I've been programming since I was 10, but I don't feel like a "hacker"

http://blog.lizdenys.com/2014/01/03/i-do-not-feel-like-a-hacker/

by geofft • 13 years ago

162 108 13 years ago

blog.lizdenys.com

aperrien2• 13 years ago

What gets held up as an ideal gets followed, especially as children, when we're looking to establish our identities. I wonder if promoting a more diverse image of "hacking" to be included in other hobbies will help. While programming has always been a passion of mine, I also like astronomy, travel, and politics. Perhaps there should be discussion of how to change the practice and culture of programming to be one that more children can follow if they desire?

ps4fanboy11• 13 years ago

No one is promoting the hacker image, the image is defined by those seen to be the hackers. Who are you suggesting we point to and say look at what this person did to make the image more diverse?

aperrien2• 13 years ago

Perhaps someone like this?

http://pando.com/2014/01/02/from-coding-to-the-catwalk-this-...

I'm not really saying we need to promote pizza and staying up all night coding, it's that we need to maybe make it more inclusive, to encourage more people to join the tech party.

element_4• 13 years ago

I don't know if I ever thought "hacker" was only a term for someone who has been programming for 10+ years. I'm about to graduate from college, and I started programming my freshman year. I unfortunately never got to see the beauty and joys of programming until then, and it does suck a little bit. But does that automatically not make me a hacker?

Yet, I am arguably successful. I got a job offer from Amazon at the start of my senior year and took it, and of course, I eventually want to start my own company that's why I'm on this site. I understand the stigma because I personally have never told anyone I only started programming in college. I've never been asked either. I love playing around with new languages and learning all I can about software, but I don't feel I'm that far behind people who started programming early if even behind at all.

We need to stop acting like people who have been programming since kids have a huge advantage. It is much more about what you constantly put in, and there are numerous other ways to be a hacker then just programming. Most people who didn't program might already have the "hacker" in them and just need to attach the programming element of it.

ps4fanboy11• 13 years ago

People who feel alienated of the unique culture of programming will say anything to change it. They want everything to be normative, everything must be diverse everyone must have the same opportunities and pointing to gifted people and saying hey your a hacker and thats really good is a huge threat to that idea. It is almost like thinly veiled socialism.

raganwald3• 13 years ago

You say "socialism" like it's a bad thing. I don't feel "alienated" from hacker culture, everyone I've met seems quite nice and receptive to me (although perhaps I'm in the wrong room).

But perhaps what I see is that this is really nice, and why can't we share it with more people? Hacking isn't a zero-sum game. If we double the number of people trying to write open source, isn't that a win for everybody?

It's not like encouraging somebody else to write code takes my job away, or dilutes the amount of genius to go around.

Think positively, my friend. "Socialism" may or may not work when we're building massive factories built out of atoms, but perhaps the economy of bits works differently than the economy of atoms.

Disclosure: http://braythwayt.com/posterous/2014/01/03/hello-my-name-is-...

gum_ina_package• 13 years ago

I thought being a hacker was more of a mindset.

ps4fanboy11• 13 years ago

Agreed, to me a hacker was someone who liked to code at work and for fun and is probably better at it than the norm because of it.

n3rdy• 13 years ago

I'll second this. The whole tone of the article doesn't make much sense because to me a hacker has always been someone who strives to impress themselves rather than other people.

MichaelDickens• 13 years ago

I'm not a young woman so it's hard for me to say, but it looks to me like people are doing a much better job of encouraging young women to program. There are lots of programs to support women in CS. On the other hand, I don't know how effectively these solve the deeper cultural problems where it's not considered "normal" for girls to be interested in coding.

ps4fanboy11• 13 years ago

I have a lot of female coding friends, we grew up together and one of the biggest barriers they had when we were at university was from their female friends. Suggesting that their choice would stop them from getting a husband and they would turn into a basement dweller.

pyrocat2• 13 years ago

Sounds like they had shitty friends.

ps4fanboy11• 13 years ago

The prevalence of the 'hacker' stereotype hurts those who don't identify with it, such as women

The stereotype of prodigies in sports is also hurting everyone like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, why should other sports people be disadvantaged by not starting at an early age. Really?

"Hacker" doesn't equate to the best software engineer, the best founder, or much of anything other than having benefited from a longer period of time to gain experience—extra time that may or may not have been used effectively to gain additional knowledge

This hasnt been my experience, seems like a lot of what ifs.

pyrocat2• 13 years ago

Professional sports aren't STEM careers? Athletes are often celebrities that young people look up to, whereas hackers are not.

ps4fanboy11• 13 years ago

I never said professional sports are STEM careers. And young people do look up to celebrity hackers, what exactly is your point?

notastartup2• 13 years ago

I remember in the late 90s I was 10 or 11 and I figured out how to use the public library internet for more than the limit of 30 minutes.

I wanted to use internet so bad but I was not allowed a computer so I always hung out at the public library and I wished more than anything to use the internet as much as possible.

I thought by asking how does the computer know when the 30 minute is up? There must be a timer! Can I prevent the timer?

Sure enough, for half a second there's a dos terminal in windows 95 that is displayed when I restart the computer. It took a few tries but I managed to close it. 30 minutes passed and I was still on it. then an hour, another hour passes and I'm still not logged out!

I used the internet all the day from morning to dark. I let my sister use it too when I wanted to take a 'break'. I would see people check the wait list look over at me and leave very annoyed.

The next week, the librarian who remembered me told me they would need my library card as collateral, and that they will be keeping tabs on the time. the jig was up.

This was my hacker moment. not exactly sophisticated but I wanted something so bad and I got it.

rfnslyr• 13 years ago

I was 15 at the time. I was on the internet 24/7 frequenting various communities, back when any "scene" had its own "official" forum.

I was primarily interested in gamehacking and web exploitation. I made a few friends from these communities and we often shared stupid exploits with eachother such as uploading some html file deep in a large corporations file structure and linking it between us for laughs.

My friend messages me one day that he managed to upload a c99 shell on a large website. He linked me to it, but deep within the structure to a plain text database of millions of credit cards.

Fast forward two months later: I'm ratting out every connection I know along with emails/names/info to the police, after they kicked my door down and seized literally every computing device in my house.

