Painters and hackers

Been reading about hackers and painters.. are we revolutionaries? I think I perhaps prefer the phrase “builders of beautiful things”. Revolutionary sounds a little too much like the propaganda from the Pirates of silicon valley. Maybe my problem is that to aspire to be a revolutionary is to aspire to be noticed by society, while aspiring to make beautiful things is something you kind of do for yourself. Perhaps both are aspirations of immortality, just in different ways. Sounds better than telling my mum that I’m someone who moves bits around lots and lots of tiny wires for a living anyway. :)

I really do like the fact analogy between painting and programming. I’ve long thought that creativity is required to do anything really well, even it is hard for me to imagine someone getting the same thrill from accounting that I sometimes get from coding.