Hackers & painters
Some time ago, the list of fans to teach was replenished: Paul Graham was untwisted. He founded the company “Y Combinator”, became all of himself a venture capitalist and now constantly writes articles (by the way, good ones) on the topic of startups.
The book “Hackers and Painters” is a collection of revised articles by Paul Graham, which he published on his site during the pre-pop time. His texts are strong, they contain sensible and sometimes unexpected thoughts. And not just about computers.
Retelling the contents of articles makes no sense, they must be read. However, I want to go through the table of contents and comment briefly.
Why Nerds Are Unpopular.A school is a prison run by prisoners themselves. Her only purpose is to keep the children busy while her parents are at work. In order not to be at the bottom of the hierarchy, efforts must be made to maintain status. But clever children are interested in other activities, there is no time left for the image, and they are at the bottom.
The article is harsh, but with a touch of optimism. Awareness of the situation is the first step towards correcting it. Who have familiar teens, give them this article.
Hackers and Painters. Computer Science and programming are two different things. It’s bad when eggheads rate hackers according to their criteria. Even worse, when hackers evaluate themselves so.
"Hackers on the assembly line" is also far from the best option. “Big companies do not win because they do great things. They win because they suck less than other big companies. ”
It’s best to rate hackers as writers or artists. And hackers should learn from them. What exactly is devoted to the second part of the article.
What You Can't Say. Anytime, anywhere, there are ideas that should not be advertised. If you don’t have such ideas, you have been brainwashed. And what if there is?
Good Bad Attitude. It’s good when there are people who are ready to break the rules. The Other Road Ahead. Web as a new environment for creating and delivering programs. What are the prospects for startups?
How to Make Wealth.A startup is a way to squeeze an entire long working life into a few years.
To earn a lot, you need to create value. A sign that a startup is on the right track is the presence of users.
Mind the Gap. A small but “embeddable” article. The idea that wealth and the amount of money are completely different things is pretty obvious. But the consequences are not.
Is it bad when some people earn many times more than others? Not! On the contrary, in the modern world, a huge difference in income is an indicator that society is healthy and has not slipped into stagnation.
There are some more ideas about the wealth of the state and its inhabitants, but I’d better give a funny quote. “If Lenin wandered around the offices of companies such as Yahoo, Intel or Cisco, he would have thought that communism would have won. Everyone wears the same clothes, they sit in the same type of office (or rather, in the booths) with the same furniture, they turn to each other by name and not rank. Everything looks like he predicted, until you look at the bank accounts. Oops. ”
A Plan for Spam. The glorious history of Bayesian spam filters begins with this article. Now it’s hard to imagine how we lived without them, and therefore it’s fun to read phrases like “I hope this method works.”
Taste for Makers. They say that they do not argue about tastes, but in reality, all that is beautiful has common features.
Programming Languagues Explained. Paul Graham expresses his attitude to some concepts related to programming languages. Do not catch.
The Hundred-Year Language. A programming language is not a technology, but a way of expressing thoughts. Therefore, languages change slowly, and you can evaluate what awaits us in the future.
Beating the Averages. An article is an article, but for some reason I reread it many times, somehow it catches. About why Lisp is the coolest of all, why its use gives a competitive advantage, and why few people know about its use in real life.
Revenge of the Nerds. How a theoretical toy suddenly became a programming language, or again about why Lisp is the coolest.
Greenspun's Tenth Rule of Programming: any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp.
The Dream Language. How to create a popular programming language.
Design and Research. How design development differs from scientific research (convenience vs novelty), and how to approach design.
Bonus paper version - a photograph of Bill Gates. “We are forced to report that after reading the fifth chapter, Microsoft's advertising agency did not allow any of their photographs to be published. We thank the Albuquerque Police Department for their version reproduced on page 86. ”
The fact that the book has not yet been translated into Russian is probably even a plus. What is a high-quality translation, publishers have long forgotten everything.
Briefly about the book: Paul Graham's articles are on the mustread list for harsh programmers.