Phones, computers, tablets, desktop computers, and my NAS'. It's been 8 years and I have yet to hear from the police and they have dodged my emails, in person visits, and calls every time.

I lost over $10,000 worth of computer equipment. This was my hacker moment.

IbJacked• 13 years ago

Ouch, that hurts.

Pre-internet, early 80s, I had my first computer, a Commodore 64. I was pretty active on the local BBS's and some long distance ones via an open modem relay I discovered at a local General Motors plant while wardialing.

I started using a new service called Quantum Link and hung out with a lot of shady characters that were doing phreaking and credit card number passing.

That's a path I probably would have continued down until one day I received a call from a guy saying he was with the FBI, that they new what I was doing, and were going to be paying me a visit.

Being something like 12, 13 years old, I freaked out and quickly hid all my pirated floppies and took my C=64 down to my friends house to hide it.

After a couple of weeks my patience wore out and I got my system back, but kept my nose clean after that (other than copying software, you couldn't have a C=64 and not trade with friends:).

It was only after four or five years later that I found out that the "FBI agent" was actually a friend of my friend's older brother. Doh! Probably all for the best.

jorgecastillo• 13 years ago

Now I will have to share my own library story. When I was in middle school I loved going to the library, reading books, comics, manga , magazines. In summer I used to go very often to the library. I would walk from my house to my local public library and go straight to he bathroom so that I could wipe the sweat from my face and arms. I've had some of my happiest memories in that library. I will share my most significant experiences.

The computers at the local public library had Windows (XP maybe?), we could use them for an hour or more depending on how many people wanted to use the computers. They also had computers in a kid section which had some games and limited internet access (the library's portal) and some more computers in another section which only had access to the library's portal. Once I was using a computer which was only supposed to be used to check books, somehow I discovered that a lot of times the library's portal also had a link to the item in Amazon, and from Amazon I could get into Google and then to any website. I got caught and scolded by a librarian, she told me "If you ever used this computers to get into the internet again, we are going to cancel your library card" or something like, well I never used those computers for the internet again. I used the ones in the kids section and it felt awesome.

Another significant thing that at that time didn't seem that significant was when I checked out a thick programming book on C or C++ I am not sure. I had a vague idea about what a program was and I had read thick books before. I didn't even had a computer at my house but I was so curious. I opened it tried to make sense out of the text but I couldn't, it seemed like Chinese. The next day I returned the book and I never again got interested in programming until high school.

notastartup2• 13 years ago

    Another significant thing that at that time didn't seem 
    that significant was when I checked out a thick 
    programming book on C or C++ I am not sure. I had a vague
    idea about what a program was and I had read thick books
    before. I didn't even had a computer at my house but I 
    was so curious. I opened it tried to make sense out of 
    the text but I couldn't, it seemed like Chinese. The next
    day I returned the book and I never again got interested 
    in programming until high school.

I did a similar thing, but being so desperate for a computer around the late 90s, I eventually found an old Intel 286 computer that was abandoned in the closet. It had monochrome monitor and I found something called QBASIC. I went to the library and took out very heavy book on it and ended up just copying the source code from the book. I didn't understand the code a great deal but the game ran after running through several pages. I thought it was interesting but realized trying to make a game is going to be very tough.

What sparked my interest soon after that was creating my own website after my dad helped me host it on a free server. I still have a copy of it backed up on a cd somewhere. It was created with Netscape Navigator. I showed my teacher and classmates. It was magic. It was so awesome.

I took a course that taught Visual Basic and also QBasic in junior high. It bored me because we were making very simple apps that I already knew. Wasn't learning anything new. Also whenever I sped ahead or began working on other things instructor would emphasize that I was to follow her step by step in an excruciatingly slow pace that the rest of the students had to follow. If she saw someone speeding ahead she would get angry and say STOP. Killed my interest in programming.

Then came along counter-strike and and things pretty much went downhill from there. It ruined my academic career playing it so much. I found out that the guy who created counter strike also graduated from the university I would attend some years after.

It wasn't until I saw my high school friend (nerdy guy who I used to tease in high school but was secretly jealous of his programming knowledge) in University that he inspired me to do what I thought was unthinkable, learn how to code again. "You just stick with it" is what he told me when I asked how he did it. He would show me the windows apps he made and I would be amazed how one could create something from nothing. Even now, that is the magic that drives me. Something out of nothing, and I stuck with it.

sown2• 13 years ago

I identify with the sentiment this person wrote about. My first language was GW basic/logo at around that age, learned some pascal/C around high school, and just tried to learn more.

I miss those days, being a youngster and programming: doing without totally understanding but still learning. I still do stuff on my own, though, but no one will look at it or care.

But now all I do is fix bugs. I got one job after school, where I created something new. Looking back on it now, it was garbage but it was my garbage. That was the last time, though. Now I do 'sustaining' work. I don't mind but it feels like the industry as a whole has turned their back on me. I'm considering doing a startup sooner or later.

GuiA• 13 years ago

Do side projects. A small web game, iPhone app, terminal utility... it doesn't matter what it is, what matters is getting back to that state where you're proud of "your garbage " :)

Spending a few hours over the evenings and weekends is totally doable, and within a few weeks you'll have gotten further than you may think!

sown2• 13 years ago

Spending a few hours over the evenings and weekends is totally doable, and within a few weeks you'll have gotten further than you may think!

That's true. I do try to do stuff like this bug it's hard to find meaning, though.

ps4fanboy11• 13 years ago

I don't fit the stereotype and am okay with that: I wear dresses and heels instead of hoodies and sneakers, I keep a regular sleep schedule

I dont remember that being the stereotype for hackers. I would be interested to hear from other people about what they think? But to me it has been someone who is intensely interested in computers and is very good at it. What they wear (wow really shallow much) hasnt really ever factored into it.

jacalata• 13 years ago

What they wear is (and has always been) a huge part of it. Here's a bunch of comments from years ago about suits at interviews, for a specific example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1639740

6d0debc071• 13 years ago

Clothes aren't shallow, how you dress reflects how much you care about presenting yourself to the world; whether you care at all. Someone who doesn't wash or shave is the obvious example of someone who's just 'zero fucks given' in that regard, but that's an extreme. Clothing is just a more subtle form of it.

