In the old days "hacking" was used for just about any coding, or "computer programming" as it was called back then. There was even a programming magazine called "Hacker", which had nothing to do with the "malevolous programming" that the word "hacker" has become to mean.

I always took hacking to mean (besides offensive security) solving a computing problem in a way that works without any care for expandability, modularity, scalability etc.

@Pseudonymous That's exactly how I'd roughly define it, too.
I remember the malevolent people being called "cracker" rather than "hacker" and this was an important distinction back then - but could also be that I grew up in a rather strange corner of the net.

@Pseudonymous Fascinating.
The hat thing - where does this even come from? Got to look it up. - was something I didn't even encounter before I getting to know other hackers. (Less common here in Germany I'd say.) I thought it more neutral, like a scale between hacking and cracking.

@nin0x03 Same here. "Cracker" for evil hackers ;) Then again, I'm also from a strange and remote corner, although I didn't yet have any "net" at that time, for many years to come.

@Pseudonymous Never heard about this hat thing. The only coloured hat I know of is Red Hat Linux, is it in any way related?