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Paul Graham On 'Great Hackers'

Posted by simoniker on from the great-scott dept.

dcgrigsby writes "Always interesting, if not unbiased, Paul Graham has published a new article on 'Great Hackers', discussing why Perl and Python are apparently better than Java, on why Microsoft developers get offices, and a host of other sure-to-be-controversial stuff."

6 of 620 comments (clear)

  1. When he starts comparing languages... by SnapShot · · Score: 5, Funny

    When he starts comparing languages or, to be more specific, makes the blanket statement that better hackers like Python over Perl I am reminded of the fact that the best hackers actually use OCAML and Objective-C.

    "No they don't", you cry, "the best hackers user Assembly and Visual Basic".

    "No, you're a fucking moron", someone else pipes up, "the best hackers use Pascal and COBOL."

    "No, you are a fuckwit," a voice from the back of the croud screams, "Fortran and Algol are the languages of the best hackers".

    "Quiet you fools," an elderly guru from the wings yells out, "I happen to know that the best hackers use Perl when they aren't dictating their programs to their secretaries to be outsourced to Taiwan to be compiled into Haskell"

    "Shows what you know old man", a kid in the front row sneers, "the l33t hax0rs use Lisp and C++".

    Well anyway, it looks like this might go on for a while, please enjoy the other comments while we try and work this out...

    --
    Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
  2. Re:Great hackers use Perl and Python? by Amiga+Lover · · Score: 3, Funny

    Apparently not because if he was he would have coded the kernel in Perl!!

    I put forward to you... vmlinux.NET

  3. Incendiarially by smittyoneeach · · Score: 4, Funny
    (Incidentally, I think this is what people mean when they talk about the "meaning of life." On the face of it, this seems an odd idea. Life isn't an expression; how could it have meaning? But it can have a quality that feels a lot like meaning. In a project like a compiler, you have to solve a lot of problems, but the problems all fall into a pattern, as in a signal. Whereas when the problems you have to solve are random, they seem like noise. ) I think this is what you call a theological question. Besides than the Adams approach (Douglas or Scott), I think the other reasonable approach to the question is to humbly admit that it's like describing the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter; the actual answer overflows the finite brain.
    Walk humbly during all the days of your vanity, and look forward to an eternity when all will be revealed.
    Oh, and use emacs.
    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  4. Re:Article text (in case of slashdotting) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Who is to say you didn't post as the AC, claiming Karma Whoring, and then reply to yourself, non-anonymously pointing out the grandfather post was AC, all simply to get yourself modded up as Insightful?

    THAT'S META KARMA-WHORING; OMG!

  5. It's too bad... by PsiPsiStar · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... that he didn't talk about people who like to break into and control systems. I would love to see an article entitled "Paul Grahm on great crackers"

    Ba dum bum!

    --

    ___
    It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
  6. I'm doomed! by bob_jenkins · · Score: 3, Funny

    OMG, I write in C and Java, my OS is Windows ME, I'm willing to fix bugs in 20-year-old code, and it's taken me over two weeks so far to write a simple stream cipher + MAC! I must be lousy!