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Loading... Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Ageby Paul Graham
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This book is collection of essays (I think all of them are online). Hackers and Painters was a quick and amusing read. The essays cover many topics; my favorites were those on the social habits of hackers and on language design. The language design essays were interesting even though I disagreed with them in many places. For one thing, types are good! Types are a burden when writing code, certainly, but they are vital for reading code. I find it much easier to read code with type annotations because then I know what each variable is supposed to do. Since code is read much more often than it is written (or so says conventional wisdom), types are important. That said, I am a big fan of both languages with type inference and languages where types do not need to be added while programming but can be added to provide additional guarantees to the programmer. It's just a bunch of Paul Graham's superb essays collected into one book. Unfortunately the selection of technical posts is showing its age. I'd give the first half of the book five stars and the latter half three, so decided to settle on four. You probably aren't going to have your toes tickled by the second half if you aren't ROBUSTLY INTO LISP. no reviews | add a review
"The computer world is like an intellectual Wild West, in which you can shoot anyone you wish with your ideas, if you're willing to risk the consequences."--Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age, by Paul Graham 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 No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)005.1092Information Computer Science; Knowledge and Systems Computer programming, programs, data, security Programming Programming -- Subdivisions Biography; History by Place BiographyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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