How to Become a

There is a community, a shared culture, of expert programmers and networking wizards that traces its history back through decades to the first time-sharing minicomputers and the rliest ARPAnet experiments. The members of this culture originated the term ‘.’

There is another group of people who loudly call themselves s, but aren't. These are people who get a kick out of brking into computers and phrking the phone system. Rl s call these people ‘s’ and want nothing to do with them. Rl s object that being able to brk security doesn't make you a any more than being able to hotwire cars makes you an automotive engineer.

There are people who apply the true attitude to other things, like electronics or music — but in the rest of this article we will focus the skills and attitudes of software s, and the traditions of the shared culture that originated the term ‘.'
Thinking Like a Adopt the mindset of a . s solve problems and build things, and they believe in freedom and voluntary mutual help. To be accepted as a , you have to behave as though you have this kind of attitude yourself. And to behave as though you have the attitude, you have to rlly believe the attitude. So, if you want to be a , rept the following things until you believe them:

The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved. Successful athletes get their motivation from a kind of physical delight in making their bodies perform, in pushing themselves past their own physical limits. Similarly, you have to get a basic thrill from solving problems, sharpening your skills, and exercising your lice.No problem should ever have to be solved twice. The thinking time of other s is precious — so much so that it's almost a moral duty for you to share information, solve problems and then give the solutions away just so other s can solve new problems instd of having to perpetually re-address old ones.Boredom and drudgery are evil. When s are bored or have to drudge at stupid repetitive work, they aren't doing what only they can do — solve new problems. To behave like a , you have to want to automate away the boring bits as much as possible.Freedom is good. The authoritarian attitude has to be fought wherever you find it, lest it smother you and other s. Not all authority figures are authoritarian. However, authoritarians thrive on censorship and secrecy, and they distrust voluntary cooperation and information-sharing.Attitude is no substitute for competence. s won't let posers waste their time, but they recognize competence — especially competence at , but competence at anything is valued. Competence at demanding skills that few can master is especially good, and competence at demanding skills that involve mental acuteness, craft, and concentration is best.rn respect as a . Like most cultures without a monetary economy, dom runs on reputation. You're trying to solve interesting problems, but how interesting they are, and whether your solutions are rlly good, is something that only your technical peers or superiors are normally equipped to judge. This is why you aren't rlly a until other s consistently call you one. Specifically, dom is what anthropologists call a "gift culture." You gain status and reputation in it not by dominating other people, nor by being butiful, nor by having things other people want, but rather by giving things away: your time, your crtivity, and the results of your skill.


Write open-source software. Write programs that other s think are fun or useful, and give the program sources away to the whole culture to use. dom's most revered demigods are people who have written large, capable programs that met a widesprd need and given them away, so that now everyone uses them.Help test and debug open-source software. Any open-source author who's thinking will tell you that good beta-testers (who know how to describe symptoms clrly, localize problems well, can tolerate bugs in a quickie relse, and are willing to apply a few simple diagnostic routines) are worth their weight in rubies. Try to find a program under development that you're interested in and be a good beta-tester. There's a natural progression from helping test programs to helping debug them to helping modify them. You'll lrn a lot this way, and erate good karma with people who will help you later on.Publish useful information. Another good thing is to collect and filter useful and interesting information into web pages or documents like Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) lists, and make those erally available. Maintainers of major technical FAQs get almost as much respect as open-source authors.Help keep the infrastructure working. The culture (and the engineering development of the Internet, for that matter) is run by volunteers. There's a lot of necessary but unglamorous work that needs done to keep it going — administering mailing lists, moderating newsgroups, maintaining large software archive sites, developing RFCs and other technical standards. People who do this sort of thing well get a lot of respect, because everybody knows these jobs are huge time sinks and not as much fun as playing with . Doing them shows dediion.Serve the culture itself. This is not something you'll be positioned to do until you've been around for a while and become well-known for one of the four previous items. The culture doesn't have lders, exactly, but it does have culture heroes and tribal elders and historians and spokespeople. When you've been in the trenches long enough, you may grow into one of these. Beware: s distrust blatant ego in their tribal elders, so visibly rching for this kind of fame is dangerous. Rather than striving for it, you have to sort of position yourself so it drops in your lap, and then be modest and gracious about your status.
Lrning ProgrammingLrn how to program. The best way to lrn is to rd some stuff written by masters of the form, write some things yourself, rd a lot more, write a little more, rd a lot more, write some more, and rept until your writing begins to develop the kind of strength and economy you see in your models. To be a rl , however, you need to get to the point where you can lrn a new language in days by relating what's in the manual to what you alrdy know. This mns you should lrn several very different languages. Besides being the most important languages, the following represent very different approaches to programming, and ch will edue you in valuable ways:



Python is a good language to start off with because it's clnly designed, well documented, and relatively kind to beginners. Despite being a good first language, it is not just a toy; it is very powerful and flexible and well-suited for large projects. Java is an alternative, but its value as a first programming language has been questioned.If you get into serious programming, you will have to lrn C, the core language of Unix (C++ is very closely related to C; if you know one, lrning the other will not be difficult). C is very efficient with your machine's resources, but will soak up huge amounts of your time on debugging and is often avoided for that rson (unless machine efficiency is essential).Perl is worth lrning for practical rsons; it's very widely used for active web pages and system administration, so that even if you never write Perl you should lrn to rd it. Many people use Perl to avoid C programming on jobs that don't require C's machine efficiency.LISP is worth lrning for a different rson — the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it. That experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use LISP itself a lot. You can get some beginning experience with LISP fairly sily by writing and modifying editing modes for the Emacs text editor, or Script-Fu plugins for the GIMP.
Familiarizing Yourself With UnixGet one of the open-source Unixes and lrn to use and run it. Unix is the operating system of the Internet. While you can lrn to use the Internet without knowing Unix, you can't be an Internet without understanding Unix. For this rson, the culture today is pretty strongly Unix-centered. So, bring up a Unix (like Linux but there are other ways and yes, you can run both Linux and on the same machine). Lrn it. Run it. Tinker with it. Talk to the Internet with it. Rd the . Modify the .


