Hackers & Painters
Some time ago, the list of fans to teach replenished: Paul Gram unwound. He founded the company “Y Combinator”, became all of himself a venture capitalist and now constantly writes articles (by the way, good ones) on startups.
The book “Hackers and Painters” is a collection of recycled articles by Paul Gram, which he published on his website in pop-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 over the table of contents and briefly comment.
Why Nerds Are Unpopular. The school is a prison run by the prisoners themselves. Its only purpose is to take something children while the parents are at work. In order not to be at the bottom of the hierarchy, it is necessary to expend efforts to maintain status. But other activities are interesting to smart children, 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 to correcting it. Who has friends of teenagers, give them this article.
Hackers and Painters. Computer Science and programming are different things. It’s bad when eggheads rate hackers by their criteria. Even worse, when hackers themselves evaluate so.
“Hackers on the pipeline” 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 is best to rate hackers as writers or artists. And hackers should learn from them. What exactly is the second part of the article.
What You Can't Say. At any time and in any place there are ideas that you should not advertise. If you have no such ideas, you are brainwashed. And what if there is?
Good Bad Attitude. Well, 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 open to startups.
How to Make Wealth. A startup is a way to compress all of your usual long working life in a few years.
To earn a lot, you need to create value. A sign that a startup is on the right track is having users.
Mind the Gap. A small but interstitial article. The idea that wealth and the amount of money are completely different things are pretty obvious. But the consequences - no.
Is it bad when some people earn many times more than others? Not! On the contrary, in the modern world, the huge difference in income is an indication that society is healthy and has not slipped into stagnation.
There are a few more ideas about the wealth of the state and its inhabitants, but I'd rather give you a funny quote. “If Lenin had wandered around the offices of companies such as Yahoo, Intel or Cisco, he would have thought that communism had won. All wear the same clothes, sit in the same type of offices (more precisely, in the booths) with monotonous furniture, refer to each other by name, not title. Everything looks as he predicted, until you look at the bank accounts. Oops. "
A Plan for Spam. With this article begins the glorious history of Bayesian spam filters. Now it’s hard to imagine how we lived without them, and therefore it’s funny to read phrases like “I hope this method will work”.
Taste for Makers. It is said that tastes do not argue, but in fact everything beautiful has common features.
Programming Languages Explained. Paul Graeme expresses his attitude to some concepts related to programming languages. Does not cling.
The Hundred-Year Language. A programming language is not a technology, but a way of presenting thoughts. Therefore, languages change slowly, and you can evaluate what awaits us in the future.
Beating the Averages. The article is like an article, but for some reason I have re-read it many times, with something it touches. About why Lisp is the coolest, why its use gives a competitive advantage, and why few people know about its use in real life.
Revenge of the Nerds. As a theoretical toy, it suddenly became a programming language, or again about why Lisp is the coolest.
It is a common practice for the Spanishspun's Tenth Rule of the Common Lisp.
The Dream Language. How to create a popular programming language.
Design and Research. How design development differs from scientific research (convenience versus novelty), and how to approach design.
Bonus paper version - photo of Bill Gates. “We have to report that after reading the fifth chapter, the Microsoft advertising agency did not allow to publish any of their photos. 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 quality translation, in publishing houses have long been forgotten.
Briefly about the book: Paul Gram's articles are included in the list of mustread for the harsh programmers.
References:
* Hackers and Painters at amazon.com
* Paul Graham homepage
* Translations of Paul Gram's articles from Computerra
* This review on mustread.ru
The book “Hackers and Painters” is a collection of recycled articles by Paul Gram, which he published on his website in pop-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 over the table of contents and briefly comment.
Why Nerds Are Unpopular. The school is a prison run by the prisoners themselves. Its only purpose is to take something children while the parents are at work. In order not to be at the bottom of the hierarchy, it is necessary to expend efforts to maintain status. But other activities are interesting to smart children, 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 to correcting it. Who has friends of teenagers, give them this article.
Hackers and Painters. Computer Science and programming are different things. It’s bad when eggheads rate hackers by their criteria. Even worse, when hackers themselves evaluate so.
“Hackers on the pipeline” 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 is best to rate hackers as writers or artists. And hackers should learn from them. What exactly is the second part of the article.
What You Can't Say. At any time and in any place there are ideas that you should not advertise. If you have no such ideas, you are brainwashed. And what if there is?
Good Bad Attitude. Well, 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 open to startups.
How to Make Wealth. A startup is a way to compress all of your usual long working life in a few years.
To earn a lot, you need to create value. A sign that a startup is on the right track is having users.
Mind the Gap. A small but interstitial article. The idea that wealth and the amount of money are completely different things are pretty obvious. But the consequences - no.
Is it bad when some people earn many times more than others? Not! On the contrary, in the modern world, the huge difference in income is an indication that society is healthy and has not slipped into stagnation.
There are a few more ideas about the wealth of the state and its inhabitants, but I'd rather give you a funny quote. “If Lenin had wandered around the offices of companies such as Yahoo, Intel or Cisco, he would have thought that communism had won. All wear the same clothes, sit in the same type of offices (more precisely, in the booths) with monotonous furniture, refer to each other by name, not title. Everything looks as he predicted, until you look at the bank accounts. Oops. "
A Plan for Spam. With this article begins the glorious history of Bayesian spam filters. Now it’s hard to imagine how we lived without them, and therefore it’s funny to read phrases like “I hope this method will work”.
Taste for Makers. It is said that tastes do not argue, but in fact everything beautiful has common features.
Programming Languages Explained. Paul Graeme expresses his attitude to some concepts related to programming languages. Does not cling.
The Hundred-Year Language. A programming language is not a technology, but a way of presenting thoughts. Therefore, languages change slowly, and you can evaluate what awaits us in the future.
Beating the Averages. The article is like an article, but for some reason I have re-read it many times, with something it touches. About why Lisp is the coolest, why its use gives a competitive advantage, and why few people know about its use in real life.
Revenge of the Nerds. As a theoretical toy, it suddenly became a programming language, or again about why Lisp is the coolest.
It is a common practice for the Spanishspun's Tenth Rule of the Common Lisp.
The Dream Language. How to create a popular programming language.
Design and Research. How design development differs from scientific research (convenience versus novelty), and how to approach design.
Bonus paper version - photo of Bill Gates. “We have to report that after reading the fifth chapter, the Microsoft advertising agency did not allow to publish any of their photos. 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 quality translation, in publishing houses have long been forgotten.
Briefly about the book: Paul Gram's articles are included in the list of mustread for the harsh programmers.
References:
* Hackers and Painters at amazon.com
* Paul Graham homepage
* Translations of Paul Gram's articles from Computerra
* This review on mustread.ru
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/11081/
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