The Hacker Chick Blog provides unconventional wisdom on creating extraordinary software. It is for those of us who are truly passionate about building better software; those of us who look at the edge and wonder what's beyond… Why Hacker? As a self-taught programmer, the most inspirational book for me in my early years, what really made me want to be a coder and never look back, was Steven Levy's Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. In it, Levy describes the early computer hackers, starting back at MIT in the 1950's, and their insatiable thirst for knowledge that drove them to creating the technology that forms the basis for all we use today. The extraordinary lengths hackers would go to in order to learn more and how they'd find ways to apply that knowledge to make things do more then anyone every imagined they could. If they hadn't questioned, hadn't tried; if they'd just been content with the status quo, how would we have all that we do today? Bruce Shneier captures the hacker essence particularly well (see right sidebar) in What is a Hacker?, which continues... Hackers are as old as curiosity, although the term itself is modern. Galileo was a hacker. Mme. Curie was one, too... Remember the phone phreaks of yesteryear, the ones who could whistle into payphones and make free phone calls. Sure, they stole phone service. But it wasn't like they needed to make eight-hour calls to Manila or McMurdo. And their real work was secret knowledge: The phone network was a vast maze of information. They wanted to know the system better than the designers, and they wanted the ability to modify it to their will. Understanding how the phone system worked -- that was the true prize. I’m not a security hacker. That's not my thing. But in listening to Levy and Schneier and like minded folks, I can’t think of a single thing I identify with more strongly then this never ending thirst for knowledge, this continuous desire to always be on the lookout for better ways to do things. How can we take a thing and twist it to make it do things no one thought of before, things that merely require asking “why not?” And isn’t this how we should be building our software? Abby Fichtner is The Hacker Chick. She’s been developing custom software applications professionally, wearing every hat imaginable, since 1994. Although, technically, she got her start at the age of 8 when her father brought home an Atari 800. In the evenings, they would sit together and type in the machine code from the Atari magazines – because that was the way serious geeks got their computer games! These days, she works as a Player/Coach, helping organizations learn to develop software better while actually sitting down and developing the applications with them. Java, C#, C/C++… it ain’t about the language but the wonderful things we build. Abby is editor of the Boston SPIN newsletter, has led her company’s Community of Practice for developers & architects, and, of course, an avid blogger — always seeking new ways to share knowledge with the software community. You can find her full credentials here: Abby's resume.
Who is Abby?
About The Hacker Chick Blog
|
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
JS-Kit Comments
See how we're connected
4 comments:
And when you stare into the abyss, it stares back at you. Then you stick your fingers in your ears and stick out your tongue. The abyss then thumbs it's nose at you. Then the abyss makes googly eyes at you. You do reach out to poke the abyss in the eyes, but the abyss is quick and does the old Stooges bit placing it's hand against it's nose. You both recite " Nyuk nyuk nyuk ".
Then, and only then, you are truly a hacker.
Sometimes, I actually become one with the abyss.
and then I make googly eyes at myself
That is too funny
Abby is very cool, and her posts are awesome!
I don't know why that photo makes me think of you being all dom - hmm, just missing the whip! ;)
What do YOU think?