Erik Sink is the Man

Kudos to Eric for his insightful rebuttal to Paul Graham’s essay on what makes great hackers. Eric correctly nails the point that "great hackers" aren’t necessarily the kind of people that you want working for your company, especially if your company is focused on customers instead of technology for the sake of technology. I also take issue with some of Paul’s comments, especially how "great hackers" are determined by what language and platform they use, and how he "knew that a startup company was doomed" because it was going to build its product on top of NT. I used to be exactly this kind of geek a long time ago before I grew up and realized that there was a lot more to software development than what language you work in, although I bet that Paul’s essay found a welcome audience over at Slashdot. 

Copyright © Joe Marini. All rights reserved.

For information about how to obtain permission to re-publish this material, please contact us at [email protected].