> I view the events as an experiment in subverting power structures. I had none of the traditional power over others that is inherent to the structure of corporations and bureaucracies. I had neither budget nor headcount. I answered to no one, and no one had to do anything I asked. Dozens of people collaborated spontaneously, motivated by loyalty, friendship, or the love of craftsmanship. We were hackers, creating something for the sheer joy of making it work.
This is one of my favorite programming anecdotes of all time. I have probably read it more than a dozen times. And I plan to keep re-reading it. The story highlights the mindset of hacker that is hard to communicate to regular folks—the simple joy of making things. And why they would hole themselves in their room to make random shit for no good reason.
I remember being always like that. But it seems the ambition of making it big has infected my passion. For anything I want to build, I am obsessed with the possibility of monetizing it. The story of SaaS millionaires only reinforces the thought process. I remember this never being a question when I first started programming. Maybe that's just curse of seniority. I do wonder if it's possible to get back to doing things just for "the love of craftsmanship."
> I remember being always like that. But it seems the ambition of making it big has infected my passion. For anything I want to build, I am obsessed with the possibility of monetizing it. The story of SaaS millionaires only reinforces the thought process. I remember this never being a question when I first started programming. Maybe that's just curse of seniority. I do wonder if it's possible to get back to doing things just for "the love of craftsmanship."
This is me as well.
I am currently learning Common Lisp and it has brought a whole new joy to learning a language. As I am learning it and trying to write the tightest code possible I think about the craftsmanship aspect.
Once I get to a point where I can write "real" applications using CL I hope to start "scratching my own itch" with it. But first I gotta find an itch!
someone asked HN about performance mindset a work, I think he kinda meant this. And I've been looking for such groups to join. I also believe most humans need this but society/market push us toward insecure job seeking.
> I had been paid to do a job, and I wanted to finish it. My electronic badge still opened Apple's doors, so I just kept showing up.
Wait, so... was he getting paid?
> We got resources that would never have been available to us had we been on the payroll.
So... no? Seems like this whole process was maybe only a couple months though?
Aha
> Why did Greg and I do something so ludicrous as sneaking into an eight-billion-dollar corporation to do volunteer work? Apple was having financial troubles then, so we joked that we were volunteering for a nonprofit organization. In reality, our motivation was complex. Partly, the PowerPC was an awesome machine, and we wanted to show off what could be done with it; in the Spinal Tap idiom, we said, "OK, this one goes to eleven." Partly, we were thinking of the storytelling value. Partly, it was a macho computer guy thing - we had never shipped a million copies of software before. Mostly, Greg and I felt that creating quality educational software was a public service. We were doing it to help kids learn math. Public schools are too poor to buy software, so the most effective way to deliver it is to install it at the factory.
This could definitely never happen today, for so many reasons. Which is a bit sad honestly.
> Dozens of people collaborated spontaneously, motivated by loyalty, friendship, or the love of craftsmanship. We were hackers, creating something for the sheer joy of making it work.
When and if you get a chance to participate in such a collaborative project, I think it is one of the most meaningful things available to do.
> This could definitely never happen today, for so many reasons. Which is a bit sad honestly.
In 1994, the internet wasn’t ubiquitous. Today they could have released it free on the App Store for Mac and iOS or for Mac just throw it on a web page.
True. And it would be more likely that the authors would be hoping/planning on making a lot of money from the app in the app store.
There is something very romantic (I'm not sure the significance beyond this) about the story of a rag tag bunch of people at Apple (most of whom were actually on Apple payroll, "stealing" their time) coming together for a passion project, not with get rich dreams. And somehow pulling it off.
What are the chances that type of story could be repeated today? Seems pretty unlikely, but corporations are in some ways 'dumb' and we do base a lot of our society on trust.
At Apple? None whatsoever. It was a surprising fluke that even in the Apple of 1993. It only succeeded because so many people helped. That Apple was beleaguered at the time may have given employees a certain devil-may-care attitude towards their own job security and a willing to cross certain lines to assist us or look the other way.
Graphing Calculator was incredibly helpful for me when I was learning Calculus in school since it let me visualize everything I was learning interactively. Grapher just isn’t the same!
I have read this story quite a few times, but I just realized that the default Grapher app on macOS is not the same as the Graphing Calculator. I was inspired by the demos and the story to buy the latter (on the mac App Store) even though I don't have any immediate use for it!
> I view the events as an experiment in subverting power structures. I had none of the traditional power over others that is inherent to the structure of corporations and bureaucracies. I had neither budget nor headcount. I answered to no one, and no one had to do anything I asked. Dozens of people collaborated spontaneously, motivated by loyalty, friendship, or the love of craftsmanship. We were hackers, creating something for the sheer joy of making it work.
