5 ms·

Ask HN: What skills can a someone develop to become a great hacker?

9 points by thecombjelly 16y ago

I'm developing educational materials on teaching people how to become the best hacker that they can be and I'm interested in what you think are the critical qualities of a great hacker.

seven 16y ago
Being curious.
kloncks 16y ago
Cheesy. But don't give up. Great coders will run into walls all the time. One of my favorite quotes is one by Randy Pausch (author of Last Lecture): "I believe brick walls are there for a reason. They're not there to keep us out. They are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something." Keep that in mind when you're hacking, as you are bound to run into problems. Just roll and keep persevering.
gexla 16y ago
Persistant. Passionate about his/her chosen craft.
- scorchin 16y ago
  Definitely this! I'm passionate about becoming a great hacker and I'm regularly trying to improve my skills in both hardware and software hacking (20/80 split at the moment). My main issue is that I require a lot of structure in terms of the way that I learn, to deal with this I've borrowed "Programming Interview Explained" [ http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Interviews-Exposed-Secrets-Landing/dp/0471383562 http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Interviews-Exposed-Secrets... ] from a friend. It's a fairly short book but outlines what knowledge would be requisite for getting a job at Microsoft back in the early 2000s. I'm going through the book and finding out what knowledge areas are currently lacking and supplementing them with books which are considered to be good for that specific subset of computing. E.g. I found out I was terrible at bit manipulation, so I've bought "Hacker's Delight" [ http://www.hackersdelight.org/ http://www.hackersdelight.org/ ], which is helping in both my software knowledge and hardware knowledge. I figure that this method of learning will likely take me over a year if I limit the supplementing books to just 1 or 2 at most. After that I can go through it again, covering all of the topics that I thought I knew well enough to make sure my knowledge is all up to scratch. TL;DR Persistance is key if you want to gain domain knowledge in your field. I'm taking a backwards approach and using a book to define my learning path.
kasharoo 16y ago
Smoke 3 packs a day. You'll be hacking in no time.
rick_2047 16y ago
have fun
hga 16y ago
A truly great hacker will have enough facility with abstraction and clarity that his code will be understandable by others, including himself 6 months later. He'll program in such a way that he can debug the hard bugs.
pasbesoin 16y ago
Become a hacker: 1) Don't accept the status quo, when you see/imagine a better way. Become a good hacker: 2) Exercise discretion and consideration. Assume you might (will) break stuff -- important stuff -- and design with adequate defenses in mind and demonstrated. Next step? 3) Recognize where and how much risk is present. Don't over-engineer where the cost/benefit leaves it unwarranted or where it is outright counter-productive. You're going to make mistakes at each step. It's a learning process.
JoshCole 16y ago
I don't think I'm a great hacker so I'll pass on answering the question myself and point you to some other resources. - http://norvig.com/21-days.html http://norvig.com/21-days.html - http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html - http://paulgraham.com/gh.html http://paulgraham.com/gh.html (More Than Money)

9 points by thecombjelly 16y ago

I'm developing educational materials on teaching people how to become the best hacker that they can be and I'm interested in what you think are the critical qualities of a great hacker.

seven 16y ago

Being curious.

kloncks 16y ago

Cheesy. But don't give up. Great coders will run into walls all the time. One of my favorite quotes is one by Randy Pausch (author of Last Lecture): "I believe brick walls are there for a reason. They're not there to keep us out. They are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something." Keep that in mind when you're hacking, as you are bound to run into problems. Just roll and keep persevering.

gexla 16y ago

Persistant. Passionate about his/her chosen craft.

scorchin 16y ago
Definitely this! I'm passionate about becoming a great hacker and I'm regularly trying to improve my skills in both hardware and software hacking (20/80 split at the moment). My main issue is that I require a lot of structure in terms of the way that I learn, to deal with this I've borrowed "Programming Interview Explained" [ http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Interviews-Exposed-Secrets-Landing/dp/0471383562 http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Interviews-Exposed-Secrets... ] from a friend. It's a fairly short book but outlines what knowledge would be requisite for getting a job at Microsoft back in the early 2000s. I'm going through the book and finding out what knowledge areas are currently lacking and supplementing them with books which are considered to be good for that specific subset of computing. E.g. I found out I was terrible at bit manipulation, so I've bought "Hacker's Delight" [ http://www.hackersdelight.org/ http://www.hackersdelight.org/ ], which is helping in both my software knowledge and hardware knowledge. I figure that this method of learning will likely take me over a year if I limit the supplementing books to just 1 or 2 at most. After that I can go through it again, covering all of the topics that I thought I knew well enough to make sure my knowledge is all up to scratch. TL;DR Persistance is key if you want to gain domain knowledge in your field. I'm taking a backwards approach and using a book to define my learning path.

kasharoo 16y ago

Smoke 3 packs a day. You'll be hacking in no time.

rick_2047 16y ago

have fun

hga 16y ago

A truly great hacker will have enough facility with abstraction and clarity that his code will be understandable by others, including himself 6 months later. He'll program in such a way that he can debug the hard bugs.

pasbesoin 16y ago

Become a hacker: 1) Don't accept the status quo, when you see/imagine a better way. Become a good hacker: 2) Exercise discretion and consideration. Assume you might (will) break stuff -- important stuff -- and design with adequate defenses in mind and demonstrated. Next step? 3) Recognize where and how much risk is present. Don't over-engineer where the cost/benefit leaves it unwarranted or where it is outright counter-productive. You're going to make mistakes at each step. It's a learning process.

JoshCole 16y ago

I don't think I'm a great hacker so I'll pass on answering the question myself and point you to some other resources. - http://norvig.com/21-days.html http://norvig.com/21-days.html - http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html - http://paulgraham.com/gh.html http://paulgraham.com/gh.html (More Than Money)