341–350 of 351 posts
There are lots of hackers out there, but we're not all obsessed with creating new languages needlessly. I mean sure, I have my own pet language I hack on, but the author would probably call me a "non-hacker" because I prioritized readability over fancy language features like a novel garbage collectors. Gosh.
Have other people observed the sentiment the author observes, around hackers being less common? The author has a list of reasons (VC money, business culture, managers, fear of the unknown). I, personally, have observed this reduction over my career, and I have my own idea of why that might be, my own phrasing of it. Perhaps it gets at the same thing as the author from a different angle. I think the reason, plain and…
Are there any communities and/or forums of people who are passionate about building and hacking purely for the sake of passion that I can join?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pre 00's hackers, or pre 80's for that matter, mostly tinkered with physical things... pulling apart a radio, remote controlled toy or reading popular mechanics. Now, you can do so much in pure software, and it's far easier and less expensive that it's the direction most will go. That doesn't mean there weren't hackers or nearly as proportionate an amount of them before the 00's. For that matter, my great grandfather…
Yeah, a part of it is that there's not really a mechanic class in the way that there used to be. I mentioned that's how my grandpa got his start: He was obsessed with TVs and repaired them/made his own FrankenTVs as a side from his automotive job, which in turn meant that when the computer and arcade revolution hit my dad had the tools and expertise to get really into things like pinball machines, Pong, and Atari lea…
I wish I personally had more opportunity to tinker as a child but I'm glad I have a chance to catch up now, though I'm not really sure where to start. (And I don't have as much time to dedicate since I need to find a full-time job)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think so. You can easily play around in the browser, using Javascript, or on https://processing.org/ , https://playground.tensorflow.org/ , https://scratch.mit.edu/ , etc. If anything the problem is that today's kids have too many options. And sure, some are commercial.
There's a huge difference between something being gamified and something being play , particularly unstructured play . Scratch is great, but it's structured and something presented by adults to children for learning. That has a whole bunch of social baggage attached as well as a 'win' condition set by adults. Also I'd say that the transition to hackerdom probably could truly take place at late elementary/middle schoo…
> That has a whole bunch of social baggage attached as well as a 'win' condition set by adults.
I'm not sure what you mean by this? I don't remember anything about winning besides the whole social media aspect of trying to get popular among all the cool projects that other people had by getting the largest number of likes and remixes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Similarly, as I've been promoted (and spend more time advising), my skills have atrophied I used to be excellent at kernel hacking, random Linux things that would often be several-weeks trials. Now that I'm not 'in it' constantly, mostly just advising, I've lost a lot of that sharpness Doesn't help the onslaught of the day really kills my desire to learn/play around
not to beat the constant drum of anti-capitalism, but this is the effect that we get when every company is for-profit and massive growth. curiosity doesn't have a direct path to profit, and so most people are stuck working on moving metrics, and nothing else. one can make the argument "well you have free time on the side, just do it then if youre truly interested" but realistically most people, myself included, are c…
I am a huge fan of capitalism and yet I also wish we saw a lot more small-to-medium sized companies where the focus is on a product you can be proud of, satisfied customers, and especially, happy employees. While I'm wishing I might as well add a shorter work week and more time spent on the auxiliary parts of engineering / development (maintenance, training, contributing to OSS dependencies, community service, etc.).
Then again, I've never been employed full time before so I don't know how it is in the industry anyways.
This is like every possible language war trope stitched together into a narrative.
Hey, author here, and generally a fan of your contributions here. I'd love your feedback if you're up for sharing it.
Also what is missing from much of today's programming training is a problem solving attitude. The focus seems to be overwhelmingly on tools and arguments about tools, not about how to solve problems.
Have other people observed the sentiment the author observes, around hackers being less common? The author has a list of reasons (VC money, business culture, managers, fear of the unknown). I, personally, have observed this reduction over my career, and I have my own idea of why that might be, my own phrasing of it. Perhaps it gets at the same thing as the author from a different angle. I think the reason, plain and…
I think the hacker culture of the ‘90s to early ‘00s is behind us, and it really saddens me. I’ve yet to find a corner of the current tech / startup landscape that ignites the same excitement I felt over a decade ago. It’s too commercial now.
Power and privilege would be important keywords here.