This was an awesome book. The title is misleading because when that autor says hacker he means programmer but it talks about way more than that. The author was one of the starters of Viaweb which was bought by Yahoo and now know as Yahoo store. The First chapter is called Why nerds are unpopular and Paul's explanation is one of the best I've read/heard on the subject. The book covers subjects from prejudice to writing your programing language. Throughout the book he constantly promotes lisp as the most powerful programing language. It is one of the oldest high-level language only preceded by Fortran and yet Ruby is only current language close to it in power and what you can do with it. One of my favorite parts is when he talks about what maybe the downfall of Microsoft, Server based software. He suggests that we should focusing less desktop applications and more on programs that are accessed through the web. Things Like Kerm's mt3 converter, SC2, and SAX. Things that all you need is a web browser to use in fact Paul Graham was one of the first people to use that system. after reading his book I agree, web-based software is the way to go. He talks a lot about the differences in programing languages and pick them apart and this is basically what he said. Javascript<Perl<Python<Ruby or Lisp(he said Lisp is better than Ruby but also that they are very similar) He mentions other languages but those are the main ones he talked about. The Book is full of humor and yet touches on many issues. I feel any person weather they program or not to read this book. It is very thought provoking and is a must read.


p.s. Java is still evil and will remain evil until Sun goes out of business....