Humour

What makes hackers tick?

T A Balasubramanian on how to become an alpha hacker.

“Do alpha hackers have to be paid high salaries?” you ask.

You, Papyrus Bytewala, CIO of Baffle Corporation, accompanied by Danny DeVito, your CTO and associate, are in conversation with Gene Hackman, CEO of Virus Busters, in one corner of the Techno Over-exposition of Geeks and Gizmos for Lazy Enterprises (TOGGLE), where the Hacker’ s Gold Mine Meet, or HGMM, is in progress.

“Well, the myth is that they are not bothered about money,” says Hackman. “Not really true. Of course, they are fanatical about doing interesting work, but money means freedom to work on whatever you want, and just for that reason, alpha hackers are attracted by fairly good pay. Economically, this is great news for you as a CIO, Papyrus, because it means you don’t have to pay great hackers what they’re actually worth. A great hacker may be a hundred times as productive as an ordinary one, but he will settle for just double the pay. This is partly because great hackers do not know how good they are. It is also because money is not the main kick they want.”

“These guys are unbelievable. So what is their main kick?” says DeVito, grinning.

“Tools,” says Hackman. “Like all artists, hackers enjoy using good tools. To put it another way, good hackers find it deplorable to use bad tools, like a great pianist might deplore a badly tuned piano. They will simply refuse to work on projects with the wrong implements. Now, when it comes to software, when you decide what tools to use for a project, you are making far more than a technical decision—you are taking a headlong plunge into deeply emotional waters. For example, if Baffle has to have some software, you may think it’s a prudent choice to write it in Java. But when you pick a language, you’re also picking a fanatical community. The alpha hackers you pick will have to be those who enjoy Java, and no others. Now this mob may not be as smart as, say, the one you could get to work on a project in, say, Python, which any hacker would rate as superior to Java.”

“Python fanatics, eh? I think this is going to be more fun than I anticipated,” says DeVito, rubbing his hands.

“But its not all fanaticism,” says Hackman, raising his hands. “The hacking community has what anthropologists might call a give-away culture. You gain status and reputation in it not by dominating other people, nor by being attractive, nor by having things other people want. It is about giving things away.”

“And what does a hacker give away?”

“Specifically, you give away your time, your creativity, and the results of your skill. Hackers get their biggest kicks by creating programs that other hackers think are fun or useful, and then giving the program sources away to the whole hacker community to use. The golden hacker rule mandates that if you like a program, you must share it with other people who like it. Which is why alpha hackers insist on using open source software. And loathe the proprietary black boxes like Windoves. They have a great dislike for gorilla-size software sellers who want to divide their users and conquer them, forcing each user to agree not to share with others. They refuse to break solidarity with other users in this way. They will not, under any provocation, sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license agreement.”

“Give me liberty. Say no to the autocrats, eh?” says DeVito.

“Well, Danny, your alpha hacker has another reason to adore open source. Not just because of the freedom, but because it gives more control of the nitty-gritty. Alpha hackers insist on control. This is part of what makes them alpha hackers. If something is broken, they have a burning need to fix it. And it is exactly this persistent, intrusive quality that makes them alphas. You want them to feel this way about the software they write for you. You should not be surprised when they feel the same way about the operating system. They enjoy digging inside it and exploring the anatomy like a surgeon going into an inert body.”

“What happens when you put them in the office space?” you ask. “The little cubicles and desks? The hierarchy?”

“Most big companies think the function of office space is to show off rank or seniority or power, like animals use territorial scent markings. Hackers have a different idea about offices. They use their office as a place to think in, which is something weird in the corporate world.”

“Exactly. Who ever thinks in Baffle’s offices?” says DeVito, looking puzzled. “It’s as noisy as a fish market, and all I ever get to exchange is gossip.”

“Well, if you are going to have hackers in Baffle, their thoughts are just about the only product you would want. So making hackers work in a noisy, distracting environment is like putting them in a food factory where the air is full of germs. All the alpha hackers I know detest the cubicle factories. Just the vision of being plugged into one of those boxes and getting interrupted by gossip and tea sessions is enough to make hackers pack up and leave.”

“So what do we do?” you ask.

“Well, Papyrus, if you want to get any real work done by hackers in cubicles, you have two options: let them work at home, or come in early or late or on a weekend, when no one else is around. Take a look at what they might get done at home, if you want hackers to be productive. At home, alpha hackers arrange everything so they can get the most done. There is no noise or open space with people milling around talking. They work in rooms with proper doors, in cosy, familiar places with friends around. There is some place wide open to walk alone when they need to ponder something over, instead of confinement in glass air-conditioned cages. They have a sofa they can take a nap on when they feel tired, instead of sitting in a daze at their desk, pretending to work. There are no service guys with vacuum cleaners that come roaring every evening in the middle of prime hacking time. There are no meetings or, God forbid, corporate retreats or team-building exercises. And when you glance at what they do on their computer, you would find them using tools they enjoy fiddling with. Instead of Java and Windoves at work, they may be deep in Python and Leanox.”

“So all we have to do is let them work from their homes,” says DeVito, brightly. “Or turn Baffle into a homely neighbourhood with plenty of silent zones, and the alpha hackers will troop in.”

“This makeover would be something too radical even for Baffle, Gene,” you say, eventually.

“Come on, Papyrus, we have to get out of the cosy obscurity shell,” says DeVito, in exasperation. “Here is our one chance to get my grand plan off the ground.”

“And what, if I may ask, would that be?”

“Well, what if we were to get all the CTOs of the world trained into alpha hackerhood and pull them together into one forum—the Organisation of Unstoppable CEO Hackers—or OUCH for short?”

“Indeed, and what would OUCH do?” you inquire, politely.

“Well, if you create an ecosystem of productivity around the world’s best hackers and turn their skills back on the black hats—we would be neutralising the threat of evil hackerhood with good hacking practices. And OUCH could become the rallying cry for easing the pain of hacker attacks everywhere.”

“That’s neat, Danny,” says Hackman, admiringly. “We can give all the OUCH guys green hats and let them loose.”