Reading02

There’s an odd kind of dilemma involved in the conflict between the hacker ethic and the possibility of making tons of money. The original hacker ethic espoused and practiced by the MIT engineers seemed to carry with it a kind of elitism; according to them, assuredly, hackers were upper-middle-class white men who could be trusted to spend 14-hour days programming and messing around with the computers their universities offered to them. In this way, it almost seems like the era of “Game Hackers” brought with it the opportunity for more people to be hackers. This was the same occurrence during the era of hardware hackers, but it just continued the trend.

I’m still of the opinion that bringing computers and programming to more people is not against the hacker ethic, and that the promise of monetary reward for bringing games to people is only right. Like we talked about in class, it’s a terribly elitist and privileged view to say that software should be made just for the greater good and not with the expectation of reward. Although people like Bill Gates may have taken the idea a bit too far, there needs to be some way for a programmer to make things without having to be rich in the first place. If someone has the skills, ambition, and ideas to create something, they need to be rewarded for it. Else, only the already wealthy can create.

It’s also tough to say which type of programmer is preferable in this our modern world. To be a “goal-oriented engineer” is to provide usable and enjoyable things to the most people, while also generating sustained profits to the corporation you work for. On the other hand, to have “the love of computing in your heart” is a way to provide fulfillment to yourself that may not be possible for the goal-oriented programmer.

In my opinion, if you’re a person who is obsessed with programming and perfectionism and learning, then more power to you. You have every right to make programming your passion. However, someone like Ken Williams may take that passion too far. Obviously, Ken and Roberta Williams did a lot for the computer games industry. It’s just that the way the book describes Ken makes him seem like a jerk. The book says, “No matter where he worked, in any number of nameless service companies in the yawning valley above Los Angeles, Ken Williams did not meet one person who deserved an iota of his respect.” This description of him fits with a fair amount of passionate, self-righteous programmers I know. No level of skill or fame gives you the right to act in such a way, or to believe so highly of yourself.

So, for me, it is much better to be a professional engineer. I enjoy coding, hacking, programming, and the like, and can spend hours trying to solve  problem. But, I don’t base my self-worth on my hacking skills and judge myself relative to the programming skills of others. To be a hot-shot programmer often means building your identity around programming, and I just can’t do that.