It's creepy that this discussion was voted to the top. I don't see the value in his question.
Untitled topic
11–20 of 57 posts
Re: undefined
#12[deleted]
Re: undefined
#13"He writes well"
Understatement of the year.
This statement infers that you read his essays. Did you? If so, good. Read them again. If not, read them for the first time.
I've read, followed, attended, and met many "self-help" specialists. Dale Carnegie, Napolean Hill, Zig Zigler, Wayne Dyer, Tony Robbins, Stephen Covey, and many more. But for hackers who want to take it to the next level, none of these guys holds a candle to pg. Why? They all help me to feel good. He helps me to do better.
And it doesn't hurt that, along with others, he has brought yc and hn to us. His essays brought me to this site. You guys keep me here.
After years of cleaning up other people's messes, I'm moving up to the next level and building the cool stuff that was always inside me. Those essays and this site have encouraged me alot. And I bet I'm not the only one.
Re: undefined
#14>> why do you guys listen to him
I guess it goes the other way. PG is a good listener and thus a good thinker. That's why he's popular among the tech community in particular.
Re: undefined
#15For me personally reading his essays changed my entire perspective on programming/software engineering. He is also published (ANSI Common Lisp, Hackers and Painters and On Lisp) thats a little bit different than just being a "buzz" of the month/year blogger.
Re: undefined
#16Even though the question (imho) is a bit awkward it is interesting. And since there is clearly a following around PG it is a valid question to ask. I think the reason is that he resonates well with a large group of people (hackers) that are smart and able, but are often very introvert. They often don't get the credit they deserve, are bored with the typical business and corporate stuff that they find simple and shall…
yes, the cult of paul graham reminds me of people who worship ayn rand. her writing gives people a sense of power, that they can transform the world with their will & determination. paul graham's writings/personal story empower in the same way. although, like rand, it's unclear whether the characters in their stories have real world referents or portray a world closer to (an empowering) fantasy than reality.
(this post makes no judgment as to the normative value, good or bad, of creating empowering fantasies if that be the case.)
Re: undefined
#17Even though the question (imho) is a bit awkward it is interesting. And since there is clearly a following around PG it is a valid question to ask. I think the reason is that he resonates well with a large group of people (hackers) that are smart and able, but are often very introvert. They often don't get the credit they deserve, are bored with the typical business and corporate stuff that they find simple and shall…
Best comment I've read in ages! +1
I certainly agree with this. Paul's essays really struck a chord with me.. especially 'Why nerds are unpopular'.
I've been programming since a young age and I used to love making little 3D graphic demo's in QBasic. I always found it frustrating when showing my friends what I had created.. they didn't really appreciate what it took to draw a 3D cube on the screen. :(
Re: undefined
#18Paul Graham doesn't write well, he writes good. Because insightful isn't a style of writing, it's a type of idea.
Re: undefined
#19People tend to gravitate towards others who think like them. In addition to agreeing with a lot of what he says, I felt like his essays were the first time I ran into a person who thought that graduating and working for someone else was a bullshit default. This is something I have believed since 1st or 2nd grade, but in sharing that idea with other people I got blank stares or expressions as if I had just propositioned a drug trafficking network.
His essays also allowed me to fine tune my bs filter on situations and people, be they jobs, vcs, popular opinion, etc. A lot there.
Finally, he seems to not be a prick, and believe or not, that is a very rare quality. I have never met the guy, but he seems to be trying to make a positive change in the world and doesn't seem to be leeching of off people's hopes and taking advantage of them, like a record company or leadership track in a corporation would.
Re: undefined
#20Here, I think, are some of the reasons:
He writes well, far beyond the extent that good writing can be expected from a Harvard student. His writing is at once concise, interesting (at least to this audience), and convincing.
Y Combinator seems pretty successful, and PG is good at it. (I'm not going to give reasons for the success of YC here.)
His books On Lisp and ANSI Common Lisp are arguably among the best books about Lisp.
He is making his own dialect of Lisp (see http://arclanguage.org/). I've looked it over, and it looks like a good language. Probably not all the hype cracks it up to be, but then, nothing ever is. Sure, it has its bugs and a few other problems, but it shows a lot of potential.
There are probably others, but this is all I'm going to write right now.