Hackers & Painters 112
| Hackers & Painters | |
| author | Paul Graham |
| pages | 271 |
| publisher | O'Reilly Media |
| rating | 8 - May not interest absolutely everyone |
| reviewer | Tony Williams |
| ISBN | 0596006624 |
| summary | Interesting collection of essays, mainly concerned with software |
Literature has a long history of the essayist; since those famous theses on the church door at Wittgenstein a well written and thought provoking essay on a topic has provided power and focus for important discussions. Graham has either learnt or discovered the important points in writing a good essay; brevity, quality writing and thought.
In this volume Graham covers a range of topics, though all are, understandably, centered on computers. Why nerds are unpopular at school, and what this demonstrates about our eduction system; why program in Lisp; the importance of "startups", programming languages and web development are all touched on. At the same time he covers topics less techno-centric such as heretical thinking and speech. wealth creation and unequal income distribution.
I found myself disagreeing with him often while reading the book, though every time I did I found his argument compelling. I agree with Andy Hertzfeld, quoted on the back cover of the book, "He may even make you want to start programming in Lisp." Graham is politically more conservative and right wing than me, he is also a fervent supporter of Lisp, while I'm a C and Perl advocate. It is telling that at no time did I find myself railing at his views, rather I was reading his arguments and giving them meme space. A good sign of a writer that does not indulge in unnecessary or extreme polemic.
Graham also tends to concentrate on a single point in each essay, allowing for both good coverage and a brief essay. Where he covers a larger context, such as high school education in "Why Nerds Are Unpopular" that opens the book, he seems to focus on just one or two good points of discussion.
The title essay is the second in the collection and provides an interesting look at hacking and some lessons we can learn by analogy to the work and life of Rennaissance painters, particularly in how it is done and how it can be funded. The third, "What You Can't Say" is social commentary on heretical thinking. Four, "Good Bad Attitude" is on the benefits of breaking rules, both in life and hacking. Five, "The Other Road Ahead", is an excellent look at web based software and why it offers benefits to both user and developer with Graham examining some lessons he learnt while building ViaWeb. Six, "How To Make Wealth", is a look at becoming wealthy and how a 'startup' might be the best way to do it. The seventh, "Mind The Gap", is an argument that we should not worry so much about 'unequal wealth distribution' and why it might actually be a good thing. From this list, and a look at the table of contents (available as a PDF on the O'Reilly page for the book), you can see that Graham covers a wide spectrum while never straying from topics he knows.
If I was forced to identify a weakness in this book it may well be that Graham does not evince doubt or uncertainty in his arguments, on a few occasions he may admit to a narrow view or knowledge but doubt or uncertainty don't seem to enter his field of vision while he writes. This coupled with a single viewpoint makes the book less than all-encompassing in discussion. However, I must admit that it is almost impossible to be anything more with a single author and Graham may well be more honest than others who pick and choose the alternatives they present.
Most of the essays are available at Graham's website, but frankly I am a fan of dead trees and appreciated that this book could be read on the bus or in bed. If you would prefer something you cna read on the bus then a PDF of the second chapter, "Hackers & Painters" is available from the O'Reilly page linked above.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to think about a number of topics important to the culture of our tiny corner of the world, computers and the net, while not ignoring the rest.
You can purchase Hackers & Painters from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Paul Graham's politics (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wittgenstein? (Score:3, Interesting)
Luther's 95 These was hardly an "essay." It was more like a list of discussion topics; an invitation to debate; an attack on church policies.
The first writings actually called essays were written by Michel de Montaigne over 60 years after Luther.
Controversial writing predates Luther by thousands of years. I am sure Moses was considered pretty controversial at the time. There was also plenty of discussion worthy items in the works of great Greek philsophers.
The whole story of the nailing to the church door is itself apocryphal. The one supposed witness wasn't even at Wittenberg until the year after. Luther himself never mentions nailing anything.
Perhaps that is why honestpuck writes reviews and not books himself.
Critics search for ages for the wrong word, which, to give them credit, they eventually find. --Peter Ustinov
A nice quote... (Score:4, Interesting)
Nice to see he remembers how he felt about LISP at first; gives me hope for my own LISP aspirations
Re:Is this book about JeffK? (Score:4, Interesting)
It is sort of like open source software in a way, as digital art lends itself to being copied and used as wallpapers, fodder for other digital art, and the like. For instance you are free to use my digital pieces for whatever you like as long as it is not commercial. Hmmmm, looks like I need to put up my copyleft tag. Anyways the future of art is the mutability of the medium. Where people will buy 3 or 4 digital photo frames or make your own [audreyhacking.com] out of old computers or laptops.
