Souzek Republic: The Art of Hacking

The Art of Hacking

Paul Graham has written a terrific essay called "Hackers and Painters" on hacking as a creative process, like painting, as opposed to a science. In it, he carefully outlines the strong connections between hackers and other "makers" and refutes the institutional ideas on the nature and classification of programming. A lot of his ideas had been vaguely present in my mind for a while but I never had the elucidative ability to put them into an essay. One choice quote:

"I've never liked the term 'computer science.' The main reason I don't like it is that there's no such thing. Computer science is a grab bag of tenuously related areas thrown together by an accident of history, like Yugoslavia."

I recommend this article not only for programmers but also for their friends and family, that we all may come to a better understanding of exactly what it is that we programmers do [via kottke's remaindered links].