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Table
of Contents
1. Why This Document?
2. What Is a Hacker?
3. The Hacker Attitude
3.1. 1. The world is full of fascinating
problems waiting to be solved.
3.2. 2. Nobody should ever have to solve a
problem twice.
3.3. 3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.
3.4. 4. Freedom is good.
3.5. 5. Attitude is no substitute for
competence.
4. Basic Hacking Skills
4.1. 1. Learn how to program.
4.2. 2. Get one of the open-source Unixes and
learn to use and run it.
4.3. 3. Learn how to use the World Wide Web and
write HTML.
5. Status in the Hacker Culture
5.1. 1. Write open-source software
5.2. 2. Help test and debug open-source software
5.3. 3. Publish useful information
5.4. 4. Help keep the infrastructure working
5.5. 5. Serve the hacker culture itself
6. The Hacker/Nerd Connection
7. Points For Style
8. Other Resources
9. Frequently Asked Questions
1. Why
This Document?
As editor of the Jargon File and author of a few other
well-known documents of similar nature, I often get email
requests from enthusiastic network newbies asking (in
effect) "how can I learn to be a wizard hacker?". Oddly
enough there don't seem to be any other FAQs or web
documents that address this vital question, so here's mine.
If you are reading a snapshot of this document offline, the
current version lives at .
Note: there is a list of Frequently Asked Questions at the
end of this document. Please read these—twice—before mailing
me any questions about this document.
Numerous translations of this document are available:
Bulgarian, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional),
Danish, Dutch, French, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Italian,
Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish,
and Swedish. Note that since this document changes
occasionally, they may be out of date to varying degrees.
2.
What Is a Hacker?
The Jargon File contains a bunch of definitions of the term
`hacker', most having to do with technical adeptness and a
delight in solving problems and overcoming limits. If you
want to know how to become a hacker, though, only two are
really relevant.
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 earliest ARPAnet experiments. The members of this
culture originated the term `hacker'. Hackers built the
Internet. Hackers made the Unix operating system what it is
today. Hackers run Usenet. Hackers make the World Wide Web
work. If you are part of this culture, if you have
contributed to it and other people in it know who you are
and call you a hacker, you're a hacker.
The hacker mind-set is not confined to this software-hacker
culture. There are people who apply the hacker attitude to
other things, like electronics or music -- actually, you can
find it at the highest levels of any science or art.
Software hackers recognize these kindred spirits elsewhere
and may call them "hackers" too -- and some claim that the
hacker nature is really independent of the particular medium
the hacker works in. But in the rest of this document we
will focus on the skills and attitudes of software hackers,
and the traditions of the shared culture that originated the
term `hacker'.
There is another group of people who loudly call themselves
hackers, but aren't. These are people (mainly adolescent
males) who get a kick out of breaking into computers and
phreaking the phone system. Real hackers call these people
`crackers' and want nothing to do with them. Real hackers
mostly think crackers are lazy, irresponsible, and not very
bright, and object that being able to break security doesn't
make you a hacker any more than being able to hotwire cars
makes you an automotive engineer. Unfortunately, many
journalists and writers have been fooled into using the word
`hacker' to describe crackers; this irritates real hackers
no end.
The basic difference is this: hackers build things,
crackers break them.
If you want to be a hacker, keep reading. If you want to be
a cracker, go read the alt.2600 newsgroup and get ready to
do five to ten in the slammer after finding out you aren't
as smart as you think you are. And that's all I'm going to
say about crackers.
3. The
Hacker Attitude
Hackers solve problems and build things, and they believe
in freedom and voluntary mutual help. To be accepted as a
hacker, 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 really believe the attitude.
But if you think of cultivating hacker attitudes as just a
way to gain acceptance in the culture, you'll miss the
point. Becoming the kind of person who believes these things
is important for you -- for helping you learn and keeping
you motivated. As with all creative arts, the most effective
way to become a master is to imitate the mind-set of masters
-- not just intellectually but emotionally as well.
Or, as the following modern Zen poem has it:
Ø
To follow
the path:
Ø
look to
the master,
Ø
follow
the master,
Ø
walk with
the master,
Ø
see
through the master,
Ø
become
the master.
So, if you want to be a hacker, repeat the following things
until you believe them:
3.1.
1. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be
solved.
Being a hacker is lots of fun, but it's a kind of fun that
takes lots of effort. The effort takes motivation.
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, to be
a hacker you have to get a basic thrill from solving
problems, sharpening your skills, and exercising your
intelligence.
