I appealed to the history of it! If Eric and friends arrived at the term &quot;hacker&quot; through means other than the word &quot;hack&quot; i&#x27;d honestly love to know how, but like I said, his writing doesn&#x27;t touch on it at all apart from to say that him and his friends started as a bunch of hobbiests. The best I can do is surmise that as hobbiests they believed they were crudely cutting and shaping software. What else would be it be? An Acronym? Happy Automation Creation Kids?<p>Discussion with someone who disagrees requires debate to settle the matter. We apparently disagree. Either debate or remain silent on it.