and all that
Throughout the semester we have viewed a vast array of ideologies that pose different approaches to what can bring success to software creation and distribution. Success, as is the case whenever it comes to selecting our theories or philosophies, is a subjective matter. Do we want to generate the most economic activity? Push the boundaries … Read More “Reading 10: The Winner Takes It All” »
The life of Linus opens as he likes to lead it: quietly. I found most striking the description of his childhood, and the sheer difference between it and the upbringings portrayed in many of the other readings we have completed throughout the semester. So many characters have come and gone, with their respective set of … Read More “Reading 09: Birth of a Tech Anti-Titan” »
Open Source is, as many collective human endeavors, a bit of a mystery. The reason is because Open Source belongs to a particular kind of endeavor, one where many contributors act with selfless intentions which happen to coincide with the creation of products with extrinsic value. Open Source is an art and social work, while … Read More “Reading 08: The Noosphere, The Magic Cauldron; Problems and Solvers” »
I do not have a particularly precious and intimate experience with software development at scale, let alone the influential and effective trends permeating through the medium. I do know, however, that the greatest works in human history are products of exhaustive collaboration and the free flow of information. It is in the intersection of passion … Read More “Reading 07: Cathedral and Bazaar, Crystal and Bark” »
This week the reflection raised by Graham is quite multifaceted, even more so than normal. There are too many topics to cover, so I will focus on the first essay. First and foremost, someone with a successful startup is reasonably educated in being able to say what it takes to make a successful startup. Graham’s advice … Read More “Reading 06: Wealth Creation, Wistful Curation” »
Despite some differing conclusions and values, I cannot agree more with Graham’s notion about how languages fundamentally limit the capabilities of our imagination. Languages, whether they are programming ones or not, enable our communication. However, the grand majority of us have gotten used to communicating with language even in our mind. We think in narration, … Read More “Reading 05: Programming Languages, Paradigmatic Logic” »
The opening essays of Paul Graham’s present a disparate series of ideas and ideologies, indiscriminately interwoven in an unabashed stream-of-consciousness prose. In truth, therein lie too many proposals – most times, stated like self-evident facts – to give his abstract yet deeply personal linked ideals justice. There is much within that I heartily agree with, … Read More “Reading 04: Nerds and Hackers, Art and Arrogance” »
In the third act of Steven Levy’s book we see the first generation of hackers who had garnered interest in their craft not out of intellectual curiosity or a sense of community understanding. Rather, as Ken Williams best put it, out of greed. Ken Williams entered the world of programming not due to any duty … Read More “Reading 03: Game Hackers, Gone Hopes” »
In the second act of Steven Levy’s book, we switch coasts to the emergence of the original Silicon Valley: following the stories of hackers cut from a different cloth such as Lee Felsenstein, and their involvement in the rise and fall of the Homebrew Computer Club – with the looming might of multimillion corporations on … Read More “Reading 02: Hardware Hackers, Heartfelt Harbingers” »
In the opening act of Steven Levy’s book, aptly titled True Hacker, we observe the conception of the ideology and methodology behind what would come to define the hacker culture for decades to come throughout the rise of computational power. An essentially visionary group, led blindly but passionately by the pure pursuit of tinkering and … Read More “Reading 01: True Hackers, True Scholars” »