Hackers & Painters (and Writers)
Since I am going off to the
Computers and Writing conference in Hawaii next month, I am starting to think a little about what kinds of reading material to take on the plane.
On my list is
Hackers & Painters by Paul Graham, mostly based on the sample chapter I read (linked from the catalogue page).
Graham's easy prose style seems just right for a long plane ride, and he has some interesting things to say about "Makers." Makers are, it seems, folks who make stuff. So for all of you fans of rhetorical invention, architecture, musical composition, etc., the maker is a figure you will relate to.
Here's a snippet from pg. 18 of the sample chapter (chapter 2):
I’ve never liked the term “computer science.” The main reason I
don’t like it is that there’snosuchthing. Computer science is a grab bag of tenuously related areas thrown together by an accident of
history, like Yugoslavia. At one end you have people who are really mathematicians, but call what they’re doing computer science so
they can get DARPA grants. In the middle you have people working on something like the natural history of computers—studying
the behavior of algorithms for routing data through networks, for example. And then at the other extreme you have the hackers, who
are trying to write interesting software, and for whom computers are just a medium of expression, as concrete is for architects
or paint for painters. It’s as if mathematicians, physicists, and architects all had to be in the same department.
The book is due out sometime this month. Let's hope it comes out before I get on the plane.
Posted by at May 17, 2004 12:13 PM
| TrackBack