Your hacker is a techie, and knows a number of powerful concepts that most English-speakers don’t know. He also knows words for those concepts. Guess what? The concepts are unusual concepts, and the words are unusual words. He doesn’t use standard words for many things because there aren’t any standard words to explain the cool things he does.

Your best bet is to pick up a copy of TNHD (The New Hacker’s Dictionary). It can be found at http://catb.org/jargon or from a good bookstore. If you have trouble understanding that reference, ask your hacker if she has a copy, or would be willing to explain her terms. Most hackers are willing to explain terms. Be ready for condescension; it’s not intended as an insult, but if you don’t know the words, she probably has to talk down to you at first to explain them. If you’re bothered by this, think about explaining to a non-professional how to keep a project on task–if you can’t use any words longer than five letters. That’s what your hacker is doing when she tries to explain technical concepts in non-technical words. Please understand if she sounds a little condescending.

It’s a reasonably difficult set of words; there are a lot of them, and their usage is much more precise than it sounds. Hackers love word games.

It is also possible that English is not your hacker’s native language, and that it’s not yours either. Feel free to substitute a more appropriate language.

5.2: I can’t get an estimate out of my hacker.

This is easier to understand with an analogy. Imagine two situations:

In the first situation, you drive for work on the same roads, at the same time, as you have for the past five years, and listened to the traffic report in the shower.

In the second situation, you are out in the middle of nowhere, travelling to see a distant relative, and you realize that you’ve forgotten to buy a hostess gift for the people you’re driving to visit. You stop by a gas station to ask where you can find a gift shop which would sell a dolphin statuette. The attendant says, “Take the road you’re on, and turn off onto the second side street you see. Keep on going until you hit the second stop sign after John’s general store. It’s in the third town you’ll see.”

Now, in both cases, think about answering the question, “How long will it take?”

In the first case, you probably know the answer: “Twenty-six minutes, twenty-two if I hit the lights right.” In the second case–well, given that you don’t know how long the route is, what the speed limits are, or how you will find the sign once you reach the right town, the best answer is, “I don’t know.”

When you ask a hacker how long a task will take and he says, “I don’t know,” he isn’t being difficult. Fixing a broken network, when you don’t know why it’s down, is much more like the second situation than the first. You don’t need to throw a pity party for your hacker because he has to work in unfamiliar territory and doesn’t even know how long a task will take. He doesn’t look at it that way; he likes the challenge. But it does mean that he accepts tasks before he knows exactly how he’ll do them, and he is responsible enough to say “I don’t know,” and not tell you something he’s simply made up. Your hacker is a driver who thrives on finding his way in unfamiliar territory, with washed-out bridges and incomplete directions among the surprises. You might be glad you have someone who likes that kind of assignment.

Your hacker hasn’t figured out how hard the problem is yet. Unlike most workers, hackers will try very hard to refuse to give an estimate until they know for sure that they understand the problem. This may include solving it.

No good engineer goes beyond 95% certainty. Most hackers are good engineers. If you say that you will not try to hold him to the estimate (and mean it!) you are much more likely to get an approximate estimate. The estimate may sound very high or very low; it may be very high or very low. Still, it’s an estimate, and you get what you ask for.

5.3: My hacker makes obscure, meaningless jokes.

Another one that’s a little hard to explain.

Imagine that you are visited by a brilliant wayfarer. He strives to understand those around, silently tolerates a great many things that seem strange to him, and brings with him cultural treasures unlike anything your culture has to offer. One day, he tries to share some of them with you. Should you be bothered?

That’s what’s happening when your hacker tells you obscure technical jokes. He could be trying to make you feel stupid, but let’s be charitable. Your hacker is uncommonly intelligent–he might be a member of Mensa. Intelligent people think a little bit differently, and a genius may seem like someone from another world. Your hacker probably understands you better than you understand him–and when he shares jokes with you, he’s giving you a chance to see something special. If you feel brave, you might even ask him to explain some of them.

But don’t be bothered when he tells you jokes that take a while to explain. Some of them are quite interesting.

5.4: My hacker counts from zero.

So does the computer. You can hide it, but computers count from zero. Most hackers do by habit, also.