If you aren't the kind of person that feels this way
naturally, you'll need to become one in order to make it as
a hacker. Otherwise you'll find your hacking energy is
sapped by distractions like sex, money, and social approval.
(You also have to develop a kind of faith in your own
learning capacity -- a belief that even though you may not
know all of what you need to solve a problem, if you tackle
just a piece of it and learn from that, you'll learn enough
to solve the next piece -- and so on, until you're done.)
3.2.
2. Nobody should ever have to solve a problem twice.
Creative brains are a valuable, limited resource. They
shouldn't be wasted on re-inventing the wheel when there are
so many fascinating new problems waiting out there.
To behave like a hacker, you have to believe that the
thinking time of other hackers 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 hackers can solve new problems instead of having to
perpetually re-address old ones.
(You don't have to believe that you're obligated to give
all your creative product away, though the hackers that do
are the ones that get most respect from other hackers. It's
consistent with hacker values to sell enough of it to keep
you in food and rent and computers. It's fine to use your
hacking skills to support a family or even get rich, as long
as you don't forget your loyalty to your art and your fellow
hackers while doing it.)
3.3.
3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.
Hackers (and creative people in general) should never be
bored or have to drudge at stupid repetitive work, because
when this happens it means they aren't doing what only they
can do -- solve new problems. This wastefulness hurts
everybody. Therefore boredom and drudgery are not just
unpleasant but actually evil.
To behave like a hacker, you have to believe this enough to
want to automate away the boring bits as much as possible,
not just for yourself but for everybody else (especially
other hackers).
(There is one apparent exception to this. Hackers will
sometimes do things that may seem repetitive or boring to an
observer as a mind-clearing exercise, or in order to acquire
a skill or have some particular kind of experience you can't
have otherwise. But this is by choice -- nobody who can
think should ever be forced into a situation that bores
them.)
3.4.
4. Freedom is good.
Hackers are naturally anti-authoritarian. Anyone who can
give you orders can stop you from solving whatever problem
you're being fascinated by -- and, given the way
authoritarian minds work, will generally find some
appallingly stupid reason to do so. So the authoritarian
attitude has to be fought wherever you find it, lest it
smother you and other hackers.
(This isn't the same as fighting all authority. Children
need to be guided and criminals restrained. A hacker may
agree to accept some kinds of authority in order to get
something he wants more than the time he spends following
orders. But that's a limited, conscious bargain; the kind of
personal surrender authoritarians want is not on offer.)
Authoritarians thrive on censorship and secrecy. And they
distrust voluntary cooperation and information-sharing --
they only like `cooperation' that they control. So to behave
like a hacker, you have to develop an instinctive hostility
to censorship, secrecy, and the use of force or deception to
compel responsible adults. And you have to be willing to act
on that belief.
3.5.
5. Attitude is no substitute for competence.
To be a hacker, you have to develop some of these
attitudes. But copping an attitude alone won't make you a
hacker, any more than it will make you a champion athlete or
a rock star. Becoming a hacker will take intelligence,
practice, dedication, and hard work.
Therefore, you have to learn to distrust attitude and
respect competence of every kind. Hackers won't let posers
waste their time, but they worship competence -- especially
competence at hacking, but competence at anything is good.
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.
If you revere competence, you'll enjoy developing it in
yourself -- the hard work and dedication will become a kind
of intense play rather than drudgery. And that's vital to
becoming a hacker.
4.
Basic Hacking Skills
The hacker attitude is vital, but skills are even more
vital. Attitude is no substitute for competence, and there's
a certain basic toolkit of skills which you have to have
before any hacker will dream of calling you one.
This toolkit changes slowly over time as technology creates
new skills and makes old ones obsolete. For example, it used
to include programming in machine language, and didn't until
recently involve HTML. But right now it pretty clearly
includes the following:
4.1.
1. Learn how to program.
This, of course, is the fundamental hacking skill. If you
don't know any computer languages, I recommend starting with
Python. It is cleanly 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. I have written
a more detailed evaluation of Python. A tutorial is
available at the Python web site.
Java is also a good language for learning to program in. It
is more difficult than Python, but produces faster code than
Python. I think it makes an excellent second language.
But be aware that you won't reach the skill level of a
hacker or even merely a programmer if you only know one or
two language -- you need to learn how to think about
programming problems in a general way, independent of any
one language. To be a real hacker, you need to get to the
point where you can learn a new language in days by relating
what's in the manual to what you already know. This means
you should learn several very different languages.
