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"The computer world is like an intellectual Wild West, in which you can shoot anyone you wish with your ideas, if you're willing to risk the consequences."--Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age, by Paul Graham We are living in the computer age, in a world increasingly designed and engineered by computer programmers and software designers, by people who call themselves hackers. Who are these people, what motivates them, and why should you care? Consider these facts: Everything around us is turning into computers. Your typewriter is gone, replaced by a computer. Your phone has turned into a computer. So has your camera. Soon your TV will. Your car was not only designed on computers, but has more processing power in it than a room-sized mainframe did in 1970. Letters, encyclopedias, newspapers, and even your local store are being replaced by the Internet. Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age, by Paul Graham, explains this world and the motivations of the people who occupy it. In clear, thoughtful prose that draws on illuminating historical examples, Graham takes readers on an unflinching exploration into what he calls "an intellectual Wild West." The ideas discussed in this book will have a powerful and lasting impact on how we think, how we work, how we develop technology, and how we live. Topics include the importance of beauty in software design, how to make wealth, heresy and free speech, the programming language renaissance, the open-source movement, digital design, internet startups, and more… (more)
User reviews
Paul Graham penned a unique book: A collection of essays that combine personal and business experience.
The author sees great software development as an art form.
“Great software, likewise, requires a fanatical devotion to beauty,” Graham writes. “If you look inspire
The collection offers readers positive advice and leadership tips; a roadmap to what is increasingly becoming a computerized future.
Paul manages to make a few loose, vague, and highly opinionated points amidst an onslaught of words.
He starts with way too much rationalization for why he felt outcast in middle and highschool. While I can relate, after the first
He then gets into some fairly good material, but the book seems to wander around like several stitched together essays. I came away with a vague sense of his views on software development and a strong sense that because he likes art and programming, they must be kindred.
He finishes up with another extremely lengthy diatribe about how Lisp rocks and all other languages merely aspire to grow up and be Lisp. He could have said it in a single chapter.
In 5 words? Loquacious, self-serving, loose, painful, pointless.
A programming language is for thinking of programs, not for expressing programs you've already thought of. pg
Programmers were seen as technicians who translated the visions (if that is the word) of product managers into code. pg 23
Software has to be designed by hackers who understand design, not designers who know a little about software. pg 85
[Programmers] literally think the product, one line at a time. pg 93
The trouble with keeping your thoughts secret, though, is that you lose the advantages of discussion. Talking about an idea leads to more ideas. So the optimal plan, if you can mange it, is to have a few trusted friends you can speak openly to. This is not just a way to develop ideas; it's also a good rule of thumb for choosing friends. The people you can say heretical things to without getting jumped on are also the most interesting to know. pg 46
A program, like a proof, is a pruned version of a tree that in the past has had false starts branching off all over it. So the test of a language is not simply how clean the finished program looks in it, but how clean the path to the finished program was. pg 219
A little boring, far from a page turner, but otherwise entertaining book that let you rethink that nerds are a creative species but that creative people aren't necessarily nerds. Programming goes beyond a profession, it is a devotion.