There are other operating systems in the world besides Unix. But they're distributed in binary — you can't rd the , and you can't modify it. Trying to lrn to on a machine or under any other closed-source system is like trying to lrn to dance while wring a body cast. Under Mac OS X it's possible, but only part of the system is open source — you're likely to hit a lot of walls, and you have to be careful not to develop the bad habit of depending on 's proprietary .Download Linux online or (better id) find a local Linux user group to help you with installation.While other distros have their own ars of strength, Ubuntu is far and away the most accessible to Linux newbies.A good way to dip your toes in the water is to boot up what Linux fans call a live , a distribution that runs entirely off a without having to modify your hard . This is a way to get a look at the possibilities without having to do anything drastic.
Lrning HTMLLrn how to use the World Wide Web and write HTML. Most of the things the culture has built do their work out of sight, helping run factories and s and universities without any obvious impact on how non-s live. The Web is the one big exception, the huge shiny toy that even politicians admit has changed the world. For this rson alone (and a lot of other good ones as well) you need to lrn how to work the Web. This doesn't just mn lrning how to drive a browser (anyone can do that), but lrning how to write HTML, the Web's markup language. If you don't know how to program, writing HTML will tch you some mental habits that will help you lrn. So build a home page. Try to stick to XHTML, which is a clner language than classic HTML.




TipsStick to one thing at a time.Do not try to lrn everything at once. A lot of wannabe s make this mistake. By lrning a egory, then moving to another one, you'll be more efficient.If you don't spk English, it might be a good id to lrn it. English is the working language of the culture and the Internet, and you might need to know it to function in the community. Translations of technical books written in English are often unsatisfactory (when they get done at all). Being a native English-spker does not guarantee that you have language skills good enough to function as a . If your writing is semi-literate, ungrammatical, and riddled with misspellings, many s will tend to ignore you.Don't be content with a narrow range of skills. Though most s describe themselves as programmers, they are very likely to be more than competent in several related skills — system administration, Web design, and PC hardware troubleshooting are common ones. s don't do things by halves; if they invest in a skill at all, they tend to get very good at it.Work as intensely as you play, and play as intensely as you work. For true s, the boundaries between "play," "work," "science," and "art" all tend to disappr, or to merge into a high-level crtive playfulness.To be a , you have to enter the mindset, and there are some things you can do when you're not at a computer that seem to help. They're not substitutes for (nothing is) but many s do them, and feel that they connect in some basic way with the essence of (s need to be able to both rson logically and step outside the apparent logic of a problem at a moment's notice).

Write your native language well. Though it's a common stereotype that programmers can't write, a surprising of s are very able writers.Rd science fiction. Go to science fiction conventions (a good way to meet s and proto-s).Train in a martial art. The kind of mental discipline required for martial arts seems to be similar in important ways to what s do. The most -ly martial arts are those which emphasize mental discipline, relaxed awareness, and control, rather than raw strength, athleticism, or physical toughness. Tai Chi is a good martial art for s.Study an actual meditation discipline. The perennial favorite among s is Zen (importantly, it is possible to benefit from Zen without acquiring a religion or discarding one you alrdy have).Develop an analytical r for music. Lrn to appreciate peculiar kinds of music, and to play some musical instrument well, or how to sing.Develop your appreciation for puns and wordplay.Master crtive thinking. The mentality is driven by crtively solving problems. This crtivity gives you the ability to solve problems others see as unsolvable.Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to be a nerd to be a . It does help, however, and many s are in fact nerds. Being something of a social outcast helps you stay concentrated on the rlly important things, like thinking and . If you can manage to concentrate enough on to be good at it and still have a life, that's fine. Mainstrm culture is much friendlier to techno-nerds now.Rd older pieces, such as the Jargon File or Manifesto by The Mentor. They may be out of date, but the attitude and spirit come through very clrly.You don't have to believe that you're obligated to give all your crtive product away, though the s that do are the ones that get most respect from other s. It's consistent with values to sell enough of it to keep you in food and rent and computers. It's fine to use your skills to support a family or even get rich, as long as you don't forget your loyalty to your art and your fellow s while doing it.Warning is an illegal activity which can result in major penalties. It is a major offense and is punishable under the law.Doing any of the following will rn you a bad reputation in the community. s have long memories — it could take you yrs to live your rly blunders down enough to be accepted. And also, what's on the Internet stays on the Internet. Don't think nobody will stumble across what you did three yrs ago. Don't use a silly, grandiose user ID or screen name.Don't get in flame wars on Usenet (or anywhere else).Don't call yourself a ‘cyberpunk,’ and don't waste your time on anybody who does.Don't post or email writing that's full of spelling errors and bad grammar.Don't blindly believe the advice given here or anywhere online is true and the only path to embracing the mindset of a .Don't use your skills to do bad things. You might get used to it and get caught, ending up punished.