There's a difference between the word "hacking" as defined by mainstream culture and the concept/ethos of hacking.
The former has definitely been diluted. But the latter is an idea, and ideas are bulletproof (apologies to Alan Moore).
If you want to know the internals of a project/framework, other people's perceptions of what 'hacking' means doesn't stop you from looking at the code (assuming foss).
You say "Does anyone really understand the internals of Ruby on Rails". Well, go look at it and understand it. Then look at the MRI and JVM implementations of Ruby -- and understand those. You can keep drilling all the way down until you're generating assembly.
The majority of your complaints is that the industry has moved in the direction of the assembly line. That may be the natural gravitation, and you may just be filling in a spot at work. But no one can stop you from learning the lower level details on your own time.
Read the linux and bsd kernel mailing lists. Find some irc channels for embedded systems. Check out what people are doing with CUDA. By definition, the mainstream will always bubble up on social aggregators. If you look elsewhere, you'll find the hacker culture is alive and well.
The former has definitely been diluted. But the latter is an idea, and ideas are bulletproof (apologies to Alan Moore).
If you want to know the internals of a project/framework, other people's perceptions of what 'hacking' means doesn't stop you from looking at the code (assuming foss).
You say "Does anyone really understand the internals of Ruby on Rails". Well, go look at it and understand it. Then look at the MRI and JVM implementations of Ruby -- and understand those. You can keep drilling all the way down until you're generating assembly.
The majority of your complaints is that the industry has moved in the direction of the assembly line. That may be the natural gravitation, and you may just be filling in a spot at work. But no one can stop you from learning the lower level details on your own time.
Read the linux and bsd kernel mailing lists. Find some irc channels for embedded systems. Check out what people are doing with CUDA. By definition, the mainstream will always bubble up on social aggregators. If you look elsewhere, you'll find the hacker culture is alive and well.