Hacker News Reader

Comment by rednum | Hacker News Reader

There are some problems with rendering this text in Chromium - words around some of the punctuation overlap. Also, I think that ESR's guide is much more informative: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

The OP omits some of the points I consider important - problem-solving attitude, low level programming, learning unix. Also I think that starting with both Python and Ruby is a bit strange idea - they are really similar (in almost every way I can think of) and such course of learning may cause some confusion (e.g. which pieces of syntax belong to which language?).

View on HN

"starting with both Python and Ruby is a bit strange idea"

This suggestion is precisely interesting, because while we might consider them close they solve problems differently in many cases. The one hacker lesson to learn of this (besides the fact that programming can be enjoyable by gazillion orders of magnitudes than with "corporate" languages) is that while bad solutions do exist, there might also be competing but perfectly valid solutions and that one being good does not mean that everything else is bad.

I was going to respond to a few things, but you linked to ESR's guide, the most condescending guide to hacking I know. Anyone who links to this guide seriously is usually not going to be swayed by even the best arguments.

Not that your response is condescending, or anything.

Indeed - it's amazing how ESR has managed to convince so many people that the ultimate hacker is... Someone who is just like ESR.

I'd be more than happy to hear your arguments. Perhaps I am missing some points you could show me clearly? Your original post lacked some explanation behind what you mean by word hacking itself and while at first kind of dismissed your post with ESR, I would like to know what do you think hacking is about? (As esr's text guided me somehow, your comment made me think i may actually be missing something)

    I think that starting with both Python and Ruby is 
    a bit strange idea - they are really similar (in almost
    every way I can think of)

Exactly the point. They are so similar that the transition from one to the next is easier than most other languages. Once you have an easy transition students will notice similar patterns. "Oh, looping. Hey, this is something that happens in both languages."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com