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HACKING_GREATNESS
August 2, 2004
April 11, 2007
In Paul Graham's essay on "Great Hackers"
he goes on at some length dicussing [ref]
the qualities that make up truly
great programmers. He insists that
catering to these qualities is key to
the success of a company.
"What do hackers want? Like all craftsmen,
hackers like good tools. In fact, that's
an understatement. Good hackers find it
unbearable to use bad tools. They'll
simply refuse to work on projects with the
wrong infrastructure."
"The programmers you'll be able to hire to
work on a Java project won't be as smart as
the ones you could get to work on a project
written in Python."
I might like to believe that what
he was saying is true, but I would And myself, I would
suggest an alternate view: suggest that Python
people have their own
He's discussing a real problems.
cultural split between people
who think of programming as a THE_PERL_AFFAIR
profession and those for whom
it's a calling, but I think
he's choosing a terminology
that's flattering to his side
of the split: he calls his IMP_PERVERSE
faction (presumably including
himself) "The Great Hackers".
Consider the possibility that the
implicit distinction between what
he calls "great hackers" and the That makes sense to
less great (the "corporate drones", someone like me, because
perhaps) is not one of quality but I suspect that I'm a
of kind. "great hacker", I'm just
not all that great at it.
Different kinds of
people are better The characteristics
suited to different that he notes of
tasks, different "great hackers"
environments, etc. (curiosity, "political
incorrectness", an
When reading this essay, I kept inability to work
remembering someone I used to in the absence of
work with, who could not be enthusiasm...)
further away from Graham's may indeed always
"great hacker" notion: be present in the
greatest programmers,
This was a guy who would but they're present
work on any platform in some of the ones
(including moldy 16bit that aren't, too.
windows), and had no
passion whatsoever for A better set of
what he was doing -- he names is needed to
was proud about never distinguish between
getting emotionally the two.
involved with mere
software. I might suggest
"professionals" vs
And he had no idea what to "artists", or perhaps
make of me... He seemed more simply just
to think my addiction to "professionals" vs.
emacs, my ergonomic "hackers".
keyboard, and my dislike
of mouse interfaces were Though arguably,
all useless affectations. the term "hacker"
runs up against
Management absolutely the "satanism problem".
loved this guy, and they
were absolutely right ANARCHY
to do so: he could come up
quickly with practical Some of his work was
solutions to nasty little no doubt pretty fugly
problems that the rest of by the standards of
us barely had a handle on. a True Hacker -- I
certainly thought
his grasp of UI
design seemed weak--
but he could get
shit done while I It hardly mattered
might be still that this guy
dragging my ass didn't qualify
around trying to as a Great Hacker.
figure out how I was
going to care about In that
what I needed to do. particular case,
he was The Man --
AGAINST_BOREDOM
And the thing about
Paul Graham, is that
he's never worked in
a situation anything
like this.
PAUL_GRAHAM
It may be that "hackers"
are well suited to small
teams, but if you're stuck
with a need for large A lot of the disputes
teams, you're better off you see in the computer
with "professionals". world revolve around this:
Java is a language
for armies of
programmers,
Perl is a language
to avoid needing
an army.
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