Growing up my stereotype of 'hackers' was of unfit boys with an almost monk-like isolation and dedication to their projects surrounded by fizzy drinks. ... Which, for all that I liked programming, wasn't something that made me identify with that role.

Perhaps an unfair characterisation. If you want to be among the best at anything it's going to demand a massive amount of your time, which necessarily has to be drawn from time making friends outside of that area and engaging in other more widely pro-social activities. And things always appear more extreme from the outside than they actually are. I don't know. I just know that, looking back, I can't think of anyone who identified themselves as a hacker who had any friends that any of us knew about.

geofft• 13 years ago

I think it's pretty common. As concrete sources, Eric Raymond's edition of the jargon file not only bothers to cover dress in quite some detail, but is pretty insistent what it includes as well as excludes:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/dress.html

Certainly for me, that entire section of his website (and also his hacker-howto.html) was something that I took seriously when I was in grade school and first learning about hacker culture. Even today I doubt there are things on the web with better claims to defining and documenting the hacker stereotype as Eric Raymond's writings.

vezzy-fnord• 13 years ago

I'm not really aware of any "hacker" stereotype?

I think the issue is that the word hacker has too many meanings, and some of them contradictory. A hacker can be a prankster, a skilled programmer, a creative programmer, a skilled/creative programmer with some vague ideology that supports freedom of information, a computer security breacher, a person who tinkers with electronics, a person who subverts any type of system or authority (reality hacker/culture jammer), any sort of whimsical and creative fellow who applies unorthodox solutions to his everyday life, etc.

In addition, a hack can mean: an unskilled or untalented person, a charlatan, an inelegant but efficient solution to a problem (a kludge), an inelegant and inefficient solution to a problem (cruft), an elegant but unconventional solution to a problem, a skilled application of marketing (growth hack), a culture jam (reality hack), hacking off a limb, a prank, a computer security exploit or breach, a program to cheat at video games and so forth.

As far as I know, the "hacker" stereotype is that of the skilled but evil and socially isolated computer criminal.

robomartin2• 13 years ago

Well, in my opinion the view a young person can develop by reading a site like Hacker News is a skewed reality of what it is to be a software engineer, a hacker.

One example of this is what I will generically call the "Google Interview". I know brilliant engineers how have done massive non-trivial projects that have generated millions of dollars in revenue who could not pass such an interview.

The other aspect is the constant exposure to the language-of-the-day and framework-of-the-day club. I can see a young aspiring developer becoming utterly disappointed when realizing it is nearly impossible to keep up with it all. Where do you start? How do you learn this stuff? Someone could very easily think they are not up to par if they can't walk in these mythical shoes.

The truth is very different from that. There's a huge world out there for software engineers. There are real problems to be solved. And, no, not everything in software engineering lives and dies on a web browser or a smart phone.

Is the OP saying that she needed to feel like a hacker to feel legitimate? That would be sad.

What the hell is a hacker anyway? Definitions abound. In many ways it is more about how someone might approach hardware and software problems than anything else. You don't have to be YC material to be a legitimate software engineer. One could very easily argue there are tons of software engineers out there doing far more important work than almost any YC developer has done to date. Most of them are invisible. Think about the people writing code for MRI machines, aircraft avionics or even your car's ABS system.

If you are young and love software engineering please don't think that building websites is the only way you are going to become somebody in this business. Explore what's out there and dare to learn about other interesting problems you might be able to solve.

lizdenys2• 13 years ago

Is the OP saying that she needed to feel like a hacker to feel legitimate? That would be sad.

Hi! I am not, and I agree that it would be sad. I am happy to be satisfied with who I am, what I do, and where I'm going. I may not identify with the term "hacker" due to some of its connotations, but I do feel like I get to playfully work on difficult things--one of the few definitions of a hacker I relate to and fortunately the one that I think best embodies its true spirit.

Unfortunately, many people I know who have yet to feel established in the field do feel at least a small need to relate to the "hacker" to feel like a software engineer. As there are parts of this I could relate to (even if they are not bringing me down right now), I thought I'd share my experiences.

robomartin2• 13 years ago

You've accomplishe a lot. Realize you will never know everything there is to know in CS. How you approach what you don't know is what makes a difference.

There's a lot of folklore going around in places like HN. Very soon kids are going to think that if they don't use vim, reject the mouse and do away with Windows they will never be real software developers. It's a bunch of macho nonsense.

eli_gottlieb2• 13 years ago

To use the old lingo, "Mod parent up!"

I started programming sprite and 3D demos in DirectDraw/Direct3D at age 11. I wrote a microkernel for a hobby in high school.

I'm in grad-school now, and I still don't feel like a "hacker" or a "real computer scientist", because I don't eat and drink RFCs, crypto specs, deep-learning algorithms, and every web technology under the sun. And because I'd much rather spend my time at an anime convention than A/B testing a new website feature or cross-validating a recommendation algorithm.

Plenty of very competent professionals are merely very good at what we do and not actually married to the job.

BlakePetersen2• 13 years ago

For the true hacker experience, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOHell

ps4fanboy11• 13 years ago

Hacker in this context doesnt mean breaking into software and stealing stuff.

BlakePetersen2• 13 years ago

Didn't think it was necessary... but... /S

Udo4• 13 years ago

From personal experience, this resonated with me, complete from the rocky start with high school CS in Logo onward.

I know the feeling, and (though I'm male) I recognize many of the waypoints described. And I, too, don't feel like a real hacker. But of course, the word means wildly different things to different people. Even though I love programming very much and I'm doing it all the time, and especially doing it for fun, it was only after joining HN that it dawned on me I could be considered a hacker in some circles.

Still, my primary definition of being a hacker is someone who is insanely active in hacker and cracker culture, someone very interested in systems security, someone who knows to debug a defunct DSL modem given only an oscilloscope and a bit of tinfoil. That's not me.

If I were to apply for a VC program that looks for hackers, I'd probably feel like a bad fit or a complete fraud. Nevertheless, I probably am a hacker. Labels are always an imperfect solution.

