Sankofa

Paul Graham (Author of Hackers and Painters)

I love Paul Graham. The guy speaks my mind. Although I don’t agree with all of his ideas (E.G. Java programmers are stupid. PERIOD.), most of his ideas are golden. For those of weak hearts (and sensitive ego), please proceed with care.

The essay that will follow, entitled Great Hackers, basically compliments the main idea of my previous post which is “To do something well you have to love it.”

Some quotable quotes from this essay:

“Ordinary programmers write code to pay the bills. Great hackers think of it as something they do for fun, and which they’re delighted to find people will pay them for.”

“Hackers like to work for people with high standards. But it’s not enough just to be exacting. You have to insist on the right things. Which usually means that you have to be a hacker yourself. I’ve seen occasional articles about how to manage programmers. Really there should be two articles: one about what to do if you are yourself a programmer, and one about what to do if you’re not. And the second could probably be condensed into two words: give up.”

“The distinguishing feature of nasty little problems is that you don’t learn anything from them. Working on nasty little problems makes you stupid. Good hackers avoid it for the same reason models avoid cheeseburgers.”

“I’ve found that people who are great at something are not so much convinced of their own greatness as mystified at why everyone else seems so incompetent.”

“The key to being a good hacker may be to work on what you like. When I think about the great hackers I know, one thing they have in common is the extreme difficulty of making them work on anything they don’t want to. I don’t know if this is cause or effect; it may be both.”

“One difference I’ve noticed between great hackers and smart people in general is that hackers are more politically incorrect. And I can see why political incorrectness would be a useful quality in programming. Programs are very complex and, at least in the hands of good programmers, very fluid. In such situations it’s helpful to have a habit of questioning assumptions.”

AND NOW, THE ESSAY

Continue reading “Ordinary Programmers vs Great Hackers” »