In Hackers & Painters, Paul Graham explores his perspective on hackers, their motivations, and his identity as a nerd, a painter, a rule breaker, and overall, as a hacker. He shares with Steven Levy in Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution the idea that the hacker gets both negative connotations from the general public and positive ones from the programming community. He also shares with Levy the idea that hackers are inherently curious and desire freedom in exploring and sharing new technologies. He differs from Levy, I think, in the way he brings his personal narrative into this portrayal of hackers, especially in his description of himself and other hackers rejecting conformity and rule-following rules.
In Graham's book, he starts off in his preface by saying that "innovation and heresy are practically the same thing", "good hackers develop a habit of questioning everything", and that "nerds do seem to be taking over the world". These three statements sum up a lot of his arguments in the first four chapters. He talks first about nerds, and his history as a nerd. Then he discusses the analogy between painters and hackers, both as "makers". Then he goes into why we should all be questioning the things we "can't say", and finally he discusses how important it is to challenges rules.
On his first point of nerds, Graham starts with what feels like a personal critique of the school system, hinting at his own history. He comments on the game of popularity, and why kids bully the "nerds". He shares that, "when you tread water, you lift yourself up by pushing water down", and that this is what people unsure of their own position do in order to secure it. I laughed at this analogy at first, but I think it has some merit, and is less intense than his next analogy of saying that, "public school teachers are in much the same position as prison wardens". He says that the adults abandon kids to spend years cooped up with no purpose in school, and that is what leads to the harsh treatment of eachother. I think this is a bit extreme, and not entirely true. I think that even when school feels boring or aimless, there is purpose in learning how to learn, learning how to work with others, and learning how to make friends and mentors. It seems Graham's unresolved frustration with his middle school experience is clouding his perspective, overlooking the broader lessons that come from these environments.
In the next piece, he talks about the analogy between hackers and painters, both as makers, and neither as "scientists" in the way that people tend to categorize hackers as Computer Scientists. I don't disagree with him here. I haven't ever given thought to why it is called Computer Science, and I agree that I don't really feel like a scientist in it. He makes a good point about the term Computer Science forcing us to write papers to prove our worth, which I understand, but also think it is a good metric for showing projects in a uniform way. Maybe instead of cutting out papers all together, we should try to make the papers more understandable and less riddled with jargon and mathematical formulas just for fanciness?
He makes another argument I like in his hackers and painters chapter; that you learn to paint by doing it, and you also learn to hack by doing it. This is his biggest point towards why we aren't scientists, we are artists. Steven Levy does not bring up this point, but seems to also think it is important to learn by doing, in the Hands On Imperative. I like that Graham emphasizes the importance of working on teams well and also says how, "Empathy is probably the single most important difference between a good hacker and a great one". He says this in reference to designing software and needing to be able to understand the user's point of view, and I think this is super important for us to remember and focus on going into jobs.
In the last two chapters of reading for this week, he discusses questioning the things we can't say and questioning rules in general with hacking. He thinks we should do these things for three reasons: plain curiosity, a disdain for being wrong, and because it's "good for the brain" and "you especially need a brain that's in the habit of going where it's not supposed to". And while I don't think that we need to see all rules and societal standards as threats, I do think this approach to life has some merit, and aligns with the hacker ethic of changing life for the better through hacks. Whether these hacks involve technology or broader societal changes, the core belief in pushing boundaries remains central here.
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