(2004-07-30) Graham Great Hackers

Paul Graham on Great Hacker-s. For example, if your company wants to write some software, it might seem a prudent choice to write it in Java. But when you choose a language, you're also choosing a community. The programmers you'll be able to hire to work on a Java project won't be as smart as the ones you could get to work on a project written in Python... But a programming language isn't just a format. A programming language is a Medium Of Expression. I've read that Java has just overtaken Cobol as the most popular language. As a standard, you couldn't wish for more. But as a medium of expression, you could do a lot better. Of all the great programmers I can think of, I know of only one who would voluntarily program in Java. And of all the great programmers I can think of who don't work for Sun, on Java, I know of zero... What we ought to look at, if we want to know what tools are best, is what hackers choose when they can choose freely - that is, in projects of their own. When you ask that question, you find that Open Source operating systems already have a dominant market share, and the number one language is probably Perl... Hackers like to work for people with high standards. But it's not enough just to be exacting. You have to insist on the right things. Which usually means that you have to be a hacker yourself. I've seen occasional articles about how to manage programmers. Really there should be two articles: one about what to do if you are yourself a programmer, and one about what to do if you're not. And the second could probably be condensed into two words: give up... The problem is, if you're not a hacker, you can't tell who the good hackers are... It seems like the only way to judge a hacker is to work with him on something. And this is the reason that high-tech areas only happen around universities (College Education). The active ingredient here is not so much the professors as the students. Start Up-s grow up around universities because universities bring together promising young people and make them work on the same projects. The smart ones learn who the other smart ones are, and together they cook up new projects of their own.

• he backpedals a bit on the Java-vs-Python bit.

Eric Sink doesn't want to hire any of these.

GregKnauss and others don't like the essay.