OpenBSD Journal

Hackers and Painters

Contributed by Dengue on from the art dept.

I caught this on slashdot earlier today, and since I am actually an art school dropout, was intrigued. Paul Graham has an essay available online titled: Hackers and Painters , comparing the creative process of ehem, hackers and painters. It's an insightful essay into the creative process.

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Comments
  1. By Anonymous Coward () on

    OpenBSD users consider the definition of hacker to be?

    Comments
    1. By garbonzo () on

      Who the hell cares what this particullar author defiens hacker to be... Try to figure it out from the context of the article and then just read it with that interpretation in mind. There is no need to adhere to some dogmatic definition and black list authors who don't share it.

      Comments
      1. By yep () on

        not only that, but .... like there's an "openbsd users" opinion anyway.

        we all *gasp* think for ourselves. the original poster should do the same and decide for him/herself

  2. By Jonatan Wallmander () jonatan@vovoid.com on http://vovoid.com

    IMO anything that involves a multidimensional creative process can be considered art.
    hacking as such is defenitly compatible with art.
    the same thing can be said backwards -
    art is a kind of hacking.

    the way you build a program is just like you paint on a canvas.. you shape something working on different parts all the time making it better etc etc.

    i can only relate to what i strive to do (and my co-workers) which is to combine aesthetics and programming..
    it's a lot of fun.. it's what the demo scene
    people have been doing all along. not that
    we were ever sceners, we are too unskilled for
    that, but the spirit is the same i think.

    like "hey, we have this, what can we do with it?"
    instead of what most corporations say:
    "hey, we need to make this money to satisfy our owners who don't care what we do as long as we make money, how little time can we spend to make our lousy products better that we can we get away with it?"

  3. By Anonymous Coward () on

    My problem with Paul Graham's essays as they seem to boil down to:

    I'm just so darn smart, and I can't find anyone who will pay me to do whatever I find interesting ('tinker').

    Wow. Employers expect working products, and universities expect research, what insight.

    Comments
    1. By Anonymous Coward () on

      The startup Paul Graham made in 1995 which was bought by Yahoo! in 1998 made him ~$50M richer. I'd say he doesn't need to find people to hire him and that he's not so dumb

  4. By Anonymous Coward () on

    Everyone here reads slashdot concurrently anyway, there's no real need to mirror their news bits, especially when they're not even Obsd related.

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