Krishnakant wrote:
On Sun, 2009-06-21 at 17:22 +0530, Rony wrote:
Shakthi Kannan wrote:
Hi,
--- On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 2:46 PM, Ronygnulinuxist@gmail.com wrote: | A student is supposed to follow a syllabus and give answers within its | limits. --
That is where all students have failed, IMO.
Just passing an exam, and getting a degree does not make one an engineer.
Not passing an exam and not getting a degree would also not make him an engineer, at least officially recognized, on paper.
Except for becoming a "sarkari babu" no one really respects degree when it comes to real work and job. guess what? I don't have a degree for computer engineering, yet I lead projects and provide IT advice to organisations internationally. But if I want a government job then I will need it.
A degree is needed even in private organisations.
The above argument is right in the philosophy of learning but not in the context of giving answers in exams in India, that are acceptable within the syllabus limitations.
Exactly. So it is about exam and not learning.
The topic of the discussion was about an exam.
Here we are debating the common use of a word for 2 different acts, one good and one bad. Suicide or Sati as an act would be bad, irrespective of what word one wants to use for it. The issue here is about the defining word for an act, not the act itself being good or bad. We all agree that breaking into peoples' systems is wrong. It is just the word to define it that is controversial. Hacking already has so many meanings in different scenarios.
Right. But te issue is whether we just go by *popular* belief which is a result of dirty propaganda all done by using money power or as good humans make an attempt to change the meaning to the real one. That way the analogies given about sati is right. The fundamental question I raised was not about the concept persay, but should one consider "what is popular is essentially right."
Nothing is fixed. Languages are constantly evolving. In languages what is popular, eventually becomes right. This goes for the bad grammar and wrong words that are used daily.
There is only one definition. Hacking in the Free Software world has been prevalent for decades.
Everyone does not live in the free software world.
But the art of hacking is nothing to do with free software or software itself.
read this article. http://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html Although it is by RMS himself, it does not talk about hacking just in context of software. As another side note I have been to more than one event by the name hacker dome which is a large scale event with media coverage. The latest one was in trichur (Kerala). But I did not see any objection from police or media about that word.
From Stallman's article, hacking does show a naughty side, a breaking of rules, of breaking security to some extent. It is not surprising that the term hacking is now used for those who breach security.