This might become a new major section in Things Every Hacker Once Knew, but before I merge it I’m putting it out for comment and criticism.
Month: July 2017
A teaching story
The craft of programming is not a thing easily taught. It’s not so much that the low level details like language syntaxes are difficult to convey, it’s more that (as I’ve written before) “the way of the hacker is a posture of mind”. The posture of mind is more essential than the details. I only… Continue reading A teaching story
Fuzzbombing: abort() calls for great justice!
The Colossal Cave Adventure restoration is pretty much done now. One thing we’re still working on is getting test coverage of the last few corners in the code. Because when you’re up to 99.7% the temptation to push for that last 0.3% is really strong even if the attempt is objectively fairly pointless. What’s more… Continue reading Fuzzbombing: abort() calls for great justice!
Managing modafinil
For the last year or so I have been deliberately experimenting with a psychoactive, nootropic drug. You have to know me personally (much better than most of my blog audience does) to realize what a surprising admission this is. I’ve been a non-smoking teetotaller since I was old enough to form the decision. I went… Continue reading Managing modafinil
Gift vs. reputation in hacker culture
A G+ follower pointed me at Note on Homesteading the Noosphere by Martin Sústrik. He concludes saying this: In short: Labeling open source communities as gift cultures is not helpful. It just muddles the understanding of what’s actually going on. However, given that they are not exchange economies either, they probably deserve a name of… Continue reading Gift vs. reputation in hacker culture