Re:Paul Graham's politics (Score:5, Interesting)
Call it postmodernist if you must, but if the reviewer read his book and decided he comes across as conservative and right-wing, perhaps it is because his beliefs and those considered to be conservative and right-wing overlap.
There are only so many beliefs you can have within the realm of sanity; we tend to label these in context of an ever evolving spectrum. Like all arbitrary standards, whether or not you wish to be compared to it is fruitless; the standard exists in order to compare aspects of your beliefs. The best you can hope for in terms of non-comparison is "No Comment."
Having read several of his essays, and being at least somewhat aware of (admittedly stereotypical) tenets of Libertarianism, I'd say that both he and you most likely DO hold many "right-wing" views. It does not naturally follow that you hold views in line with the Republican party simply because it also considered to represent the "right-wing."
I think the arguement of being outside the spectrum is probably the one as laid out in the Wikipedia in regards to a graphing scale rather than a linear one. While I grant it may have merit, it in the context of a limited body of work the argument seems fallacious, as the seperation between economic freedom and personal freedom is not a concrete one and relies on typecasting and presumption that you must isolate the two.
Instead I would propose that Libertarians actually are the most pure form of the right wing, believing that freedoms must be preserved at all costs and being unwilling to compromise in the ways that Conservatives often have.
Even having read Hayek's essay on Conservatives, it still doesn't seem to address the basic point that the scale is a matter of convenience for the oberserver, not a strict definition of a set of beliefs.
quote from Hackers and Painters (Score:3, Interesting)
Main difference being, artists who ignore fashion may be remembered hundreds of years later despite not being popular during their lifetimes. However, I suspect that other than a couple of early programmers, all hackers will be quickly forgotten. Nice old paintings sell for big bucks, but old code is just trivia for geeks.
"Doubt" and "uncertainty" are fallacies (Score:4, Interesting)
A good argument does not allow for doubt or uncertainty. You can't effectively persuade people if you put things in terms of "probably" or "maybe" or "I think."
When you have been proven wrong in your argument, then you admit you were wrong. Those who are courageous enough to admit their errors, and then to alter their beliefs, don't need the excuse of doubt and uncertainty in their arguments in the first place.
There is a group of people who take one of the ideas of critical thinking - to question everything - to the false conclusion that we must therefore live with doubt and uncertainty because we can't empirically know it all. "Question everything" becomes "doubt everything," and then you have assertions such as this: that the author is conservative and dogmatic in his views. The aspiring critical thinker, perceiving a flaw in another's thinking, projects that flaw onto the other's argument and cannot except it by virtue of the thought process used to arrive at the conclusion.
Re:Could someone explain a little bit please (Score:4, Interesting)
I've found most often the best meaning to these words is based on what people call others, not as they identify themselves.
Part of the problem is that the terms have changed meaning over time, as they were concocted so as to oppose themselves to another group.
Imagine the pro-life and pro-choice groups, in 30 years. Let's say that the stance that all abortion should be illegal fades away to obscurity, and is replaced by the idea that the most important thing is that both the mother and the father have a say in what happens.
This group is opposing itself to the pro-choice group (of 30 years in the future, keep in mind!), and they want to say exactly what they believe in their name, so thay call themselves the Rights party.
Well now, "pro-choice" makes little sense, since both groups desire for abortion to be legal. But nevertheless, there they are.
The process repeats itself over the years, and the terms stop meaning anything. You could really start saying "party A" and "party B" and be about as accurate.
The things that don't change are fundamental ideas about government: proper use of police powers, rights of component states, how law is created, jurisprudence, rights of commerce, central planning, etc.
Which groups are which, though...that changes all the time.
Re:"Doubt" and "uncertainty" are fallacies (Score:1, Interesting)
Don't waste people's time by offering unsound arguments.
Re:"Doubt" and "uncertainty" are fallacies (Score:3, Interesting)
I never advocated nor suggested the use of generalization, flawed reason, or hasty conclusions. I did not condone the wilful misrepresentation of evidence. These are, in themselves, fallacies of argument and of logic. You have made these very errors in supposing that I implied such a thing.
Arguments stand or fall on their merits. They do not need qualifiers on them.
When a conclusion is derived from reason and logic, this conclusion induces belief in those who might consider it. In argument form, such belief is most effectively presented as fact.