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How to Become a Hacker

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Re: How to Become a Hacker

#91

Post by jmknoll »

pacomerh wrote: post #85

I don't like this new definition of the word "hacker". I wish people would call builders and tinkerers something else. We have all this strong history with hackers who are the ones that infiltrate systems. And now someone makes an app and he/she is a hacker. Somehow I feel like there's a necessity to feel special and unique. This word is so soft now.

Based on your comment and some of the other ones on here, I looked this up and it looks like the original meaning of “working on a tech problem in a different way than what’s outlined in the manual” dates back to the 1950’s.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-o...

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#92

Post by hvis »

pacomerh wrote: post #85

I don't like this new definition of the word "hacker". I wish people would call builders and tinkerers something else. We have all this strong history with hackers who are the ones that infiltrate systems. And now someone makes an app and he/she is a hacker. Somehow I feel like there's a necessity to feel special and unique. This word is so soft now.

Curious to see this comment on "Hacker News".

Did you think this resource was about the infiltration profession?

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#93

Post by non-entity »

arexxbifs wrote: post #20
qzw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure this works for some people in the right context, but so many great OG hackers were career computer scientists and engineers. I mean, people like the original Xerox PARC guys, Woz, Cerf, Diffie, the RSA guys, TBL, and too many more to name. They were all working in jobs or started companies that allowed them to devote the bulk of their time and energy to hacking and building. There are only so many hours in t…

Most of those guys operated under circumstances vastly different from today. If you can land a job like those at PARC or Bell Labs, then yes, "carreer hacking" is certainly possible. Considering how many IT professionals there are now and how few there were back then, I'd say those kinds of jobs are even more scarce now than they used to be. It's not impossible, but it's not a realistic expectation. > If you’re devot…

> If you can land a job like those at PARC or Bell Labs, then yes, "carreer hacking" is certainly possible.

I wonder what the modern version of these are.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#94

Post by eliasbagley »

Robelius wrote: post #79
gonehome wrote: post #76

Thanks for sharing my blog post! :) I think something I would have included that I thought about later is being curiosity driven. It's more personal, but I've found a lot of what I've really enjoyed (and where I've learned the most) has been from allowing myself to go down random rabbit holes to play with different things. There's some risk to this if you never go deep enough, but I think the benefits are worth it. I…

Reading your blog post brought back memories. The first Hacker News article that got me to make an account was How To Become A Hacker[1]. That led me down a rabbit hole as a high schooler that got me into software and later hardware. There's definitely a direct line from me reading that article to me becoming a hardware engineer. I hope your article helps create the same effect on an unknowing high schooler. Thanks f…

Very similar for me - there is also a direct line from me reading that article to me being a software engineer today.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#95

Post by markus_zhang »

non-entity wrote: post #93
arexxbifs wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those guys operated under circumstances vastly different from today. If you can land a job like those at PARC or Bell Labs, then yes, "carreer hacking" is certainly possible. Considering how many IT professionals there are now and how few there were back then, I'd say those kinds of jobs are even more scarce now than they used to be. It's not impossible, but it's not a realistic expectation. > If you’re devot…

> If you can land a job like those at PARC or Bell Labs, then yes, "carreer hacking" is certainly possible. I wonder what the modern version of these are.

I'd say research position at Google of Microsoft. If research positions are not available then any position that gives you some freedom to poke at whatever you like.

I do agree that such positions are much rarer nowadays than the Cold War in which states were willing to invest X% for scientific progression. Nowadays? Let's cut everything that doesn't have a strong political backer.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#96

Post by feanaro »

crumbshot wrote: post #68

Their first mistake was taking heed of anything ESR has to say, including his archaic opinion on what hacking is. If it's nothing to do with software or hardware security, then it's not hacking. And yes, this site is itself woefully misnamed.

I don't know, this matches closely the meaning I was taught when I was first introduced to the word. I've never found Hacker News to be misnamed.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#97

Post by gonehome »

Robelius wrote: post #79
gonehome wrote: post #76

Thanks for sharing my blog post! :) I think something I would have included that I thought about later is being curiosity driven. It's more personal, but I've found a lot of what I've really enjoyed (and where I've learned the most) has been from allowing myself to go down random rabbit holes to play with different things. There's some risk to this if you never go deep enough, but I think the benefits are worth it. I…

Reading your blog post brought back memories. The first Hacker News article that got me to make an account was How To Become A Hacker[1]. That led me down a rabbit hole as a high schooler that got me into software and later hardware. There's definitely a direct line from me reading that article to me becoming a hardware engineer. I hope your article helps create the same effect on an unknowing high schooler. Thanks f…

Thanks! There's a pretty direct line for me too. I'd be happy if my post helps others in a similar position.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#98

Post by markus_zhang »

seiferteric wrote: post #56
arexxbifs wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those guys operated under circumstances vastly different from today. If you can land a job like those at PARC or Bell Labs, then yes, "carreer hacking" is certainly possible. Considering how many IT professionals there are now and how few there were back then, I'd say those kinds of jobs are even more scarce now than they used to be. It's not impossible, but it's not a realistic expectation. > If you’re devot…

Imagine how different being a programmer was before the distractions of the internet. You might not even be in front of a screen all the time. I am sure a lot of time was spent preparing punch cards and in front of chalk boards. Overall I bet it was much better for mental health.

But at least since the late 70s the kids then who were able to purchase a machine at home (Apple II, Commodore) did manager to stay 24 hours behind a screen. And a lot of interesting things came from that era.

I'd argue that it's not the distraction or time spent before a screen, but the complexity software engineering becomes. Back in late 70s and 80s if you owned a personal computer, you can literally map the whole memory into your brain. A commercial game could be developed in under 2-3 months. Just look at how ID Software managed to pump out tons of games in under one year. They are definitely very talented, but how come they don't do it nowadays, or even in the late 90s?

Nowadays computing is the red sea where competition is cut throat and even great talents only get to work in a niche area.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#99

Post by zitterbewegung »

arexxbifs wrote: post #11

My best advice to any budding hacker would be for them to find a job as unrelated to computers as possible, but which leaves them with enough free time to tinker with whatever currently tickles their fancy.

I try to balance both out having a day job and having stuff that motivates me for learning and or Side projects. Even though I take breaks on my side projects I think you can be an OK hacker but, if you are able to get a large amount of free time making around ~$50 then I would agree with you.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#100

Post by alexashka »

For me, there is a checklist of ideas one has to grok and then computers connected over a network and talking to one another is comprehensible.

I think a lot of the complexity of modern software development is powers that be, entrenching their powerful positions by layering more and more complexity, so that no team of a dozen people can ever hope to compete.

There is no attempt to re-factor our current way of doing things to reduce the complexity 10x. We're stuck with multiple OSes, multiple languages, multiple tools for each language, a plethora of frameworks that do the same thing but slightly differently and none of them do anything uniquely excellent, they're different for historical reasons, not pragmatic.

Half the web developer jobs are a matter of manually solving SQL user interface problem, specific to a business domain.

Why we don't sit down and create protocols/specs for each business domain that span across SQL, UI, security and permissions levels so that each bank doesn't have to hire a team of IT people to do the same thing slightly differently is beyond me - I can only guess it is because nobody in government understands how computers work.

We're seeing some reduction in complexity with cloud providers, but it is of the worst kind - it is consolidation combined with vendor lock-in, proprietary software and pay-as-you-go pricing, yikes!

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