Links:
* Hackers and Painters on amazon.com
* Paul Graham homepage
* Translations of Paul Graham's articles from Computerra
* This review on mustread.ru
The book “Hackers and Painters” is a collection of revised articles by Paul Graham, which he published on his site during the pre-pop time. His texts are strong, they contain sensible and sometimes unexpected thoughts. And not just about computers.
Retelling the contents of articles makes no sense, they must be read. However, I want to go through the table of contents and comment briefly.
Why Nerds Are Unpopular.A school is a prison run by prisoners themselves. Her only purpose is to keep the children busy while her parents are at work. In order not to be at the bottom of the hierarchy, efforts must be made to maintain status. But clever children are interested in other activities, there is no time left for the image, and they are at the bottom.
The article is harsh, but with a touch of optimism. Awareness of the situation is the first step towards correcting it. Who have familiar teens, give them this article.
Hackers and Painters. Computer Science and programming are two different things. It’s bad when eggheads rate hackers according to their criteria. Even worse, when hackers evaluate themselves so.
"Hackers on the assembly line" is also far from the best option. “Big companies do not win because they do great things. They win because they suck less than other big companies. ”
It’s best to rate hackers as writers or artists. And hackers should learn from them. What exactly is devoted to the second part of the article.
What You Can't Say. Anytime, anywhere, there are ideas that should not be advertised. If you don’t have such ideas, you have been brainwashed. And what if there is?
Good Bad Attitude. It’s good when there are people who are ready to break the rules. The Other Road Ahead. Web as a new environment for creating and delivering programs. What are the prospects for startups?
How to Make Wealth.A startup is a way to squeeze an entire long working life into a few years.
To earn a lot, you need to create value. A sign that a startup is on the right track is the presence of users.
Mind the Gap. A small but “embeddable” article. The idea that wealth and the amount of money are completely different things is pretty obvious. But the consequences are not.
Is it bad when some people earn many times more than others? Not! On the contrary, in the modern world, a huge difference in income is an indicator that society is healthy and has not slipped into stagnation.
There are some more ideas about the wealth of the state and its inhabitants, but I’d better give a funny quote. “If Lenin wandered around the offices of companies such as Yahoo, Intel or Cisco, he would have thought that communism would have won. Everyone wears the same clothes, they sit in the same type of office (or rather, in the booths) with the same furniture, they turn to each other by name and not rank. Everything looks like he predicted, until you look at the bank accounts. Oops. ”
A Plan for Spam. The glorious history of Bayesian spam filters begins with this article. Now it’s hard to imagine how we lived without them, and therefore it’s fun to read phrases like “I hope this method works.”
Taste for Makers. They say that they do not argue about tastes, but in reality, all that is beautiful has common features.
Programming Languagues Explained. Paul Graham expresses his attitude to some concepts related to programming languages. Do not catch.
The Hundred-Year Language. A programming language is not a technology, but a way of expressing thoughts. Therefore, languages change slowly, and you can evaluate what awaits us in the future.
Beating the Averages. An article is an article, but for some reason I reread it many times, somehow it catches. About why Lisp is the coolest of all, why its use gives a competitive advantage, and why few people know about its use in real life.
Revenge of the Nerds. How a theoretical toy suddenly became a programming language, or again about why Lisp is the coolest.
Greenspun's Tenth Rule of Programming: any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp.
The Dream Language. How to create a popular programming language.
Design and Research. How design development differs from scientific research (convenience vs novelty), and how to approach design.
Bonus paper version - a photograph of Bill Gates. “We are forced to report that after reading the fifth chapter, Microsoft's advertising agency did not allow any of their photographs to be published. We thank the Albuquerque Police Department for their version reproduced on page 86. ”
The fact that the book has not yet been translated into Russian is probably even a plus. What is a high-quality translation, publishers have long forgotten everything.
Briefly about the book: Paul Graham's articles are on the mustread list for harsh programmers.
Links:
* Hackers and Painters on amazon.com
* Paul Graham homepage
* Translations of Paul Graham's articles from Computerra
* This review on mustread.ru