If you get into serious programming, you will have to learn
C, the core language of Unix. C++ is very closely related to
C; if you know one, learning the other will not be
difficult. Neither language is a good one to try learning as
your first, however.
Other languages of particular importance to hackers include
Perl and LISP. Perl is worth learning for practical reasons;
it's very widely used for active web pages and system
administration, so that even if you never write Perl you
should learn to read it. LISP is worth learning for 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.
It's best, actually, to learn all five of these (Python,
Java, C/C++, Perl, and LISP). Besides being the most
important hacking languages, they represent very different
approaches to programming, and each will educate you in
valuable ways.
I can't give complete instructions on how to learn to
program here -- it's a complex skill. But I can tell you
that books and courses won't do it (many, maybe most of the
best hackers are self-taught). You can learn language
features -- bits of knowledge -- from books, but the
mind-set that makes that knowledge into living skill can be
learned only by practice and apprenticeship. What will do it
is (a) reading code and (b) writing code.
Learning to program is like learning to write good natural
language. The best way to do it is to read some stuff
written by masters of the form, write some things yourself,
read a lot more, write a little more, read a lot more, write
some more ... and repeat until your writing begins to
develop the kind of strength and economy you see in your
models.
Finding good code to read used to be hard, because there
were few large programs available in source for fledgeling
hackers to read and tinker with. This has changed
dramatically; open-source software, programming tools, and
operating systems (all built by hackers) are now widely
available. Which brings me neatly to our next topic...
4.2.
2. Get one of the open-source Unixes and learn to use and
run it.
I'm assuming you have a personal computer or can get access
to one (these kids today have it so easy :-)). The single
most important step any newbie can take toward acquiring
hacker skills is to get a copy of Linux or one of the
BSD-Unixes, install it on a personal machine, and run it.
Yes, there are other operating systems in the world besides
Unix. But they're distributed in binary -- you can't read
the code, and you can't modify it. Trying to learn to hack
on a DOS or Windows machine or under MacOS is like trying to
learn to dance while wearing a body cast.
Besides, Unix is the operating system of the Internet.
While you can learn to use the Internet without knowing
Unix, you can't be an Internet hacker without understanding
Unix. For this reason, the hacker culture today is pretty
strongly Unix-centered. (This wasn't always true, and some
old-time hackers still aren't happy about it, but the
symbiosis between Unix and the Internet has become strong
enough that even Microsoft's muscle doesn't seem able to
seriously dent it.)
So, bring up a Unix -- I like Linux myself but there are
other ways (and yes, you can run both Linux and DOS/Windows
on the same machine). Learn it. Run it. Tinker with it. Talk
to the Internet with it. Read the code. Modify the code.
You'll get better programming tools (including C, LISP,
Python, and Perl) than any Microsoft operating system can
dream of, you'll have fun, and you'll soak up more knowledge
than you realize you're learning until you look back on it
as a master hacker.
For more about learning Unix, see The Loginataka.
To get your hands on a Linux, see the Where can I get
Linux.
You can find BSD Unix help and resources at
http://www.bsd.org/.
I have written a primer on the basics of Unix and the
Internet.
(Note: I don't really recommend installing either Linux or
BSD as a solo project if you're a newbie. For Linux, find a
local Linux user's group and ask for help; or contact the
Open Projects Network. LISC maintains IRC channels where you
can get help.)
4.3.
3. Learn how to use the World Wide Web and write HTML.
Most of the things the hacker culture has built do their
work out of sight, helping run factories and offices and
universities without any obvious impact on how non-hackers
live. The Web is the one big exception, the huge shiny
hacker toy that even politicians admit is changing the
world. For this reason alone (and a lot of other good ones
as well) you need to learn how to work the Web.
This doesn't just mean learning how to drive a browser
(anyone can do that), but learning how to write HTML, the
Web's markup language. If you don't know how to program,
writing HTML will teach you some mental habits that will
help you learn. So build a home page. (There are good
beginner tutorials on the Web; here's one.)
But just having a home page isn't anywhere near good enough
to make you a hacker. The Web is full of home pages. Most of
them are pointless, zero-content sludge -- very
snazzy-looking sludge, mind you, but sludge all the same
(for more on this see The HTML Hell Page).
To be worthwhile, your page must have content -- it must be
interesting and/or useful to other hackers. And that brings
us to the next topic...
5.
