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Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age: Essays on the Art of Programming
 
 
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Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age: Essays on the Art of Programming (Hardcover)

by Paul Graham (Author)
3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
RRP: £17.50
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Customers buy this book with Founders at Work : Stories of Startups' Early Days: Stories of Startups' Early Days (Recipes: a Problem-Solution Ap) by Jessica Livingston

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"In most fields the great work is done early on. The paintings made between 1430 and 1500 are still unsurpassed. Shakespeare appeared just as professional theater was being born, and pushed the medium so far that every playwright since has had to live in his shadow. Albrecht Durer did the same thing with engraving, and Jane Austen with the novel.

From the Publisher
Written in clear, narrative style, Hackers & Painters examines issues such as the rightness of web-based applications, the programming language renaissance, spam filtering, the Open Source Movement, Internet startups and more. In each essay, Graham moves beyond widely held beliefs about the way that programmers work as he tells important stories about the kinds of people behind tech innovations, revealing distinctions about their characters and their craft. No hackers reading this book will fail to recognize themselves within these pages. No programmer will put it down without new thoughts actively percolating.

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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
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3.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A thought provoking read, 9 Mar 2005
As the title suggests this book is made up of a collection of essays ranging over a number of subjects. I found it generally light reading and even where it becomes more complex, notably the section about spam filtering, the book is clear enough to get the gist of what is being discussed without delving into the technicalities to deeply.

Since reading the book I have been recommending it to people of all technical backgrounds to help them understand the techies in their lives.

The book also explains why many people who consider themselves hackers don't fit the Hollywood/press usage of the term, i.e. a hacker is not someone who breaks into computer systems but someone who enjoys the creative processes involved in computer programming. From that point of view I am certainly a hacker, at least in some degree, and can identify with many of the views in the book.

Whether you're a techie or not this book is well worth reading if you ever come into contact with computer systems or the people who develop them.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Very diverse - but mostly good stuff, 8 Nov 2006
By G. Bache (Göteborg, Sweden) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Paul Graham is clearly a man with opinions. This collection of essays ranges from the trials of being a nerdy teenager (absolutely brilliant) to neo-liberal politics (definitely not my thing) to how to fix spam (interesting) to the merits of various programming languages (in case you're wondering, Lisp is the greatest...)

I'd recommend any programmer to read this book. He has a very different perspective to most modern writers and that's refreshing, though I don't always agree with his conclusions. He also writes very well and it's a good read.

Unfortunately I would guess that large sections of it are off limits to non-programmers: it's hard to buy a book when you're not going to get half of it. Even the supposedly non-techie chapters tend to throw in comments about (for example) static typing here and there.

Chapter 1 is a brilliantly insightful "nerd's eye" view into how secondary school culture works and everyone should read it (particularly anyone with an interest in teenage education).
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9 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Art of programming? More like libertarian tract, 11 Jun 2007
By Hannah Dee - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I thought this book would cover the art of programming. Don't know why, something about the title perhaps?

Instead it's a libertarian, elitist, political tract: small companies are good, big companies are inefficient, making money is good, geeks are good (OK, I'm not going to argue with that one). I've learned nothing at all yet about programming, and all sorts of stuff about running companies, startups, capital, wrapped up in a load of elitist garbage.

We all know (well, those of us involved in computing) that some programmers are gifted, and a gifted programmer can perform more than 10 times better than just a good programmer. What I was sort of hoping for from this book (judging by the blurb and its other reviews) was some insight into what this difference was, maybe with a view to upping my own game. Instead, I get a series of rants about how these elite programmers are held back in big corporations, and how people who perform 100 times better should be paid 100 times more. If I wanted to read a political science book, I'd have bought a book by someone who knew something about political science - Graham might be a gifted hacker, but his politics are naive and his exposition is a rant rather than an argument.
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