思考与写作idlewords.com
半吊子与吹牛者：黑客并不像画家（2005）
"Dabblers and Blowhards" - hackers are nothing like painters [2005]
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导读
这是 Maciej Cegłowski（idlewords）2005 年发表的一篇长文，逐条拆解 Paul Graham 在《Hackers and Painters》中提出的「黑客像画家」类比：他指出画家要临摹大师、研习美术史、在传统媒介中工作，而黑客的日常与此几乎毫无交集，这个类比经不起细看。文章同时批评 Graham 的写作喜欢用漂亮但空泛的对照，并推荐了一批更扎实的艺术与计算机科学读物。
为什么经久不衰：它是对硅谷最有影响力的隐喻之一最锋利、最诚实的反驳，二十年后仍是「用类比代替论证」的经典解毒剂，而且文章的讽刺笔法本身就读得过瘾。
HN 评论精选
隐喻的目的是启发而非严谨论证，反论本身未必比原书更有启发。
不管怎样，Graham 把黑客和画家并置，作为一个启发性隐喻是成功的，毕竟他自己说这本书的目的是「向世人解释计算机世界里发生了什么」。话说回来，你这篇反论能像他那本书一样激发读者的想象、带来同样多的洞见吗？我从你的文章里得到的收获是：对艺术与计算机科学之相似性感兴趣的人，有更好的书可读，这信息有用——但我手头有《哥德尔、艾舍尔、巴赫》，那可不是轻松读物。也许你说得对，《黑客与画家》不该和你提到的那些书并列，但那些书的作者写东西的意图大概也不一样。
jamesmcintyre查看英文原文
Regardless it seems Graham drawing a synthesis between hackers and painters worked well as a generative metaphor to accomplish what he explained the books purpose was: "This book is an attempt to explain to the world at large what goes on in the world of computers." In the end can your antithesis exercise as many readers' imaginations and share as much insight as his book has? What I got from your blog post is that there are better books for one interested in the similarities between art and computer science and that is helpful information but I own a copy of Gödel, Escher, Bach and it's certainly not a light read. Maybe your right, "Hackers and Painters" doesn't belong in the same category as the other books you mentioned but then the authors of those books probably had different intentions for their material.
指出作者与 Graham 曾在 HN 直接辩论，并认为 Graham 赢了。
PG 和 idlewords 在评论区正面交过手：http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=984475 。在我看来 PG 明显占了上风。
bokonist查看英文原文
PG and idlewords had it out in the comment section here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=984475 PG definitely gets the best of the argument, IMO.
程序有实用目的，更接近数学而非绘画：美在于精妙结果的持久性，但也无「正道」可言。
我给它投票，是因为作者看待编程的方式刺痛了我。值得记住的是，「黑客」通常并不讨人喜欢，甚至一些自称从事此行的人也如此。先说目的：除了艺术类软件（我想 Graham 指的不是这个），所有程序都是为了完成某种任务。我猜这人是 Java 程序员？……如果程序跑不起来，没人在乎代码多漂亮。……要么就是 Perl。……比如，伟大的画作能让你上床，伟大的程序从来不能。混蛋……PG 本可以提及数学与黑客的相似性。我觉得两者共有的是精心打造的结果背后那种内在之美。真正优美的结果（比如 Lisp 里原创的自打印程序）能经受时间考验，像一条普遍真理。所以程序不像厨师做的蛋，甚至不像工程师造的保时捷。另一面是：写程序没有「正道」，甚至没有真正的「真理」概念，美在观者眼中。作为程序员我唯一的约束是（1）别把内存用完，（2）别把钱用完（否则我就得 quit 去干「正经工作」）。有人觉得混淆过的 C 代码是艺术，而我这种函数式编程的人会因有人用那鬼语言写东西而开除他……
baguasquirrel查看英文原文
I thought this was worth upvoting because I was stung by how the author views programming. It's worth remembering that "hacking" is typically ill-liked, even by some of those claiming to practice it. Start with purpose. With the exception of art software projects (which I don't believe Graham has in mind here) all computer programs are designed to accomplish some kind of task. I suppose this guy is a Java programmer?... No one cares how pretty the code is if the program won't work. ...that or Perl. Great paintings, for example, get you laid in a way that great computer programs never do. #%$hole... PG could have alluded to the similarity between Math and hacking. The thing that I feel both share is that there is an underlying beauty to a well-crafted result. Truly beautiful results (like original self-printing program in Lisp) withstand the test of time, like a universal truth. Thus a program is not like an egg made by a chef, or even a Porsche made by an engineer. The flip side is that there's no "way" to write a program. There actually isn't even really a notion of truth. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The only constraint I have as a programmer is to (1) not run out of memory and (2) not run out dough (which would force me to quit hacking and get a "real job"). There are some people who think that obfuscated C is art, and there's FP folks like me who would fire someone for writing anything in that godawful language (Which might be unfair. People should only be fired for writing Java on the job). I think this is pretty strong support in favor or programming as an art. The other piece of evidence I cite is that the academic form of hacking is called Computer Science and we know what they say about anything that has the word "Science" in it... Basically, the only premise of idleword's argument that holds up is that artists get laid and programmers don't. I will resist fighting fire with fire on this point. But maybe PG should allude to poets or composers next time. Apparently some painters are real jerks.
如果黑客真像画家，两者的人群重叠应该很多，但现实中黑客更多与音乐家重叠。
我一直觉得把黑客比作画家聚焦得太窄了。虽然我认为这篇文章（它很老了，至于它对今天 PG 的作品更成立还是更不成立，取决于你多大程度同意它）走过了头、没抓住要点。我觉得《黑客与画家》真正可以被挑刺的地方是：既是黑客又是画家的人实在太少了。事实上我只认识一个：PG。而我认识的音乐家黑客有几十个，作家黑客有四个（哦等等……PG 算第五个）。如果这两类人真的如此相似，应当有大量重叠，可我看到的极少。但如果把「有创造性、系统性强、有挑战性的追求」当作整体来看，重叠就多得多了（音乐家与黑客的重叠尤其明显，超过任何其他此类追求）。也许因为我既搞音乐又写代码，所以我像既是画家又是黑客的 PG 一样，在自己的两种爱好之间看到联系。当你审视自己的好恶时，一切都很自洽，但别人无法真正理解你在爱好中看到的东西。
SwellJoe查看英文原文
I've always felt the painters connection was too tightly focused, though I think this essay (which is ancient, and would either be more true of pg's work today or less depending on how much you agree with it) goes overboard and manages to miss the point. The bone that I do think can be picked with Hackers and Painters is that there just aren't very many hackers who are also painters. In fact, I only know one: pg. I know literally dozens of hackers who are musicians and four who are writers (oh, wait...pg makes it five). It seems to me that if the two categories of people were so alike, there would be significant overlap, but there is very little that I'm aware of. If you take "creative, systematic, and challenging pursuits" as a whole, however, you begin to see a lot more overlap (and again, musicians overlap a lot with hackers, moreso than any other "creative, systematic, and challenging pursuit"). Maybe because I'm a musician and a hacker (by some definition of "musician" and "hacker") I'm seeing all of these connections in the same way that pg, who is a painter and a hacker, sees connections between his two loves. It all makes sense when you're looking at your own likes and dislikes, but nobody else will really understand exactly what you see in your hobbies.
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