If you fix your car by slapping together a bunch of junk then yes you most certainly have just &quot;hacked it together&quot;. I don&#x27;t see how you can call this abuse, crudely modifying and creating things is the original and primary use of the term. If anything it&#x27;s the &quot;high quality, open source programming in pursuit of interesting problems&quot; crowd that&#x27;s butchering it. &quot;It&#x27;s just something I hacked together&quot; has never meant &quot;I carefully crafted the shit out of it&quot; except for maybe in a dishonest humblebrag sort of way.