tkusak's blog

  Both Linus’s upbringing and the story of creating Linux are eccentric, but inspiring. I most definitely did not have a similar upbringing, as my parents certainly limited how much time my siblings and I would spend on technology. I think I spoke about it in a previous blog post, but the story of Bill Gates (I read about it in Outliers ) seems to resemble Linus’s pretty closely. I have definitely heard a lot of (ignorant) people say that guys like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg were just “lucky” and struck gold with their innovations. But when you really dive into the background of guys like Gates, Zuckerberg, and in this case, Linus, you realize that there was nothing lucky about their creations. All were incredibly gifted programmers and, as Linus writes, he was a geek who spent all his time behind a computer. Similarly, I recall Bill Gates had a unique upbringing where he had the opportunity to use a pretty powerful computer at a private university before that was normal. In ...

  I think this collection of essays continues to build upon ESR’s ideas in the “Homesteading the Noosphere,” as well as furthered my understanding of economics surrounding open source software. After last week’s reading, I still had questions about the profitability of open source software. After all, if the code is open source, how can you even make money off of it? Well, ESR argues that there is more value in selling services on top of your open source software than selling the software itself. He defends this claim by stating that 95% of software (can someone fact-check this number?) is written for in-house use, meaning that it is developed by a firm/group/individual for themselves. He goes on to further say that the software market needs to be a service industry, and not a manufacturing one, as that is essential for sustainable and efficient software economics. Now this, I can get behind. After all, ESR mentions the ephemeral nature of software, so naturally it makes sense for ...

  ESR has written quite the collection of essays here. While the main focus of his essays (I think) is the nature of open-source software and the various motivations of its members, it almost seems as if he is making broader generalizations about human nature itself. I think the subject of open source is a tough one for me to grapple with. A lot of the books I have read - particularly Malcolm Gladwell and Freakonomics - center around the idea that actions stem from incentives. Essentially, any action that was committed was committed with an incentive in mind, which is often a financial incentive. I don’t think this is an outlandish take, after all, we do live in a capitalistic society which benefits from the incentive to make money (similar to the way the game hackers were motivated by greed). So, before reading this essay, it was sometimes tough for me to understand why people were motivated to contribute to open source communities. Now, it makes sense when people want a specifi...

  ’ll start off by saying I think there is a lot of value in ESR’s list of lessons for creating good software. I honestly think it extends beyond just software development - there are numerous times I can think back to solving an algorithms or theory homework problem, and realize halfway through my solution that I didn’t even truly understand what the question was asking until I got halfway through (Lesson #3, #12). As I have moved throughout my career as a computer science major, I have begun to see the truth of each one of these lessons - some more than others. But I still wonder, is this the ideal roadmap towards software development? And that’s one of the core questions I am asked to consider in this blog post: comparing the cathedral and bazaar models of development.  At my internship post-sophomore year, I spent every morning in scrum meetings, and spent hours every few weeks in large, sprint planning meetings. I was restricted from making edits to other developers' co...

  I have done a complete 180 on Paul Graham. After reading the first set of essays written by him, particularly “Why Nerds Are Unpopular,” I got the impression that he was the type of person to blame everyone except himself when misfortune strikes. After reading “How to Make Wealth,” I have to step back and apologize for my misjudgement.  I used to think the quote “hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard,” was a cliche, but as I’ve progressed throughout my life, meeting various groups of individuals in different settings and organizations, I have begun to see the validity in the adage. So much so, that I believe “hard-working-ness” is the most valuable trait someone can possess (if we are looking at succeeding financially, politically, educationally, etc. If we are talking about the most important trait in general, I would argue kindness, but that’s a different story). I am a big fan of Malcolm Gladwell, as I believe his books, essays, podcasts, and other publis...

  I really enjoyed the core messages of the essays for Writing 05. While I still get the sense that Paul Graham has a chip on his shoulder, at least in these essays he did make sweeping statements attacking the pillars of American society. Instead, he picked a topic he has a lot of experience in, and gave his personal opinion on it (which ironically, is the message he is trying to convey).  I do not know if I am qualified to truly judge most of the content from this week’s reading, considering: I have only really coded in mainstream languages (Python, Java, C#, C) Have little experience working in a start-up environment So take whatever I say with a grain of salt.  I’ll start by saying I really appreciated the message of “Beating the Averages.” A lot of what he said was common sense, but it needed to be said. The message of it “being a mistake to program in anything but the most powerful language” is inherently true, but I think a lot of people look past it. If you wa...