content with the status quo.
Hackers try to build the best services over the long term by quickly releasing and learning from smaller iterations rather than trying to get everything right all at once. To support this, we have built a testing framework that at any given time can try out thousands of versions of Facebook.
Don Norman
Prof. and Director, DesignLab, UC San Diego [log in to unmask] designlab.ucsd.edu/ www.jnd.org <http://www.jnd.org/>
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