One other thing about getting people to program: Male or female, I wouldn't know where to start either. In school I was literally the only kid into actual programming, out of about 500 students. It was only much later in life that I made my first actual programmer friend, and I also recruited an unhappy English major into programming, but most people just aren't interested. And of those who can, and by necessity must, program most would never do it in their spare time for fun.

jeswin• 13 years ago

catb has the best definition of hacker I have seen:

- http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html

- http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

- The guys at hack-a-day or nyc resistor are hackers.

- Fabrice Bellard is a hacker, for reasons you can see at http://bellard.org/

- People who are _really good_ at *nixen are hackers, because of the nature of the beast. Unix isn't about learning everything from a book, instead you could hack it with what you know.

- PG is a hacker for using LISP to build Viaweb (and ARC etc), but not for "hacking" the startup ecosystem (that's just overuse of the term).

- DHH is a hacker, for the creative ways in which he pushed Ruby

The key thing is "hack value". Hack value is about your technical expertise and your creativity, and both of these things have to be present.

Udo4• 13 years ago

Okay, thanks for the correction. You confirmed my suspicions, I'm not really a hacker. And neither are most people on HN I wager. That's yet another club where a geek can fail to get into. Maybe we shouldn't be here, but I can honestly say it's the most interesting community out there that matches my favorite subjects.

I'm definitely neither Bellard, nor a LISP millionaire, nor remotely DHH, and I already talked about the hack-a-day guys in my oscilloscope comment. The verdict is in: I can't call myself a hacker. So what's the message here for people like me? I guess the conclusion is for starters that I really am an impostor in a lot of ways, including participating on this site.

dysoco• 13 years ago

I remember when I got introduced to programming.

I was about 9/10, not sure exactly, I came across some article that taught you how to create a virus using the windows notepad (lame, I know), turns out the "virus" was just a fork bomb written in ms-batch.

I quickly got into the hacker culture, I went into some underground forum where there was a big "ms-batch scene", I have no idea why, but this guys were implementing games in ascii, trojans, interpreters... all in Batch.

And so I started learning, Batch is a horrible language, yet pretty simple to learn, in the meantime I heard about this mythical developers who wrote code in C or Python, languages I thought inaccessible and extremely complex.

I remember my first "big" project, I wrote some kind of graphical adventure where you were a "hacker" trying to "hack" into someone's PC by using commands such as "ping" and "telnet" (I had no idea about system administration or pentesting at the time).

Thinking about that horrid code, take in mind this was Batch, so no private variables, no functions, no structs... just an endless pile of GOTOs.

This is even more funny considering that this was 5 or 6 years ago, in a time where Python, Ruby and Javascript were a thing, I could have gone the easy way, but I took the side-path... and I'm glad.

I am now 16, I still have a lot to learn yet I've also learnt a lot. I do consider myself a hacker, just because I write code for fun and like reinventing the wheel when possible. But the definition of "hacker" is very wide, for me, a "hacker" is everyone who enjoys writing code, maybe they work 8-17 writing Java in the Enterprise, but, if you enjoy what you do, if you come back home and keep writing code, if you want to improve: then you are a hacker.

jeremyjh• 13 years ago

I can relate to a lot of this though I'm not female I had some of the same early experiences. I did some BASIC on a VIC-20, some Logo on the school's Apples. Some programming in a specialized adventure game development tool on a Mac. I got lots of ad-hoc "systems" experience because I wanted to know how things worked behind the scenes. I never really considered doing "programming" as a career because it was "too much like math" or something. I didn't find out about Linux till I was 20 (this was in 1996, but still...not much cred!). I never would have had this career except for a lucky first job where I had so much time on my hands I learned how to program and automate all my tedious help-desk work. So they gave me more. Later took some comp-sci classes though never did finish a degree in it - its too hard to schedule 300+ level classes at night at a real university. I remember reading the description for the first batch of YCombinator and thinking "thats not me...". Now - I feel more like a hacker at 37 then ever before.

Anyway, Paul was really talking about the fact that he can't make someone into a hacker in three months. Never did he say that people can't become a hacker at the advanced age of 22.

qubyte3• 13 years ago

I want the education sector to start treating the ability to programme as they do literacy and numeracy. Everyone should know how to write a letter and read, but not necessarily write a novel. Everyone should know how to count, but not need to win the Fields Medal. I believe that everyone should be comfortable with looking at a script and tweak it to their needs, but not necessarily have to create a AAA game from scratch.

I was vaguely aware of programming as a child, but had no education (unless you count mailmerge and a broken floor-turtle) and certainly no encouragement at school (in the UK if my spelling hasn't given it away). I basically forgot all about it until the middle of my degree (physics) when C was mandatory. It took until two years after a PhD to work out that a career in programming was what I really wanted.

Do I regret the way I got here? Nope. I learnt a lot of cool stuff along the way. But had it not been for that C course I may never have worked out what I wanted. I got lucky, and luck should not be a factor.

NAFV_P3• 13 years ago

I was vaguely aware of programming as a child, but had no education (unless you count mailmerge and a broken floor-turtle) and certainly no encouragement at school (in the UK if my spelling hasn't given it away).

I too was very vaguely aware, but in the mid nineties all I ever came across was Windows. Hell, I didn't start programming until I was 31, everyone else on this thread makes me feel like a real late starter.

I basically forgot all about it until the middle of my degree (physics) when C was mandatory.

I thought FORTRAN would have been a good candidate for a mandatory language in a physics degree.

qubyte3• 13 years ago

It was an option the year before, but not enough people wanted to take it and the class was cancelled. I'm glad to have learnt C, because it came with an introduction to bash and ssh. Whilst the terminals we used were windows, we were logging into a linux box via putty. This way I got to learn the UNIX way of writing tiny, single purpose programs that operate on STDIN and STDOUT for piping together. I guess the philosophical education was at least as important as the code itself.

jlees• 13 years ago

To me, a hacker is someone who thinks creatively about problems, and who views technology as a set of tools to solve them. The YC question about "the time you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage" is, to me, most resonant of the 'hacker' ethos. Although many answers I've seen to this question involve using a computer system to solve a non-computer problem, the sheer variety of non-tech "hacks" out there speaks volumes about what a 'hacker' is and does.

