Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

This book has some essays not found on Paul Graham's website.If you're a fan of his writing then this is definitely worth picking up.It's always great to read about PG's thoughts surrounding start-ups and what he learned when he started Viaweb.

Paul Graham has a lot to say in this book, and he says it very clearly.When he confines himself to start-ups and programming he makes a lot of good points. He's undoubtedly an excellent programmer and his thoughts on start-ups and lisp (mainly) are interesting and backed up by experience. His essays on why nerds re unpopular is excellent.However on essays such as `How to make Wealth' and `Mind the Gap' he demonstrates the shallowness of his thinking. His politics are libertarian, and he repeatedly justifies the idea that inequality doesn't matter and that the rich earn their money. Both of these are debatable at best, and he makes various howlers - such as the amount of dollars the US government creates has a top limit, programmers tend to be libertarians (maybe in the US but I've ever met one in Britain) etc. He has a point when he says differences in productivity should give rise to differences in wealth but it's very hard to believe that's what's happening in the top 1% of income.So as long as you ignore this, it's an interesting read, note also that all of these essays are free on PG's website.

I absolutely loved reading this book. I didn't want it to end. The insights to many aspects of IT and life were very interesting to me. This is the kind of book you shouldn't read in bed because you'll never go to sleep! Anybody interested in IT and programming should read this book.

This is a classic for anybody from a creative background interested in startups or technology.

Well worth a read even after all these years especially when you think this was written pre-Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

The flow of the book and frank,likability of the author are encouraging .It is his tone which carries the content. The content itself is all it promises to be though I do wish there were more on painters.It seems to me all this chap need do is form a third major company to compete with Microsoft and apple. Clearly he likes a challenge and the world needs more competition to encourage innovation.

Paul Graham is clearly a man with opinions. This collection of essays ranges from the trials of being a nerdy teenager (absolutely brilliant) to neo-liberal politics (definitely not my thing) to how to fix spam (interesting) to the merits of various programming languages (in case you're wondering, Lisp is the greatest...)I'd recommend any programmer to read this book. He has a very different perspective to most modern writers and that's refreshing, though I don't always agree with his conclusions. He also writes very well and it's a good read.Unfortunately I would guess that large sections of it are off limits to non-programmers: it's hard to buy a book when you're not going to get half of it. Even the supposedly non-techie chapters tend to throw in comments about (for example) static typing here and there.Chapter 1 is a brilliantly insightful "nerd's eye" view into how secondary school culture works and everyone should read it (particularly anyone with an interest in teenage education).

An intelligent, clear, well-written book. I give it 5 stars. No question. Theres nothing boring or ivory tower about this book. I really wish more authors had his gift for clear, brilliant thinking and really good writing.

Ein klassiker

Provides an interesting point of view on the world of computer programming and the requirements for success in general. The writer encourages you to rethink convention on many fronts and uses his own success as evidence to why it must be done.

A little book that has a soul.You can get really interesting philosophical smell from this writing.The autor really loves what he does and gives you real high level knowledge from his vast and deep experience in computing.Really good for picking chapters in a random manner.I loved reading it.

Qual a semelhança entre programadores e pintores? Ambos são criadores. Eles criam coisas a partir de uma visão. Uma mistura de filosofia, tecnologia, visão de mundo e reflexões aleatórias que formam uma obra que tem alma. Alguns capítulos são diretamente para programadores, e nesses eu não tive muito interesse. Mas o outros, amigo... que porrada. Paul Graham sintetiza com clareza assuntos complexos e polêmicos. Conformismo e seus perigos, criação de riqueza, criação de produtos... tudo de um ponto de vista ao mesmo tempo filosófico e prático. Várias vezes terminei de ler um trecho e me vi assim: 🤯 Não fosse pelos capítulos muito técnicos que são 30% do livro, seria possivelmente um dos melhores do ano.Se você é programador, LEIA, provavelmente vai ser seu livro favorito.

Viaweb社を立ち上げた時の経験やルネサンス期イタリアの歴史を交えながら、ハッカーとはどういう人間か、プログラミング言語の進化、ベンチャー事業を成功させる方法を論じている。話は大変具体的でわかり易いにもかかわらず、著者の洞察力には圧倒される。これを読むまでは、LISPなんてただへんてこりんな言語だと思っていたが、見方が変わった。特に、“dynamic typing”対“static typing”についてはハッカーを科学者ではなく画家と対比して見せたことによって、少なくともアプリケーション寄りのプログラミング言語は、dynamic typingであるべきだということが良く分かった。しかしながら、LISP言語のもうひとつの強力な機能であるmacroについては、この本を読んだだけではわからなかった。それでもLISPはプログラミング言語進化の本流に違いない。各章が独立したエッセイなので読みやすい。