On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 5:08 AM, Charles Haynes <charles.hay...@gmail.com> wrote: > of hack. ESR's editing of the Jargon File is better.
The canonical location of course is, http://catb.org/jargon/html/index.html Hacks and Jugaads are close relatives, but they are IMO not the same. The "hack" in the jargon file sense evolved in rich western societies where the hacker uses his knowledge and skills to gain him more free time in which to laze[0] rather than actually solve the problem in a proper (and often lengthy or boring) manner. However, it's also a celebration of intellect and so one can go to extreme lengths to effect an elaborate hack, so much so the conventional route may have been faster. The jugaad evolved in poverty, where the jugaadu tries to outwit the system that keeps him poor, servile or otherwise impotent. Evolving as they did at opposite ends of the economic development scale, hacks and jugaads are applied to rather different world problems. A jugaadu would not adopt a jugaad where a proper "pucca" solution is available, because the jugaad recognizes the jugaad to be an inferior fix. A jugaadu is rather flexible ethically; for example, paying a bribe to get an illegal electricity connection is a "jugaad", whereas I don't think this would be conventionally termed a "hack". Jugaad is the wile of the poor, and hack the pastime of the cerebral. Cheeni [0] Since a good hacker is a lazy one