This is one of my favorite programming anecdotes of all time. I have probably read it more than a dozen times. And I plan to keep re-reading it. The story highlights the mindset of hacker that is hard to communicate to regular folks—the simple joy of making things. And why they would hole themselves in their room to make random shit for no good reason.
I remember being always like that. But it seems the ambition of making it big has infected my passion. For anything I want to build, I am obsessed with the possibility of monetizing it. The story of SaaS millionaires only reinforces the thought process. I remember this never being a question when I first started programming. Maybe that's just curse of seniority. I do wonder if it's possible to get back to doing things just for "the love of craftsmanship."
> I remember being always like that. But it seems the ambition of making it big has infected my passion. For anything I want to build, I am obsessed with the possibility of monetizing it. The story of SaaS millionaires only reinforces the thought process. I remember this never being a question when I first started programming. Maybe that's just curse of seniority. I do wonder if it's possible to get back to doing things just for "the love of craftsmanship."
This is me as well.
I am currently learning Common Lisp and it has brought a whole new joy to learning a language. As I am learning it and trying to write the tightest code possible I think about the craftsmanship aspect.
Once I get to a point where I can write "real" applications using CL I hope to start "scratching my own itch" with it. But first I gotta find an itch!
someone asked HN about performance mindset a work, I think he kinda meant this. And I've been looking for such groups to join. I also believe most humans need this but society/market push us toward insecure job seeking.
> I had been paid to do a job, and I wanted to finish it. My electronic badge still opened Apple's doors, so I just kept showing up.
Wait, so... was he getting paid?
> We got resources that would never have been available to us had we been on the payroll.
So... no? Seems like this whole process was maybe only a couple months though?
Aha
> Why did Greg and I do something so ludicrous as sneaking into an eight-billion-dollar corporation to do volunteer work? Apple was having financial troubles then, so we joked that we were volunteering for a nonprofit organization. In reality, our motivation was complex. Partly, the PowerPC was an awesome machine, and we wanted to show off what could be done with it; in the Spinal Tap idiom, we said, "OK, this one goes to eleven." Partly, we were thinking of the storytelling value. Partly, it was a macho computer guy thing - we had never shipped a million copies of software before. Mostly, Greg and I felt that creating quality educational software was a public service. We were doing it to help kids learn math. Public schools are too poor to buy software, so the most effective way to deliver it is to install it at the factory.
This could definitely never happen today, for so many reasons. Which is a bit sad honestly.
> Dozens of people collaborated spontaneously, motivated by loyalty, friendship, or the love of craftsmanship. We were hackers, creating something for the sheer joy of making it work.
When and if you get a chance to participate in such a collaborative project, I think it is one of the most meaningful things available to do.
> This could definitely never happen today, for so many reasons. Which is a bit sad honestly.
In 1994, the internet wasn’t ubiquitous. Today they could have released it free on the App Store for Mac and iOS or for Mac just throw it on a web page.
It would have been harder to get noticed though.
True. And it would be more likely that the authors would be hoping/planning on making a lot of money from the app in the app store.
There is something very romantic (I'm not sure the significance beyond this) about the story of a rag tag bunch of people at Apple (most of whom were actually on Apple payroll, "stealing" their time) coming together for a passion project, not with get rich dreams. And somehow pulling it off.
Previously discussed
2010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1584501
2004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16780276
Still very entertaining story about a calculator app for the mac, that the programmer finished despite not working there anymore…
... and (2004) should be in the title...
There is video of him telling the story at a Google Tech Talk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl643JFJWig
And a followup of it on twitter, the graphing calculator with AR
https://twitter.com/RonAvitzur/status/1250520615993270272
Ironically the video is from Google's main channel, and not from 'Talks at Google'.
Btw, I wrote that, Ask Me Anything.
What are the chances that type of story could be repeated today? Seems pretty unlikely, but corporations are in some ways 'dumb' and we do base a lot of our society on trust.
At Apple? None whatsoever. It was a surprising fluke that even in the Apple of 1993. It only succeeded because so many people helped. That Apple was beleaguered at the time may have given employees a certain devil-may-care attitude towards their own job security and a willing to cross certain lines to assist us or look the other way.
Thanks for sharing.
Graphing Calculator was incredibly helpful for me when I was learning Calculus in school since it let me visualize everything I was learning interactively. Grapher just isn’t the same!
I have read this story quite a few times, but I just realized that the default Grapher app on macOS is not the same as the Graphing Calculator. I was inspired by the demos and the story to buy the latter (on the mac App Store) even though I don't have any immediate use for it!
Amy O'Leary tells my favorite version of this story on This American Life:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/284/should-i-stay-or-should...