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#+title: hackers-excerpt
#+date: <2018-06-15>
#+begin_quote
But as more nontechnical people bought computers, the things that
impressed hackers were not as essential. While the programs themselves
had to maintain a certain standard of quality, it was quite possible
that the most exacting standards---those applied by a hacker who
wanted to add one more feature, or wouldn't let go of a project until
it was demonstrably faster than anything else around---were probably
counterproductive. What seemed more important was marketing. There
were plenty of brilliant programs which no one knew about. Sometimes
hackers would write programs and put them in the public domain, give
them away as easily as John Harris had lent his early copy of
Jawbreaker to the guys at the Fresno computer store. But rarely would
people ask for public domain programs by name: they wanted the ones
they saw advertised and discussed in magazines, demonstrated in
computer stores. It was not so important to have amazingly clever
algorithms. Users would put up with more commonplace ones.
The Hacker Ethic, of course, held that every program should be as good
as you could make it (or better), infinitely flexible, admired for its
brilliance of concept and execution, and designed to extend the user's
powers. Selling computer programs like toothpaste was heresy. But it
was happening. Consider the prescription for success offered by one of
a panel of high-tech venture capitalists, gathered at a 1982 software
show: "I can summarize what it takes in three words: marketing,
marketing, marketing." When computers are sold like toasters, programs
will be sold like toothpaste. The Hacker Ethic notwithstanding.
#+end_quote
[[http://www.stevenlevy.com/index.php/books/hackers][Hackers: Heroes of
Computer Revolution]], by Steven Levy.
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