To me, the label 'hacker' isn't claimed, it's earned. I call myself a hacker, though I didn't until someone else did. I've never broken into secure systems armed only with a 28.8 bps modem and active matrix screen, though -- I use it entirely in the 'problem-solver' sense of the word, and proudly.

Having programmed since childhood doesn't make me a hacker. I owe far more to years of Latin study, an unhealthy interest in logic problems and strategy games, and being trained via school that there is always a solution to every problem if you apply yourself hard enough.

But on the other hand, if I were just learning to program now, how much of the 'hacker' mindset would come along with it? Very little, in and of itself; I tutor beginning students and I'm always trying to teach them how to solve problems and look for answers, how to be creative and elegant, and how to reuse other people's work -- it wasn't until I started mentoring that I realised how little of this some people do naturally, and I still don't know the reasons why that is.

On a side note, and having just re-read Little Women, I have a thought about hacking and poverty. When you are poor, you have to be creative. How much of that mindset overlaps with what makes a good hacker? How many hackers grew up in disadvantaged circumstances and learned to make the most of the resources they had? How many hackers hung out in libraries, absorbing information like sponges, because it was free and warm and both their parents were at work?

teddyh• 13 years ago

In humans, differences in physical and behavioral traits tend to lead to isolation, which leads to cultural differences¹. That’s why the general trait of being very curious, experimental and focused on technology and problem-solving has given rise to (among others) the hacker culture and its associated persona. But, one need not consider oneself a part of the hacker culture if one does not want to. Indeed, one can be a programmer without having any of the above traits and/or consider oneself part of the hacker culture.

1) Regarding physical traits leading to culture, the same development can be seen to have given rise to Deaf culture, and also in the very concepts of “men” and “women”, which are more cultural in nature than most people think.

michaelochurch• 13 years ago

"Hacker" is more about confidence, it seems, and cowboy coding isn't really a good thing in most cases. Don't get me wrong: there are a lot of good things about hacker culture's emphasis on flowful programming, fast iteration, and frequent engagement (demo early and often). Those are all good things, but I feel like (especially thanks to the VC chickenhawking) there is now more of an emphasis on the superficial-- the overblown confidence that is usually just massive ego and upper-middle- to upper-class entitlement-- that if you don't have that arrogant air, you're not seen as a real hacker. This is sad, because we need technologists more than ever to attack the truly hard problems (cancer, oil scarcity, global warming, economic inequality) and instead, the VC's have created this Disneyfied technology economy that is 99% hot air. It wouldn't be a problem if that nonsense were self-limiting, but it's now transferred so much wealth to undeserving people as to have set off a terrible and probably permanent housing price problem in the Bay Area.

supersystem2• 13 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_narcissism#Character... ;)

alan_cx• 13 years ago

Being a programmer does not make you a hacker. In fact, being a brilliant programmer does not make your a hacker. I suppose its like being a driver does not make you a racing driver. Hacking existed long before computers and programming.

sirmarksalot2• 13 years ago

This resonated a lot with me as well -- elementary school computer science education in the '90s wasn't very developed. I went to a high school that had one of the better computer science programs for that level (in that it existed), but it still wasn't anything compared to the university level. The people who really learned the stuff were a self-motivated group who interacted outside of class as a club. These kinds of extracurricular studies were at best ignored by school faculty, and for students like myself, who was falling behind the curve in the school's demanding math/science/language program, were actively discouraged.

There's a crucial distinction between my experience and hers, though. I had the support of a core group of computer nerds, egging each other on and making simple games and the like. This group was almost entirely male, and were mostly interested in other stereotypical geeky hobbies like video games, anime, and tabletop role-playing games. We weren't consciously exclusionary, but anyone who didn't match the profile was probably going to feel very out of place.

I remember in my CS course, there were two girls in the class, and they were most definitely not part of the clique, even though they were brilliant by most objective definitions. One of them was definitely in the "gifted" category, and while the rest of the class was concerned with making video games, she was writing an equation plotter. We didn't talk to her all that much.

My point with all this rambling is that there's a lot of bundling of interests that goes on, all of them male-dominated, and if you aren't into those things, you don't get the same peer education as somebody who is. I think this explains a lot of the gender disparity we see in CS education today, and I don't know what to do about it. Education should not be tied to social cliques, but in reality, it often is.

needacig2• 13 years ago

You have explained perfectly what I also believe. My experience supports this. I wish I could upvote you more.

jere5• 13 years ago

My initial reaction was "that's not the definition of hacker" but when I tried to find a written definition that matched what was in my head, I kept running into the related stereotypes and connotations (e.g. being completely obsessed with computers, Richard Stallman talking about coding until 7 in the morning).

I then read this link given in the article and I think I understand better http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/geekmyth....

My takeaway is this: a lot of us feel impostor syndrome, feel that we'll never be a true hacker. The difference is it appears easier for men, for whatever reason, to ignore or move beyond those feelings. And you know maybe that's a problem we should take seriously.

Despite these feelings of difference, we find that male students report less distress, are less affected by the perceived difference between themselves and their peers, and leave the major in smaller proportion; and despite resistance to total absorption in computing, they do not feel like frauds. The 36% of male CS majors who say they feel different from their CS peers, regardless of experience level or obsession level, do not question their ability to become computer scientists if they choose to do so.

patejam• 13 years ago

I enjoy RMS's take on being a "hacker": http://www.stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html

Specifically, "Playfully doing something difficult, whether useful or not, that is hacking."

jere5• 13 years ago

That's basically what I had in mind, with liberal use of the word "clever" thrown in for good measure. A concrete example outside of tech: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6921316

My concern, however, is even if you can produce a benign definition the term still has additional baggage that may be harmful.

nkvl• 13 years ago

There's an argument to be made for the negative connotations contributing to the term's longevity and adoption. In an environment where the myth of the genius is alive and kicking, taboos need to be broken to qualify for the label, though it's not always important what those taboos (social or otherwise) are as long as you have some worthy advocates. A lot of this labeling is done in hindsight, unsurprisingly, and it's going to become more tame as the definition gets generalized and romanticized. Even the coding part is slowly becoming less important, as shown in some of the posts and links here. Eventually there will be some other club to place the exceptional in. We can pretend there's no value judgement in calling someone a "hacker" all we want, but that doesn't ring true. FWIW, my favorite hacker: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netochka_Nezvanova_(author)

analog312• 13 years ago

That article could have been written about music and musicians. I'm a working jazz musician, and the number of women who I encounter on the bandstand is depressingly small.

jere5• 13 years ago

Maybe this is not relevant, but did you ever read Blink? Your comment reminds me of the part in that book about auditions and gender bias: http://books.google.com/books?id=VKGbb1hg8JAC&lpg=PT142&ots=...

wyager• 13 years ago

And you know maybe that's a problem we should take seriously.

