Hack value

Hack value is derived from the term hacker scene. It refers to the appreciation of a thing, not about according to their price or their benefit, but for their creativity and originality. Often with hack value motivation meant that brings a hacker to much time to invest in one thing, without this necessarily seem sensible for an observer for the hacker but is a hack.

A special definition of hack value provides the Jargon File in 1995 under "Display hack": The hack value of such graphics hacks is proportional to the beauty of the image divided by the size of the required program code. Since beauty is a subjective measurement, this law to calculate the Hack value is of course useless. Precisely because of this irony such pseudo-scientific calculations are occasionally used to describe hacks.