
Developers needed; Hackers need not apply - luccastera
http://blog.jayfields.com/2008/07/developers-needed-hackers-need-not.html
======
davidw
> The second developer receives the assignment and spends the next 30 minutes
> talking to the business to see how the software will be used and what value
> it provides.

He then spends the next three years writing software to import and export CSV
files into various other formats. XML figures heavily in his job. Java is of
course the only programming language allowed, due to corporate rules.

~~~
aneesh
I see your point, but that's a bit extreme.

The example in the article is obviously stretched, but getting feedback on
your work isn't always a bad idea. Getting feedback from users, other hackers,
or from business people can help you understand what your customers want. I'm
not saying you should always follow their advice, but you should definitely
listen and make your own decision. If you're at a small startup where you
don't have business people, listen to your users instead.

~~~
davidw
Stretched? It's stretched like a slinky that doesn't slink any more. It's a
lame article with a false dichotomy, as others have pointed out.

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tx
I think I am giving up on this "hacker" thing, there are just too many
possible meanings and different people perceive it differently, thus it makes
no sense to use the word in real life anymore.

The original, true meaning has been lost: nobody I know uses this word it in's
original context. A "hacker" these days means one of these three:

1\. Programmer (or a manager) who prefers quick&dirty hacks that can't be
maintained and, after accumulating into a critical mass, tend to bring the
overall project progress to a halt.

2\. Someone who breaks into other people computers, steals their personal
porn, collection of cat photos and, of course, credit card numbers.

3\. The other, non-business type of founders of "Internet Startups". Often not
having an MBA, or simply a possession of "Python in 21 days" automatically
qualifies you as a "hacker".

And since majority of people use the word in one of those contexts, I figured
why bother... BTW my cat is a hacker too: his portfolio of hacks is growing
every day.

~~~
rw
Reclaim the word "hacker"!

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swombat
It's a bit of a fallacious argument, based on some dodgy definitions of the
key words. "Hacker" does not equate to "over-engineering-prone developer who
likes to live in his little walled garden".

Part of writing great code that, as a hacker, one can be proud of, is to
understand the purpose of the code. Otherwise, there's no way to tell whether
the code is great.

In fact, in my experience, "Developers" (as opposed to hackers... if such an
opposition is warranted) are the ones who are likely to over-engineer a
solution by building things they think are needed (because they're hinted at
in the waterfall-produced spec) rather than questioning every single
requirement directly themselves and then producing a much smaller piece of
code that does what the business actually needs, rather than what they said
they needed.

What he's saying, in fact, is that he prefers developers who are capable of
doing analysis work to those who aren't.

~~~
raganwald
"he prefers developers who are capable of doing analysis work to those who
aren't"

Thanks, far better way to put it than the OP. And Alan Perlis agrees:
_Programmers are not to be measured by their ingenuity and their logic but by
the completeness of their case analysis._

[http://www-pu.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de/users/klaeren/epig...](http://www-
pu.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de/users/klaeren/epigrams.html)

------
henning
> The second developer receives the assignment and spends the next 30 minutes
> talking to the business to see how the software will be used and what value
> it provides. After he's gotten the information he needs he says thanks, but
> instead of letting him leave, the CTO offers him the job on the spot.

Ah, he has learned the Joel Spolsky secret: with contrived examples, you can
prove anything.

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rewind
This article is like writing about white and black and pretending that there's
no such thing as grey. Ninety-nine percent of hackers/developers would have
attributes that put them in both categories to varying degrees (by almost any
definition you care to give the two terms). By the way, since when did
"hacker" start meaning "no real-world development skills"?

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LogicHoleFlaw
Hmm. The hacker / developer dichotomy being set up here just doesn't stand up
to scrutiny. At least for the values of "Hacker" with which I am familiar. I
definitely consider myself a hacker. But I also know (and practice!) the value
of working with the people who will actually use my software, so that I can
make them happy. One memorable moment for me was the gratitude I received from
a user who had made a request for a small feature. It was only an afternoon's
work for me, but it saved her one week a month in make-work. Requirements
analysis is a given in my mind for true hackers. Make something people want.

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defunkt
So... hackers create startups and developers work happily in the corporate
world? I'm fine with that.

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mrkurt
So they had one guy who didn't ask any upfront questions, but delivered
something. They have another guy who did ask upfront questions, but didn't
deliver anything. Why choose the second over the first?

~~~
qwph
_Why choose the second over the first?_

To give Blub programmers the warm-and-fuzzies, one assumes...

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sysop073
I hate the presumption that "real" developers need to know how to distill
requirements. That's what you learn in school, but it isn't necessarily true,
it depends entirely on where you work. I never talk to customers where I work,
and generally for the requirements we decide as developers we do as a group,
we don't need to trick non-techs into telling us what they really want.
Somebody at every company is going to have to do this, but it doesn't
necessarily have to be the developers

~~~
orib
The developers still have to interact with people to figure out what they need
to create. The people that they're extracting the information from may still
be techies, but determining what you need to build is still key.

And this is where I think the article falls flat on it's face -- In my
opinion, I think one of the key features of being a hacker is the ability to
look at a situation, analyze what you need to build, and come up with a
minimal and elegant solution within the constraints that you determined. That
requires communication and analysis.

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omouse
Stop poisoning Hacker News with crap articles filled with logical fallacies.
_Flagged_.

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tlrobinson
Being a hacker and asking simple requirements questions aren't mutually
exclusive.

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johntabet
Attacking the word "hacker" will definitely get response from the YC
community. I think the YC community at large is in love with calling
themselves "hackers".

~~~
cawel
It is sad that this discussion is about the definition of the term 'hacker',
instead of the article's topic: some programmers care about the business core
(a concept also touched on by Eric Evans (DDD)) while some others don't.

It is a good reminder, as often we're going too deep into the rabbit hole
while writing code, forgetting in so doing the real business requirement.

Working on the business core resonates with Agile principles.

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dhotson
I wonder if the second developer could write FizzBuzz...

