Hackers & Painters
Big Ideas from the Computer Age
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Release Date: May 2010
Pages: 272
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We are living in the computer age, in a world increasingly designed and engineered by computer programmers and software designers, by people who call themselves hackers. Who are these people, what motivates them, and why should you care?
Consider these facts: Everything around us is turning into computers. Your typewriter is gone, replaced by a computer. Your phone has turned into a computer. So has your camera. Soon your TV will. Your car was not only designed on computers, but has more processing power in it than a room-sized mainframe did in 1970. Letters, encyclopedias, newspapers, and even your local store are being replaced by the Internet.
Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age, by Paul Graham, explains this world and the motivations of the people who occupy it. In clear, thoughtful prose that draws on illuminating historical examples, Graham takes readers on an unflinching exploration into what he calls "an intellectual Wild West."
The ideas discussed in this book will have a powerful and lasting impact on how we think, how we work, how we develop technology, and how we live. Topics include the importance of beauty in software design, how to make wealth, heresy and free speech, the programming language renaissance, the open-source movement, digital design, internet startups, and more.
Table of Contents
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Chapter 1 Why Nerds Are Unpopular
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Chapter 2 Hackers and Painters
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Chapter 3 What You Can't Say
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The Conformist Test
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Trouble
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Heresy
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Time and Space
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Prigs
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Mechanism
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Why
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Pensieri Stretti
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Viso Sciolto?
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Always Be Questioning
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Chapter 4 Good Bad Attitude
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Chapter 5 The Other Road Ahead
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The Next Thing?
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The Win for Users
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City of Code
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Releases
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Bugs
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Support
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Morale
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Brooks in Reverse
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Watching Users
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Money
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Customers
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Son of Server
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Microsoft
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Startups but More So
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Just Good Enough
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Why Not?
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Chapter 6 How to Make Wealth
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The Proposition
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Millions, not Billions
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Money Is Not Wealth
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The Pie Fallacy
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Craftsmen
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What a Job Is
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Working Harder
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Measurement and Leverage
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Smallness = Measurement
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Technology = Leverage
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The Catch(es)
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Get Users
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Wealth and Power
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Chapter 7 Mind the Gap
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The Daddy Model of Wealth
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Stealing It
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The Lever of Technology
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Alternative to an Axiom
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Chapter 8 A Plan for Spam
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Chapter 9 Taste for Makers
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Chapter 10 Programming Languages Explained
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Machine Language
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High-Level Languages
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Open Source
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Language Wars
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Abstractness
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Seat Belts or Handcuffs?
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OO
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Renaissance
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Chapter 11 The Hundred-Year Language
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Chapter 12 Beating the Averages
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The Secret Weapon
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The Blub Paradox
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Aikido for Startups
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Chapter 13 Revenge of the Nerds
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Catching Up with Math
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What Made Lisp Different
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Where Languages Matter
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Centripetal Forces
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The Cost of Being Average
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A Recipe
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Appendix: Power
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Chapter 14 The Dream Language
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The Mechanics of Popularity
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External Factors
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Succinctness
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Hackability
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Throwaway Programs
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Libraries
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Efficiency
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Time
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Redesign
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The Dream Language
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Chapter 15 Design and Research
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Appendix Notes
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Chapter 1
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Chapter 2
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Chapter 3
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Chapter 4
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Chapter 5
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Chapter 6
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Chapter 7
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Chapter 8
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Chapter 9
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Chapter 10
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Chapter 11
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Chapter 12
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Chapter 13
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Chapter 14
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Glossary