We’ve all seen the cliché image of a hacker so prevalent in the non-technical community: some pale teenager with glasses bent over a computer screen in the dark. While this isn’t inaccurate in many cases, it is far from all-encompassing.
A hacker isn’t someone whose life is spent in deepest reaches of the internet at a computer; a hacker is someone who builds great things with a computer.
Before reading how the computer science community portrays the typical hacker, I was fairly confident that I would not identify very strongly with their portrayal. I was wrong. In fact, I identify strongly with this portrait of J. Random Hacker.
More specifically, hackers are makers. In his essay Hackers and Painters, Paul Graham writes that hackers and painters are more similar than you might think. At their core, the goal of both professionals is to make good things. This is related to the argument of whether computer science is mostly mathematics, engineering, science, or art. Graham pushes back against the idea of consolidating all of computer science into one field for this very reason: there are too many fields represented within computer science. For him, hackers would occupy the portion of computer science most similar to art, and a hacker is a maker more than anything else.
I like this perspective for characterizing a hacker because it is inclusive, instructive, and freeing. Focusing on building beautiful things frees a hacker from worrying about things unrelated to the quality of their product. Anyone can be a hacker; they just have to go out and build something they care about.
Others have written about how best to use this maker ability – implying that hackers have a moral imperative to use their talents. Sean Parker gives some tips for how to use hacking ability for philanthropic causes in his Philanthropy for Hackers. While one of his tips is to focus on ‘hackable’ problems (i.e. problems where developing software can genuinely resolve the issue), he seems very optimistic about the good that will result from hacker philanthropy, noting the fervor with which hackers are throwing themselves at tough and important problems. For me, this too is what it means to be a hacker: to make the world a better place by leveraging relevant skills. This is imperative for any profession, and I think that hackers should aspire to be professional, even if they will never dress themselves in ‘business professional’ attire.
Of course, there are hackers whose primary philanthropy is through the donation of wealth accumulated via successful technical ventures. Most notably, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have donated most of their wealth in one form or another. Michael Massing weighs the good and the bad of this form of philanthropy, but I ultimately support it. While throwing money at problems is not nearly as effective as attacking the problem head-on, donating to organizations attempting to solve problems that are not ‘hackable’ is the best way that these tech titans can address these problems. This does not make these individuals any less hackers. They built beautiful companies, and that turned out to be a great investment of their time and talents. Not every hacker has to build software that directly solves a philanthropic problem, but I think every hacker has to discern for themselves how best to employ their talents.
So what is a hacker? A hacker is someone who wants to change the world for the better, and is more than capable of doing it by building beautiful things.
Oh, and a computer should probably be involved.
zachimholte 