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In a post of "How To Become a Hacker" , the ideals and attitude
necessary to succeed seemed somewhat like that of the individual
trader.I posted this because I thought the list might appreciate this
point of view. The site can be found at
www.tuxedo.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html
A few choice excerpts are:
The Hacker Attitude
Hackers solve problems and build things, and they believe in freedom
and voluntary mutual help. To be accepted as a hacker, you have to
behave as though you have this kind of attitude yourself. And to
behave as though you have the attitude, you have to really believe
the attitude. But if you think of cultivating hacker attitudes as
just a way to gain acceptance in the culture, you'll miss the point.
Becoming the kind of person who believes these things is important
for you -- for helping you learn and keeping you motivated. As with
all creative arts, the most effective way to become a master is to
imitate the mind-set of masters -- not just intellectually but
emotionally as well.
So, if you want to be a hacker, repeat the following things until you
believe them:
1. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved.
Being a hacker is lots of fun, but it's a kind of fun that takes lots
of effort. The effort takes motivation. Successful athletes get their
motivation from a kind of physical delight in making their bodies
perform, in pushing themselves past their own physical limits.
Similarly, to be a hacker you have to get a basic thrill from solving
problems, sharpening your skills, and exercising your intelligence.
If you aren't the kind of person that feels this way naturally,
you'll need to become one in order to make it as a hacker. Otherwise
you'll find your hacking energy is sapped by distractions like sex,
money, and social approval.
(You also have to develop a kind of faith in your own learning
capacity -- a belief that even though you may not know all of what
you need to solve a problem, if you tackle just a piece of it and
learn from that, you'll learn enough to solve the next piece -- and
so on, until you're done.)
2. Nobody should ever have to solve a problem twice.
Creative brains are a valuable, limited resource. They shouldn't be
wasted on re-inventing the wheel when there are so many fascinating
new problems waiting out there.
To behave like a hacker, you have to believe that the thinking time
of other hackers is precious -- so much so that it's almost a moral
duty for you to share information, solve problems and then give the
solutions away just so other hackers can solve new problems instead
of having to perpetually re-address old ones.
(You don't have to believe that you're obligated to give all your
creative product away, though the hackers that do are the ones that
get most respect from other hackers. It's consistent with hacker
values to sell enough of it to keep you in food and rent and
computers. It's consistent to use your hacking skills to support a
family or even get rich, as long as you don't forget you're a hacker
while you're doing it.)
3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.
Hackers (and creative people in general) should never be bored or
have to drudge at stupid repetitive work, because when this happens
it means they aren't doing what only they can do -- solve new
problems. This wastefulness hurts everybody. Therefore boredom and
drudgery are not just unpleasant but actually evil.
To behave like a hacker, you have to believe this enough to want to
automate away the boring bits as much as possible, not just for
yourself but for everybody else (especially other hackers).
(There is one apparent exception to this. Hackers will sometimes do
things that may seem repetitive or boring to an observer as a
mind-clearing exercise, or in order to acquire a skill or have some
particular kind of experience you can't have otherwise. But this is
by choice -- nobody who can think should ever be forced into boredom.)
4. Freedom is good.
Hackers are naturally anti-authoritarian. Anyone who can give you
orders can stop you from solving whatever problem you're being
fascinated by -- and, given the way authoritarian minds work, will
generally find some appallingly stupid reason to do so. So the
authoritarian attitude has to be fought wherever you find it, lest it
smother you and other hackers.
(This isn't the same as fighting all authority. Children need to be
guided and criminals restrained. A hacker may agree to accept some
kinds of authority in order to get something he wants more than the
time he spends following orders. But that's a limited, conscious
bargain; the kind of personal surrender authoritarians want is not on
offer.)
Authoritarians thrive on censorship and secrecy. And they distrust
voluntary cooperation and information sharing -- they only like
`cooperation' that they control. So to behave like a hacker, you
have to develop an instinctive hostility to censorship, secrecy, and
the use of force or deception to compel responsible adults. And you
have to be willing to act on that belief.
5. Attitude is no substitute for competence.
To be a hacker, you have to develop some of these attitudes. But
copping an attitude alone won't make you a hacker, any more than it
will make you a champion athlete or a rock star. Becoming a hacker
will take intelligence, practice, dedication, and hard work.
Therefore, you have to learn to distrust attitude and respect
competence of every kind. Hackers won't let posers waste their time,
but they worship competence -- especially competence at hacking, but
competence at anything is good. Competence at demanding skills that
few can master is especially good, and competence at demanding skills
that involve mental acuteness, craft, and concentration is best.
If you revere competence, you'll enjoy developing it in yourself --
the hard work and dedication will become a kind of intense play
rather than drudgery. And that's vital to becoming a hacker.
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