"If you're not a programmer or don't know many programmers, the
word hack has a particularly unfriendly connotation. Nonprogrammers
hack bushes or weeds. Nonprogrammers in horror movies do even
worse. But to programmers, or coders, as I call them, hack is a much
more positive term. Hack just means code that enables the program to
do something it wasn't originally intended or enabled to do. If you buy
a new printer for an old computer, you might find the old computer
doesn't run, or "drive," the printer. If you discovered that, you'd later be
happy to discover a hack on the Net by someone who has written a
driver to enable the computer to drive the printer you just bought.
Some hacks are easy. Some are unbelievably hard. Hackers as a
community like to challenge themselves and others with increasingly
difficult tasks. There's a certain respect that goes with the talent to hack
well. There's a well-deserved respect that goes with the talent to hack
ethically."