Status in the Hacker Culture
Like most cultures without a money economy, hackerdom runs
on reputation. You're trying to solve interesting problems,
but how interesting they are, and whether your solutions are
really good, is something that only your technical peers or
superiors are normally equipped to judge.
Accordingly, when you play the hacker game, you learn to
keep score primarily by what other hackers think of your
skill (this is why you aren't really a hacker until other
hackers consistently call you one). This fact is obscured by
the image of hacking as solitary work; also by a
hacker-cultural taboo (now gradually decaying but still
potent) against admitting that ego or external validation
are involved in one's motivation at all.
Specifically, hackerdom is what anthropologists call a gift
culture. You gain status and reputation in it not by
dominating other people, nor by being beautiful, nor by
having things other people want, but rather by giving things
away. Specifically, by giving away your time, your
creativity, and the results of your skill.
There are basically five kinds of things you can do to be
respected by hackers:
5.1.
1. Write open-source software
The first (the most central and most traditional) is to
write programs that other hackers think are fun or useful,
and give the program sources to the whole hacker culture to
use.
(We used to call these works ``free software'', but this
confused too many people who weren't sure exactly what
``free'' was supposed to mean. Many of us now prefer the
term ``open-source'' software).
Hackerdom's most revered demigods are people who have
written large, capable programs that met a widespread need
and given them away, so that now everyone uses them.
5.2.
2. Help test and debug open-source software
They also serve who stand and debug open-source software.
In this imperfect world, we will inevitably spend most of
our software development time in the debugging phase. That's
why any open-source author who's thinking will tell you that
good beta-testers (who know how to describe symptoms
clearly, localize problems well, can tolerate bugs in a
quickie release, and are willing to apply a few simple
diagnostic routines) are worth their weight in rubies. Even
one of these can make the difference between a debugging
phase that's a protracted, exhausting nightmare and one
that's merely a salutary nuisance.
If you're a newbie, 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 learn a lot this
way, and generate good karma with people who will help you
later on.
5.3.
3. 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
generally available.
Maintainers of major technical FAQs get almost as much
respect as open-source authors.
5.4.
4. Help keep the infrastructure working
The hacker 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 code. Doing them shows
dedication.
5.5.
5. Serve the hacker culture itself
Finally, you can serve and propagate the culture itself
(by, for example, writing an accurate primer on how to
become a hacker :-)). This is not something you'll be
positioned to do until you've been around for while and
become well-known for one of the first four things.
The hacker culture doesn't have leaders, 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: hackers
distrust blatant ego in their tribal elders, so visibly
reaching 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.
6. The
Hacker/Nerd Connection
Contrary to popular myth, you don't have to be a nerd to be
a hacker. It does help, however, and many hackers are in
fact nerds. Being a social outcast helps you stay
concentrated on the really important things, like thinking
and hacking.
For this reason, many hackers have adopted the label `nerd'
and even use the harsher term `geek' as a badge of pride --
it's a way of declaring their independence from normal
social expectations. See The Geek Page for extensive
discussion.
If you can manage to concentrate enough on hacking to be
good at it and still have a life, that's fine. This is a lot
easier today than it was when I was a newbie in the 1970s;
mainstream culture is much friendlier to techno-nerds now.
There are even growing numbers of people who realize that
hackers are often high-quality lover and spouse material.
If you're attracted to hacking because you don't have a
life, that's OK too -- at least you won't have trouble
concentrating. Maybe you'll get a life later on.
7.
Points For Style
Again, to be a hacker, you have to enter the hacker
mindset. There are some things you can do when you're not at
a computer that seem to help. They're not substitutes for
hacking (nothing is) but many hackers do them, and feel that
they connect in some basic way with the essence of hacking.
Learn to write your native language well. Though it's a
common stereotype that programmers can't write, a surprising
number of hackers (including all the best ones I know of)
are able writers.
Read science fiction. Go to science fiction conventions (a
good way to meet hackers and proto-hackers).
Study Zen, and/or take up martial arts. (The mental
discipline seems similar in important ways.)
Develop an analytical ear for music. Learn to appreciate
peculiar kinds of music. Learn to play some musical
instrument well, or how to sing.
Develop your appreciation of puns and wordplay.
The more of these things you already do, the more likely it
is that you are natural hacker material. Why these things in
particular is not completely clear, but they're connected
with a mix of left- and right-brain skills that seems to be
important (hackers need to be able to both reason logically
and step outside the apparent logic of a problem at a
moment's notice).