Why? I'm not trying to be snarky; I just don't see how this is a big deal at all, or why it's worth trying to "fix" it (if you believe that anything is "broken").

jere5• 13 years ago

If that is one of the barriers that leads to fewer women studying CS, going into tech, yea, I think that's a pretty big problem.

jon_black• 13 years ago

That was my initial reaction also. I think our minds are old. I recently wrote a post (http://jonblack.org/2014/01/01/everyones-hacker/) about how the definition of "hacker" seems to be far broader than it used to be.

supersystem2• 13 years ago

Don't let anyone else tell you what is valuable in computing.

midas007• 13 years ago

Anyone that calls themselves (hacker|cool|awesome) is just a poser, by definition.

puppetmaster3• 13 years ago

I consider myself a professional, and not a hacker or a hack. It is a somewhat derogatory, and as a programmer I can tell you don't have to accept it. Just correct them if someone call you. There is an application for a incubator, they asked if there are any hackers on the team. We 3 programmers looked at each other and filled out: no, no hackers in our company.

aaronem• 13 years ago

You're a hacker when a hacker calls you a hacker.

argumentum3• 13 years ago

It seems this discussion is going all the way back to high school and childhood. In that case, let's keep in mind that many (most?) of the kids who spent all their time "hacking" did so because they were often excluded from more social activities. Remember, there was essentially no social reward for "hacking" (unlike getting good grades, being a great athlete, able to tell jokes, speak in public, dance, sing, play an instrument and most other skills kids might develop).

Sure, today hacking is "cool" .. because money, fame and power are cool and many hackers have achieved that. But until very very recently (last couple years), the only reasons a kid would start hacking were curiosity and having little else to do because they couldn't (or didn't want to) fit in.

With that in mind, this article disturbs me in a way I can't easily explain. Particularly when she describes feeling like an imposter "in the face of the desirable hacker stereotype" and even claims the nerdy clothes that hackers wear are in and of themselves exclusionary simply because one might choose to be more fashionable.

This is no different from her stereotypical "hacker" complaining about having to wear different attire to fit in at a school dance (or should he/she later choose to go into banking, law or any profession other than programming at a startup).

I went to a top high school, where academic excellence (grades, SATs, AP tests, what college you got into, etc) was definitely cool and admired. Even then, if you saw a kid hacking in the hallway (or painting or otherwise working on things completely of their own choosing) you knew that he/she was likely at the bottom of the social totem pole.

These very people are who pg was speaking to in many of his early essays like http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html

The fact of the matter is that a disproportionate number of the best hackers come from that population. Those who were the "cool kids" in high school may want in now, but they'll have to earn their place at the table. If that means working ungodly hours, having to change the way they speak or dress to "fit in" .. when in Rome ..

(please do not misinterpret anything I wrote as condoning sexism, which is despicable in any setting)

StavrosK• 13 years ago

This isn't very related to your comment, but, to me, "hacker" is synonymous to "maker". I'd call someone who builds a weird Rube Goldberg machine out of wood or a complicated metal gear system a hacker.

contrast• 13 years ago

If her point is no different to complaining about fitting in at a school dance, which I think is true, then surely the better response here is to recognise the pattern - it's bad when people feel they cannot belong in an environment that should be welcoming.

The discussions should be "bad things are bad, let's make things better".

I'd summarise your comment as very different: "That bad thing that you didn't like? It reminds me of a bad thing I didn't like. But I'm doing OK now, so I find it disturbing that you even mention your bad thing. Why should I want to help stop it, just because it's bad? Why would I want to get rid of the irrational, selfish barriers that protect my position?"

wcummings• 13 years ago

I think he makes an interesting point, though: hacker culture is to a large degree the culture of modern social exclusion. There is a sort of horrible irony to more well-adjusted people feeling excluded from it.

I know personally, when I was a teenager, "hacking" was definitely an escape, not so much from social isolation, but definitely from Problems You Don't Want. I can understand why people might be offended by the authors stance.

argumentum3• 13 years ago

Though I agree with your sentiment, I would point out as a side note that a rational "selfish" person would certainly not want to get rid of barriers that protect their position :)

I do think the point I was trying to make needs making .. there are a lot of smart kids currently trapped in bad high school situations. Their plight deserves attention as well. Actually, I think these problems are far more related than it may seem at first glance. The correct answer to pg's question "how to get 13 year old girls interested in hacking" likely kills two birds with one stone.

lizdenys2• 13 years ago

My point about acceptance isn't about social acceptance, but acceptance based on merit and potential. When I was a young woman, I was discouraged not because hacking felt socially alienating, but because authority figures went out of their way to discourage me, despite my enthusiasm, aptitude, and desire for more.

I don't care that I don't dress like the "hacker" stereotype--if I really did, I'd have stopped wearing dresses already. What I find frustrating there is that other people judge "hacker" merit upon the stereotype, such as in http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/dress.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1639740. In my life, this clothing stereotype has caused a bit of confusion: while not everyone is surprised a girl in heels can speak with technical merit, many have been. The clothing issue is hardly the end all and be all of the "hacker" stereotype--a stereotype which, like many other stereotypes, has some basis in reality but doesn't paint the full picture of the people who play around with difficult problems in clever ways.

argumentum3• 13 years ago

I can't speak to your personal experiences, but clearly you didn't really struggle to gain acceptance on merit, despite the discouragement you encountered .. your enthusiasm and ability overcame that.

