> Hacker culture sees programming as a conversation with a machine as it runs.

I wrote about this a fair bit as a party of my master's thesis, about tinkering as being a "conversation" with materials. Hacking can absolutely be looked at in this framework.

The philosopher Donald Schön I think was the first person to formulate tinkering in that way. The process of engaging with materials -- whether it's a broken motor you're curious about or a tune you're plucking out as a complete novice or some code on Scratch -- involves asking questions of the materials, learning to hear answers, and noticing when the materials themselves pose questions. It's a really nice way of looking at things.