Man, don't be like that. I think ESR is a pompous ass, same as everyone. That doesn't mean he's useless. His maintenance of the Jargon File has been going pretty well, and while The Cathedral and the Bazaar had its weaknesses, it was the best introduction to the "Big Deal" about the open source movement the general public had at the time. Since co-founding OSI in 1998, Wikipedia says "He also took on the self-appointed role of ambassador of open source to the press, business and public," which I think he's been doing fairly well at since it's 100% 'personality'.

ESR claims that these koans appeal to hackers. You like them, and you're a hacker, so unless he got lucky, he has at least some small insight into what makes hackers tick.

His stewardship of the Jargon File has certainly not been going well - the terms he's added to the glossary have mostly been crap he's imported from his political circles, and his additions to the appendix have been even worse (eg. look at the Portrait of J Random Hacker and tell me it isn't ESR jerking off over himself). Perhaps my perspective is limited, but I've never spoken to someone familiar with the jargon file from before ESR took over its maintenance who felt his care had been anything but detrimental.

But that is work he's produced. I'm not sure whether he's a particularly good sociologist/chronicler of hacker culture or not, but that work should be judged on its own merits. Is it good sociology/history, or is it poorly done/inaccurate/done-better-elsewhere? I don't think looking at the quality of his C code is a particularly useful way of answering that question. I mean, some minimal technical knowledge is probably necessary to do a good job at it, but beyond that I'm not sure if there's good correlation between awesome-coder and great-chronicler.

I think what people are up in arms about, is that ESR calls himself a hacker—and most hackers, being programmers as well, think of hacking as referring to a particular kind of programming. These hackers, thus, form their meritocratic scale of "hackerlyness" around programming ability.

However, as ESR himself writes: http://catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html

> Hacking might be characterized as 'an appropriate application of ingenuity'. Whether the result is a quick-and-dirty patchwork job or a carefully crafted work of art, you have to admire the cleverness that went into it. An important secondary meaning of hack is 'a creative practical joke'. This kind of hack is easier to explain to non-hackers than the programming kind. Of course, some hacks have both natures.

If this is how ESR defines "hacking", then his claim to be a hacker is not, also, an implicit claim that he is a good programmer (that one must then refute.) He simply claims to "apply ingenuity" and "joke around"—which, it's pretty clear from the OP link, he does, in the medium of prose.

Funny, I've always thought that his definition of "hacking" that you've quoted was the same definition the HN community accepted.

> I think what people are up in arms about, is that ESR calls himself a hacker—and most hackers, being programmers as well, think of hacking as referring to a particular kind of programming.

Not a certain kind of programming. Just programming in general. I think in most people's minds, the concept "hacker" implicitly includes the concept "programmer."