Finally, a few things not to do.
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.
The only reputation you'll make doing any of these things
is as a twit. Hackers have long memories -- it could take
you years to live your early blunders down enough to be
accepted.
The problem with screen names or handles deserves some
amplification. Concealing your identity behind a handle is a
juvenile and silly behavior characteristic of crackers,
warez d00dz, and other lower life forms. Hackers don't do
this; they're proud of what they do and want it associated
with their real names. So if you have a handle, drop it. In
the hacker culture it will only mark you as a loser.
8.
Other Resources
Peter Seebach maintains an excellent Hacker FAQ for
managers who don't understand how to deal with hackers. If
Peter's site doesn't respond, the following Excite search
should find a copy.
I have also written A Brief History Of Hackerdom.
I have written a paper, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, which
explains a lot about how the Linux and open-source cultures
work. I have addressed this topic even more directly in its
sequel Homesteading the Noosphere.
Rick Moen has written an excellent document on how to run a
Linux user group.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Will you teach me how to hack?
Q: How can I get started, then?
Q: When do you have to start? Is it too late for me to
learn?
Q: How long will it take me to learn to hack?
Q: Are Visual Basic or Delphi good languages to start with?
Q: Would you help me to crack a system, or teach me how to
crack?
Q: How can I get the password for someone else's account?
Q: How can I break into/read/monitor someone else's email?
Q: How can I steal channel op privileges on IRC?
Q: I've been cracked. Will you help me fend off further
attacks?
Q: I'm having problems with my Windows software. Will you
help me?
Q: Where can I find some real hackers to talk with?
Q: Can you recommend useful books about hacking-related
subjects?
Q: Do I need to be good at math to become a hacker?
Q: What language should I learn first?
Q: What kind of hardware do I need?
Q: Do I need to hate and bash Microsoft?
Q: But won't open-source software leave programmers unable
to make a living?
Q: How can I get started? Where can I get a free Unix?
Q: Will you teach me how to hack?
A: Since first publishing this page, I've gotten several
requests a week (often several a day) from people to "teach
me all about hacking". Unfortunately, I don't have the time
or energy to do this; my own hacking projects, and traveling
as an open-source advocate, take up 110% of my time.
Even if I did, hacking is an attitude and skill you
basically have to teach yourself. You'll find that while
real hackers want to help you, they won't respect you if you
beg to be spoon-fed everything they know.
Learn a few things first. Show that you're trying, that
you're capable of learning on your own. Then go to the
hackers you meet with specific questions.
If you do email a hacker asking for advice, here are two
things to know up front. First, we've found that people who
are lazy or careless in their writing are usually too lazy
and careless in their thinking to make good hackers -- so
take care to spell correctly, and use good grammar and
punctuation, otherwise you'll probably be ignored. Secondly,
don't dare ask for a reply to an ISP account that's
different from the account you're sending from; we find
people who do that are usually thieves using stolen
accounts, and we have no interest in rewarding thievery.
Q: How can I get started, then?
A: The best way for you to get started would probably be to
go to a LUG (Linux user group) meeting. You can find such
groups on the LDP General Linux Information Page; there is
probably one near you, possibly associated with a college or
university. LUG members will probably give you a Linux if
you ask, and will certainly help you install one and get
started.
Q: When do you have to start? Is it too late for me to
learn?
A: Any age at which you are motivated to start is a good
age. Most people seem to get interested between ages 15 and
20, but I know of exceptions in both directions.
Q: How long will it take me to learn to hack?
A: That depends on how talented you are and how hard you
work at it. Most people can acquire a respectable skill set
in eighteen months to two years, if they concentrate. Don't
think it ends there, though; if you are a real hacker, you
will spend the rest of your life learning and perfecting
your craft.
Q: Are Visual Basic or Delphi good languages to start with?
A: No, because they're not portable. There are no
open-source implementations of these languages, so you'd be
locked into only those platforms the vendor chooses to
support. Accepting that kind of monopoly situation is not
the hacker way.
Visual Basic is especially awful. The fact that it's a
proprietary Microsoft language is enough to disqualify it,
and like other Basics it's a poorly-designed language that
will teach you bad programming habits.
One of those bad habits is becoming dependent on a single
vendor's libraries, widgets, and development tools. In
general, any language that isn't supported under at least
Linux or one of the BSDs, and/or at least three different
vendors' operating systems, is a poor one to learn to hack
in.
Q: Would you help me to crack a system, or teach me how to
crack?
