The Journey to Hacker

[nemorathwald]

Reason #1. The ability to get good things done.

The internet is a world I spend a lot of time in. I'll say to a friend "this page of our organization needs to say this instead of that" and they'll direct me to somebody who is a gatekeeper when I'd rather just have the power to Do It. I found out recently from Blasted Bill and phecda that unless the cable company objects, a private consumer could actually host a web site in one's own home on a perfectly normal computer. My cousin iamgeek revealed to me that a "web server" is a piece of software, not hardware. It even comes bundled with Linux!

Not that it does me any good, yet. All too often (such as when I got a paid LJ account and looked at the features) I read jargon like CGI and Apache and PHP which, until yesterday, I assumed to be a special type of computer hardware only available to ISPs. No longer will I slink away in defeat at their mere mention. Not even when the so-called "Beginner's" Guide/Overview to Python contains gibberish like "object-oriented" and "regular expression" in its first few sentences. There's gotta be a class I can take, but how do I choose which one to take when programming, using a UNIX command-line interface, and web administration, all seem to blur together? Where does one of them end and another begin?

Reason #2. Friends.

So there are several problems that learning how to program will eventually solve, someday. But I want to be a hacker, at least an initiate, because wherever all the coolest and most interesting activities are going on, one half is cool and interesting and the other half is unintelligible. This is a sign that I have no earthly business not being a hacker.

Comments

[brendand.livejournal.com]

Probably not what you had in mind, but I'm sure they have shorter seminars, also. And the CC in your area probably has something similar, although the Internet Professional Department at WCC has a seriously good program.

Good luck!