How to be a Good Hacker | Hacker News Reader

How to be a Good Hacker

fakemdc.blogspot.com

3 pointsorionblastar4 comments

No. Following a step-by-step will actually not make you a hacker. That rather goes into the script-kiddie direction.

Do you have any other suggestions on how one can become a good hacker? Thank you for the feedback. I made a change near the end of the blog.

Now that you ask, I realize it's really hard to put into words what I connect with a hacker/hacking. In my eyes it's not something you work towards. Rather, you might become a hacker while doing what you're interested in and what you think is right. A concrete advice I'd give concerning many other topics as well: Read a lot. It's the best way to get a feeling for whatever thing your interested in. Hacker News is great for this. One thing about being a hacker that seems broadly accepted: "You're not a hacker until you're called hacker. By other hackers." This in particular makes it hard to become a hacker "on purpose".

Well there is knowledge with experience and knowledge without experience. Read a lot, well the script-kiddies do that, and that is how they find scripts to use and tricks. That is knowledge without experience. Knowledge with experience is the only thing that one can gain to learn on their own by doing things instead of just reading about them or going to college/university and studying.

We are posting on a web site called 'hacker news' but it is really about startups and technology, not really about hackers. You cannot expect everyone reading to be a real hacker. I assume there are those just starting out, as well as those who have intermediate skills, and then those few who are experts. None others call a hacker, but I guess they consider themselves hackers.

I got over 20 years of experience in the computer industry, I've been called a nerd, geek, hacker by coworkers and managers. But does that make me a hacker? Some of them have been called hackers by other hackers, and I've been called a hacker by other hackers. But does that make me a hacker? Most people here on hacker news do not even know who I am or what I've been doing for 20+ years in the industry. Most if not all of it was private commercial work that others have taken credit for but had nothing to do with it other than they were a manager or owned stock in the companies I worked for. Even on the patents I am not listed as an inventor, instead they put on the names of the people on the board of directors for the company who don't know the difference between a PC and a calculator much less how a programming language works.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com