A: No. Anyone who can still ask such a question after
reading this FAQ is too stupid to be educable even if I had
the time for tutoring. Any emailed requests of this kind
that I get will be ignored or answered with extreme
rudeness.
Q: How can I get the password for someone else's account?
A: This is cracking. Go away, idiot.
Q: How can I break into/read/monitor someone else's email?
A: This is cracking. Get lost, moron.
Q: How can I steal channel op privileges on IRC?
A: This is cracking. Begone, cretin.
Q: I've been cracked. Will you help me fend off further
attacks?
A: No. Every time I've been asked this question so far,
it's been from some poor sap running Microsoft Windows. It
is not possible to effectively secure Windows systems
against crack attacks; the code and architecture simply have
too many flaws, which makes securing Windows like trying to
bail out a boat with a sieve. The only reliable prevention
starts with switching to Linux or some other operating
system that is designed to at least be capable of security.
Q: I'm having problems with my Windows software. Will you
help me?
A: Yes. Go to a DOS prompt and type "format c:". Any
problems you are experiencing will cease within a few
minutes.
Q: Where can I find some real hackers to talk with?
A: The best way is to find a Unix or Linux user's group
local to you and go to their meetings (you can find links to
several lists of user groups on the LDP site at Metalab).
(I used to say here that you wouldn't find any real hackers
on IRC, but I'm given to understand this is changing.
Apparently some real hacker communities, attached to things
like GIMP and Perl, have IRC channels now.)
Q: Can you recommend useful books about hacking-related
subjects?
A: I maintain a Linux Reading List HOWTO that you may find
helpful. The Loginataka may also be interesting.
Q: Do I need to be good at math to become a hacker?
A: No. While you do need to be able to think logically and
follow chains of exact reasoning, hacking uses very little
formal mathematics or arithmetic.
In particular, you won't need calculus or analysis (we
leave that stuff to the electrical engineers :-)). Some
grounding in finite mathematics (including Boolean algebra,
finite-set theory, combinatorics, and graph theory) can be
helpful.
Q: What language should I learn first?
A: HTML, if you don't already know it. There are a lot of
glossy, hype-intensive bad HTML books out there, and
distressingly few good ones. The one I like best is HTML:
The Definitive Guide.
But HTML is not a full programming language. When you're
ready to start programming, I would recommend starting with
Python. You will hear a lot of people recommending Perl, and
Perl is still more popular than Python, but it's harder to
learn and (in my opinion) less well designed.
C is really important, but it's also much more difficult
than either Python or Perl. Don't try to learn it first.
Windows users, do not settle for Visual Basic. It will
teach you bad habits, and it's not portable off Windows.
Avoid.
Q: What kind of hardware do I need?
A: It used to be that personal computers were rather
underpowered and memory-poor, enough so that they placed
artificial limits on a hacker's learning process. This
stopped being true some time ago; any machine from an Intel
486DX50 up is more than powerful enough for development
work, X, and Internet communications, and the smallest disks
you can buy today are plenty big enough.
The important thing in choosing a machine on which to learn
is whether its hardware is Linux-compatible (or
BSD-compatible, should you choose to go that route). Again,
this will be true for most modern machines; the only sticky
areas are modems and printers; some machines have
Windows-specific hardware that won't work with Linux.
There's a FAQ on hardware compatibility; the latest version
is here.
Q: Do I need to hate and bash Microsoft?
A: No, you don't. Not that Microsoft isn't loathsome, but
there was a hacker culture long before Microsoft and there
will still be one when Microsoft is history. Any energy you
spend hating Microsoft would be better spent on loving your
craft. Write good code -- that will bash Microsoft quite
sufficiently without polluting your karma.
Q: But won't open-source software leave programmers unable
to make a living?
A: This seems unlikely -- so far, the open-source software
industry seems to be creating jobs rather than taking them
away. If having a program written is a net economic gain
over not having it written, a programmer will get paid
whether or not the program is going to be open-source after
it's done. And, no matter how much "free" software gets
written, there always seems to be more demand for new and
customized applications. I've written more about this at the
Open Source pages.
Q: How can I get started? Where can I get a free Unix?
A: Elsewhere on this page I include pointers to where to
get the most commonly used free Unix. To be a hacker you
need motivation and initiative and the ability to educate
yourself. Start now...
Revision History
Revision 1.7, 23 March 2001, Revised by: esr
Credits
Author: Eric Steven Raymond |