PG's Rarely Asked Questions
paulgraham.com
PG's Rarely Asked Questions
1–10 of 221 posts
Re: PG's Rarely Asked Questions
#2Interesting, now that I think of it, I have never met someone (except pg) who is a painter and programmer. I've met several programmers who are writers, musicians, carpenters, etc, but never painters.
I draw cartoons/caricatures (examples here: http://www.smileecards.com) and have painted a few times, but I don't quite call myself a painter.
About teachers, I totally agree that good teachers earn the respect of the students by having high standard, calling students out on bad quality work. I once suspected a teacher only read the beginning and the end of essays, so I submitted a 4 page essay that contained a recipe for banana cake in the second and third pages; I received a B+!
Re: PG's Rarely Asked Questions
#3Interesting, now that I think of it, I have never met someone (except pg) who is a painter and programmer. I've met several programmers who are writers, musicians, carpenters, etc, but never painters. I draw cartoons/caricatures (examples here: http://www.smileecards.com ) and have painted a few times, but I don't quite call myself a painter. About teachers, I totally agree that good teachers earn the respect of the…
Harold Cohen is probably the most famous example--- a painter who also programs AI systems (which are themselves painters...): http://crca.ucsd.edu/~hcohen/
Although, looking for painters who are also programmers, but programmers of things other than computer-art systems is also an interesting question. Likewise with musicians, people who are musician-programmers in computer music, and people who are musicians and also programmers separately, might be interesting to consider as different groups.
Re: PG's Rarely Asked Questions
#4"I want to start a startup, but I don't know how to program. How long will it take to learn?
I would guess a smart person can learn to hack sufficiently well in 6 months to a year."
Hmm... interesting take considering the source, especially when contrasted with the general mentality that programming and software development is the finest of all trades and takes a near preternatural mastery only found elsewhere in classical musicianship 300 years ago. I quite enjoy the feeling that I could be good in a year.
Re: PG's Rarely Asked Questions
#5 > Couldn't you add something equivalent to Lisp macros to languages like
> Perl or Python?
>
> Not without turning them into dialects of Lisp. Real macros need to
> operate on the parse tree of the program.
Re: PG's Rarely Asked Questions
#6" I want to start a startup, but I don't know how to program. How long will it take to learn? I would guess a smart person can learn to hack sufficiently well in 6 months to a year." Hmm... interesting take considering the source, especially when contrasted with the general mentality that programming and software development is the finest of all trades and takes a near preternatural mastery only found elsewhere in cl…
Note: he means "good enough", not good.
Which brings to mind patio11's constant reminders, that running a successful software business has very very little to do with programming well.
Which means that pg thinks that 6 months is the level you need to be at to be able to start a startup. This seems intuitively right to me, especially these days.
Re: PG's Rarely Asked Questions
#7" I want to start a startup, but I don't know how to program. How long will it take to learn? I would guess a smart person can learn to hack sufficiently well in 6 months to a year." Hmm... interesting take considering the source, especially when contrasted with the general mentality that programming and software development is the finest of all trades and takes a near preternatural mastery only found elsewhere in cl…
I am also fueled by his answer here. I guess that learning parameter depends on your teacher - the better the teacher, the better and faster you learn.
I just started learning HTML, CSS, jQ, PHP recently , and I found myself advancing at surprisingly high pace (now watching jQ new_boston tutorials on youtube).
Main problem for me is finding good material to learn from, since I only learn from the internet.
You have any advice considering good online sources for a total beginner to learn coding really well ?
Re: PG's Rarely Asked Questions
#8" I want to start a startup, but I don't know how to program. How long will it take to learn? I would guess a smart person can learn to hack sufficiently well in 6 months to a year." Hmm... interesting take considering the source, especially when contrasted with the general mentality that programming and software development is the finest of all trades and takes a near preternatural mastery only found elsewhere in cl…
I am also fueled by his answer here. I guess that learning parameter depends on your teacher - the better the teacher, the better and faster you learn. I just started learning HTML, CSS, jQ, PHP recently , and I found myself advancing at surprisingly high pace (now watching jQ new_boston tutorials on youtube). Main problem for me is finding good material to learn from, since I only learn from the internet. You have a…
http://www.w3schools.com is pretty informative if you haven't already checked that out.
The best thing to do, especially if you are on a budget is spend a few hours in a bookstore each week reading over various books on various subjects. I found this a lot more helpful.
Re: PG's Rarely Asked Questions
#9I must say that one of the things I value most is the fact that as a Hacker, I have also worked extensively in Landscaping, Kitchens, Coffe houses & Hotels. A wide range of interactions & processes in one's past can always be used as perspective when approaching the next fork in the road.
Re: PG's Rarely Asked Questions
#10" I want to start a startup, but I don't know how to program. How long will it take to learn? I would guess a smart person can learn to hack sufficiently well in 6 months to a year." Hmm... interesting take considering the source, especially when contrasted with the general mentality that programming and software development is the finest of all trades and takes a near preternatural mastery only found elsewhere in cl…
Note: he means "good enough", not good. Which brings to mind patio11's constant reminders, that running a successful software business has very very little to do with programming well. Which means that pg thinks that 6 months is the level you need to be at to be able to start a startup. This seems intuitively right to me, especially these days.
In fact the usual advice is that you shouldn't be doing something technically virtuosic in a startup. If your startup's critical path includes writing something as technically impressive as the Glasgow Haskell Compiler, you might have trouble...
Though there are a few people around here who've built software businesses around things that are also nontrivial technical advances; cperciva comes to mind.