"The computer world is like an intellectual Wild West, in which you can shoot anyone you wish with your ideas, if you're willing to risk the consequences. " --from Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age, by Paul Graham

We are living in the computer age, in a world increasingly designed and engineered by computer programmers and software designers, by people who call themselves hackers. Who are these people, what motivates them, and why should you care?

Consider these facts: Everything around us is turning into computers. Your typewriter is gone, replaced by a computer. Your phone has turned into a computer. So has your camera. Soon your TV will. Your car was not only designed on computers, but has more processing power in it than a room-sized mainframe did in 1970. Letters, encyclopedias, newspapers, and even your local store are being replaced by the Internet.

Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age, by Paul Graham, explains this world and the motivations of the people who occupy it. In clear, thoughtful prose that draws on illuminating historical examples, Graham takes readers on an unflinching exploration into what he calls "an intellectual Wild West."

The ideas discussed in this book will have a powerful and lasting impact on how we think, how we work, how we develop technology, and how we live. Topics include the importance of beauty in software design, how to make wealth, heresy and free speech, the programming language renaissance, the open-source movement, digital design, internet startups, and more.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Why Nerds Are Unpopular

Chapter 2: Hackers and Painters

Chapter 3: What You Can't Say

Chapter 4: Good Bad Attitude

Chapter 5: The Other Road Ahead

Chapter 6: How to Make Wealth

Chapter 7: Mind the Gap

Chapter 8: A Plan for Spam

Chapter 9: Taste for Makers

Chapter 10: Programming Languages Explained

Chapter 11: The Hundred-Year Language

Chapter 12: Beating the Averages

Chapter 13: Revenge of the Nerds

Chapter 14: The Dream Language

Chapter 15: Design and Research

About the Author

Paul Graham, designer of the new Arc language, was the creator of Yahoo Store, the first web-based application. His technique for spam filtering inspired most current filters. He has a PhD in Computer Science from Harvard and studied painting at RISD and the Accademia in Florence.