From what I understand, once these people heard you speak or worked with you, they treated you basically as one of them. That some were initially "surprised" with a female hacker wearing heels likely has less to do with stereotyping than sheer probability.

But what you seem to be asking is that they change their identity so that "outsiders" would feel more comfortable. That seems like a lot to ask, of anyone, for any reason.

I'm totally ok with this point of view when it comes to large tech companies. As a company like Facebook grows, it has to mature and accommodate a more diverse workforce, the majority of which would not self-identify as "hackers".

Startups, and the recent hullaballoo over pg's interview, are a slightly different beast. Founding a startup is somewhere in between a marriage and a business partnership. You can't tell someone who to marry or who to be friends with .. and consequently what to look for in a co-founder. You also can't force users to like products or services they simply don't want.

And when it comes to high school, there are a (lot)^2 worse problems than fashionable girls temporarily feeling slightly unwelcome at the computer club. Such as, for example, the psychopathic bullying that is part and parcel of high school life and that many "stereotypical hackers" had to endure.

clubhi• 13 years ago

I had a huge interest in game programming as a child. My older brothers and their friends were making text based RPGS. I however was a pretty good athlete and didn't have a hard time making friends like they did. I went from being a star junior high athlete to convincing my parents I wanted to be homeschooled so I could play on my computer all day.

I had a natural advantage in athletics so that some of my peers could not compete not matter how hard they tried. I think this is what helps me accept that there are hackers out there that will blow me away no matter how much of an effort I put into this.

spindritf• 13 years ago

You're a hacker when a hacker calls you a hacker. All that "being able to self-identify" is narcissism.

atmosx• 13 years ago

I was about to write 3 paragraphs, but you summed up my thoughts in a concise way :-)

I would say that when the community calls you a hacker, then you are hacker. It's a title that others would want to give you and doesn't really mean anything other than the fact that you're generally good with computers.

Persuading this or any other title, although we do it all the time, it's stupid.

ps. The first guy that comes to mind, when I hear the word, is Linus Torvalds.

velis_vel• 13 years ago

You're a hacker when a hacker calls you a hacker. All that "being able to self-identify" is narcissism.

Hackers have called me a hacker, therefore I'm a hacker. I now declare that every human being is a hacker if they self-identify as one.

achernya• 13 years ago

This has the problem of "where does the first hacker come from?" Then I realized the first hacker is almost certainly Ada Lovelace, who wrote the first computer program for Babbage's Analytical Engine.

fxtentacle• 13 years ago

I absolutely agree that the "hacker" label is stupid.

I've been writing software since I am seven years old. When I was younger, I actually did hack into my schools security system. Still, I cannot identify with the term "hacker". I'd say "builder" is a more apt description of what I do in my life.

lmm• 13 years ago

All labels and stereotypes are stupid and exclusionary. But what's the alternative? When you're hiring and don't have time to interview everyone, any easy filter that's even slightly correlated with technical ability is a valuable one; if, say, "watches star trek" is such a factor then an interviewer would be stupid to ignore it.

codeoclock• 13 years ago

I've also been programming since I was about 10. I remember doing some Logo stuff, I recently just found a zip drive with my first program - Tic Tac Toe in logo. I certainly don't remember being encouraged to program until I was at the very least 17 when I was in high school being taught some bullshit 'computer ethics' course by a man with a PhD in Computer Science who just wanted to show people how to code. I guess I'm saying, the encouragement factor for any young programmer is very low, and should be much better. It sounds to me from reading this blog post that it was harder for you, possibly (probably?) because you're a woman. That really sucks, it shouldn't be harder, it should be equally hard for women and men, and it should be getting easier for both all the time. That's why things like Code Club and various online ways of learning programming are so important in my opinion. When programming is put on the curriculum at school, parents are more likely to take it seriously rather than act like my parents who tried to stop me using the computer. I really admire the work of people like @BenNunney who through stuff like Rewired State makes hacking more accessible to young, talented people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4CC45E6TAY

Just my two cents.

GarvielLoken3• 13 years ago

This article strikes me to centrer around concepts such as "impressionable", "self identify" or "feel like a hacker".

1. The author tries to blame society ( everybody except herself ) for not noticing the field of computer science. This is a very strange statement. Anyone using a computer must realise it didn't appear on the earth from god almighty him self. "stumbled upon opportunities early on" here again the author is trying to blame the society for the personal problem of a lack of willpower and curiosity for finding out how computers works, instead she comfortably chooses to say that the society did not do its part.

2. "Still, I imagine that this is unfortunately more common among women due to the ongoing sexism surrounding the field and the effects that this has on young, impressionable women.". Again with the personal lack of willpower. Being impressionable is a personal problem and the solution is not stopping to peruse an interest. Frankly I don't have any sympathy for anyone who refuses to do their own analysis of a subject and instead trust and conforms to other peoples view on the matter, which is what being "impressionable" is.

3. " In addition to being unable to self-identify with the "hacker" stereotype,". This is at the heart of the authors argument, "unable to self-identify". How on earth can this ever be a problem? What does it even mean? She wants to erase her personality and become a profession completely? If you like something I assume you are interested in the technique, art or science of the sport or hobby. Not because you want to "feel" like a practitioner of that sport/hobby? I really can't understand an argument that is based on how much you feel like a practitioner. If you are doing something you are doing it because you enjoy it or find it fascinating.

Every child will during upbringing become exposed to computers and if they are interested they will ask as how they work or how the programs are made. Anything after that is a pure personal problem, a willpower issue. Blaming others for ones own failings is not a valid argument and I wont respect it.

dcalacci• 13 years ago

I get furious at the types of comments that plague these submissions to hacker news. usually it starts when someone submits an article that in some way holds society at large accountable for things like the lack of women in STEM, or someone’s difficulty in entering the “hacker” or “maker” culture.

this article hits both targets really well. and, like clockwork, the top comment does the following:

1. immediately suggests that it’s absurd that the author could blame society in any way for her difficulty/inability to enter the field of computer science.

