Literally from the horse's mouth, 15 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1648199

> In the sense of the word that means people who write code, not people who break into things

It would be like if you were going over a list of pros and cons and when you got to the cons some guy was like "wow, you work with criminals, huh?" Then you tell him not that sort of con and he says "yeah, typical nerd bickering".

C'mon.

And yet it still isn't any more interesting to argue about.