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Brent Scott has a piece on Aeon about the transformation of the traditional "hacker ethic" as described by Steven Levy and Pekka Himanen into a means of enterprise modeling "doublethink".
We are currently witnessing the gentrification of hacker culture. The countercultural trickster has been pressed into the service of the preppy tech entrepreneur class. It began innocently, no doubt. The association of the hacker ethic with startups might have started with an authentic counter-cultural impulse on the part of outsider nerds tinkering away on websites. But, like all gentrification, the influx into the scene of successive waves of ever less disaffected individuals results in a growing emphasis on the unthreatening elements of hacking over the subversive ones.
Scott goes on to suggest that the hacker ethic has become a "hollowed out" form of "solutionism" as suggested by Evengy Morozov, meaning that "...the tech-industry vision of the world as a series of problems waiting for (profitable) solutions."
This process of gentrification becomes a war over language. If enough newcomers with media clout use the hollowed-out version of the term, its edge grows dull. You end up with a mere affectation, failing to challenge otherwise conventional aspirations. And before you know it, an earnest Stanford grad is handing me a business card that says, without irony: 'Founder. Investor. Hacker.'
The piece ends with Scott calling for a reclaiming of the hacker ethic
I'm going to stake a claim on the word though, and state that the true hacker spirit does not reside at Google, guided by profit targets. The hacker impulse should not just be about redesigning products, or creating 'solutions'. A hack stripped of anti-conventional intent is not a hack at all. It's just a piece of business innovation.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tibman on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:53PM
I actually like agile. My team makes a production push every two weeks. I'm not a fan of building something for months without real feedback. Just getting the client into a feedback position pretty much makes any project an agile one.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @03:14PM
Agile can work. In particular cases. IF people are willing to use it. But you have to use it in its particular ways. If you get off doing 'the way' you will end up with a mish mash of bad agile practices mashed together with poor waterfall practices. Making it a hell to do at all.
Some people use agile to say 'we have no plan'. When that is not true. You just have not worked out the details but you damn well better have some sort of end goal in mind. If you dont you will just meander and not have any real reason to create stories other than for the sake of creating them.
The biggest part of Agile is defining 'what is done'. People like to skip that step because 'its hard and we can work it out later'. Later is always later.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday August 11 2015, @07:13PM
That's why I don't apply to shops that advertise its use.
If a team is really Agile they don't brag about it.
If HR brags about Agile then the team is managed by a Pointy-Haired Boss.
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