2. uses his now-accepted theory that it is always, unfailingly, willpower (and only willpower) that prevents one from doing anything to basically posit that sexism doesn't exist (because it's all willpower). he implies that sexism in tech is a fault of a character flaw - impressionability

3. completely invalidates the concept and social power of identifying as part of a larger group. this guy is so privileged and used to identifying as a “hacker” that he can’t even comprehend the concept that someone might want to identify as a hacker (but have trouble doing so, say, because of comments like this)

if it’s not something like the above, it’s a comment that completely ignores the content of the article, and nit-picks about something like what the author _actually_ meant by the term “hacker” (which, if it was spoken by a man, would most likely not raise such questions)

I know I'm spitting venom, but I see this stuff so often and say nothing...I felt like it was necessary here.

GarvielLoken3• 13 years ago

I really don't see how you are countering or disproving anything I said, you aren't bringing forth any own arguments for a meaningful discussion, which you yourself admit.

2. If you would supply an argument or article or lines of reasoning to what exactly "sexism" is in the tech field and how this hampers the individual in pursuing ones interested I would be thankful. In my view only the law dictates what you can and can't do, anything else is choice.

3a. I recognize that people want to belong to a group, but I personally find it weak and ultimate foolish to let ones life be dictated by groups. I guess it is more important in the US were you have hundreds of school student groups for every interest available. I find the word "hacker" to be a childish Anglo-Saxon world word used for group identifying and I would never call myself a hacker, I am nordic country based.

3b. Well if you would consider someone who grew up out of the city with one parent working at factories as privileged I let you stand for that definition.

needacig2• 13 years ago

Thank you for saying something this time. I agree this "impressionability is a character flaw" business is bull. As if reacting badly to other people behaving negatively toward you and excluding you is something only worthless people do. As if humans don't have profound effects on other humans through their words and actions. As if the author is somehow above being in anyway influenced by other humans. I'm sure he's not, but he wants you to think so.

upofadown• 13 years ago

Traditionally a "hacker" was someone who was obsessed with mastering computers to the extent that it was the most important thing in their life. I once had a friend complain about the time wasted in eating, sleeping and having sex, time that could be better spent in recreational programming. I once had an instructor that partially solved that problem by subsisting entirely on 7-Up (a type of soft drink). He almost died as a result.

So using that definition, being a hacker is a type of seriously negative affliction. No one chooses the hacker lifestyle. The only good aspect occurs if you "recover" and find you can make a living programming for others. Pre-recovery, hackers often deliberately work in low level non-technical professions.

There is a sort of low level legend that straight women are immune to this sort of condition. Interesting if true. Such a revelation could result in some much needed reverse discrimination. There is nothing worse than accidentally hiring someone with a hidden overriding agenda for a programming position.

UUMMUU• 13 years ago

I feel like "hacker" is the same as throwing around "hero" you cannot bestow it upon yourself and when someone calls you it, you pretty much are required to say "I'm not but so-and-so is the real h(ero|acker)". I have a friend who likes to say "I want to go down to the XYZ meetup and meet other hackers" and it starts to just sound somewhat pathetic.

BigBalli• 13 years ago

…you know how to write code. Why should it imply you're a hacker?

erikpukinskis• 13 years ago

There's this funny little problem.

There's a substantial slice of "hackers" who really enjoy saying Crazy Shit But No Wait It's Totally True And Makes Sense If You're Smart Enough To Process This Obscure Worldview That Makes It Make Sense. I know, I am one of those people.

Woz gleefully paying for things with sheets of $2 bills is a perfect example: http://hackaday.com/2012/08/03/woz-prints-and-spend-his-own-...

And really, it can be super fun! Most of us get a little rush from seeing something new in the world, and it can be a fun way to give people that rush.

It also really pisses some people off, and it can be really counterproductive. The trouble is that these hackers live in a world where there's never a bad time for a fun intellectual diversion. Fun intellectual diversions are the reason for being alive, of COURSE it's a good time. But other people live in other worlds, where getting to the school by 4:30 to pick up their child is actually higher on the priority list.

And so, to the word "Hacker".

I suspect there are a handful of people here who were hackers before the word "hacker" came to mean "cracker". But I suspect for most of us, myself included, "hacker" meant Kevin Mitnick first. Only later, when reading Steven Levy's "Hackers" did I learn about the MIT model railroad club, the "true" purpose of phone phreaking (it's fun, not profit!) did I start to understand the definition of "hacker" that Paul Graham espouses today.

The thing is, Steven Levy explained that everyone thinks hackers are undersexed males who break into computers, and we still adopted this label for ourselves. For the lulz. Because we get off on that moment of misunderstanding followed by the superiority of knowing that we have a different definition for the word than everyone else.

And if I'm being honest, this happened on purpose. We wanted it to be a somewhat exclusive clubhouse where you have to know the secret definition of "hacker" and it helps to know what a y combinator is. We wanted to keep out all the MBA riff-raff, remember?

I'm not saying it's wrong, or a bad strategy. But this is the chickens coming home to roost. When you make a secret handshake, you're going to alienate Susie Derkins.

sirmarksalot2• 13 years ago

I think you can usually infer from context what a person means when they say "hacker," and while people over the age of 60 may have difficulty with it, most people in their 40s and younger have been exposed to the concept through sites like "life hacker." It would be insulting to suggest that the author does not know the difference between Steve Wozniak and Kevin Mitnick.

Even with that distinction, there's a distinction in my mind, and probably many others', between a programmer and a hacker. I consider myself a fairly skilled programmer, but not a hacker. Maybe I was back in high school, but not anymore. I like programming, and I like learning new things about CS theory, but I think "hacker" conveys something more than that. A hacker values speed over correctness, figures out ways to put their programming knowledge to use in their day-to-day life. A hacker believes that a few lines of Perl will save the world.

I, on the other hand, like building systems that work, and the intellectual satisfaction that comes from solving a data modeling problem. Real hackers are obsessed with the potential of 3D printing, the nifty gadgets you can make with an Arduino board, or a Raspberry Pi device. It's all about pushing the envelope. I don't push envelopes. I like to identify a problem, solve it once, and apply that solution wherever it fits. I can see how people might find that a bit dry, but I personally find it satisfying.

They're different value sets, and different skill sets, and I think both are necessary.

I've been programming since I was 10, but I don't feel like a "hacker"

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