Hacking4Life :P

     Linus Torvalds' upbringing was definitely surprising to me, it really seemed all over the place. In my opinion, it did not seem like an ideal situation. His early life consisted of death, separation, solitude, and more that was around him yet he was simply unphased. It seems like he unconsciously chose what to remember from his childhood (whatever was interesting) and what not to remember (the boring stuff). Initially, I thought it would be impossible for me to relate to him, but I have more similarities than I thought. I definitely am shy (as if I haven't said that before), in fact, my mom thought something was wrong with me as a baby because I was late to babbling sounds/letters. Like Linus, my grandfather also had a big impact on my life. Although it was through learning math, it was still an experience that helped me actually learn and not solely complete an assignment. I am also pretty stubborn, which I feel more than often can be a positive trait. When he talke...

     I was raised with the phrase “Every penny counts”, which led me to understand that the small things can add up. When talking about services instead of software I thought of a car. It is not a one-time investment, although you do pay a lot upfront, there are other costs such as insurance, gas, tune-ups, etc. I was taught how to change a headlight, tire, and oil change, which is crazy cheap compared to the labor costs and other associated fees with those services. Although it is different than the software industry, I brought this up to show that you can definitely make money providing a service especially if it is recurring. The idea of use value vs sale value is important and relates directly to the open source service vs software discussion. Both the service and use value cases are reoccurring events that encourage community development and self-sustaining features as discussed in the examples of Apache and Cisco. In the example, they could reach more people and eve...

I think what is so appealing about open source to others is the reputation component. It sounds bad to say, but everyone loves a little ego boost. In the reading, they briefly explained how gift culture can be found in the wealthy community which makes sense because it is a community where people may have enough materialistically such that your reputation is the next best thing to build, gain, and improve upon. To reference the ideas from hackers and painters, another appeal of open source is simply sharing your work for the sake of sharing it, looking for feedback, or simply having fun. Hackers like painters, can choose whether to share their art with the world or keep it to themselves. Art can be recreated yet it is not something they fear because, with each recreation, there is always something different or some aspect that appeals to different people. For example, using different mediums and or angles for the same art subject, or different variations of Photoshop like GIMP or Krita...

     The Cathedral and the Bazaar explain that the cathedral model is more selective and controlled in that there are very few people working within the closed environment. This is unlike the bazaar model where everything is out and openness is encouraged. It is a war between small groups and autonomy vs large connected and collaborative groups. Although they are different, each model is used to create valuable software experiences for its users and or the developers themselves.       "Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's personal itch." While I don't like to use absolutes, I agree that many successful projects begin with a developer thinking, "It would be cool if…" or "I wonder if…". We have discussed it before, but our passions and curiosities keep us up at night, not how to solve a np-hard problem (unless that is your thing). The reason you come up with ideas for new software is to make something better or create someth...

     Believe it or not, I always wanted to start a start-up. There is a lot that goes into it that I am not prepared for including an idea of what to create, but I like the idea of a startup. It seems like a hacker's dream that you can do what you love with people who share the same passion. ”A startup is not merely ten people, but ten people like you”. I have never wanted to work for big companies, although they were all start-ups once before, I enjoy working in small groups especially to help others out. It definitely costs a ton of money and time, but if you are really passionate about it then, it will not feel that bad (at least for the first month of sleepless nights).       In general, I love the idea Graham proposed of wealth being something that can be created, there is not a fixed amount of wealth available, and it is more than money. However,  I have always said that I would make a great rich person, maybe it was because I wanted money, ...

     This is way above my pay grade, so please take everything I say lightly. I was surprised to hear how big an impact LISP made on what many would consider today’s ‘need to know’ languages like Python and Java. After reading these essays, the first thing that came to mind was power vs popularity. LISP was created in the late 50s, yet according to the reading, LISP shares many of the main features of Python and Java with additional exclusive features. LISP had the power, yet Python and Java are more popular at least to the average person. Why don’t we just go back and use LISP, if everything is a child of LISP? Python and Java are also fairly new, so why are they used? In the last group of essays, something that I never realized was how impactful American culture has been on computing. Because programming is an American-bred and raised thing, I think it is natural for people to look at the newest thing, but how long will that last? It seems like every language is just a ...