how to be a hacker
DESCRIPTION
If you want to build cool stuff and not just be a code monkey in a cubicle, then I recommend you start hacking today.This is my intro talk for Yahoo's HackU program.TRANSCRIPT
HOW TO BE A HACKER
Paul Tarjan’s
WHAT IS A HACKER
Dreamer
Coder
Hacker
Sign me up! Now that we’re on the same page, lets talk
about hackers Many types of hackers. Lets talk computer
hackers. (NOT CRACKERS). Many types of computer hackers :
HardwareSecuritySoftwareWeb
Specifically: Web hackers
THINGS YOU SHOULD BE DOING NOW
Buy a domain name 2 beers - $7.50 http://www.retailmenot.com/view/godaddy.c
om paulisageek.com Infinite Emails : [email protected] OpenID : http://paulisageek.com Project Hosting :
http://paulisageek.com/ppp Google does mail forwarding :
http://www.google.com/apps/
Build a homepage
Learn HTML + CSS + JS Create your web presence Link to your other stuff rel=“me”
Run a *nix box
Apache MySQL Samba / NFS Outbound SMTP to your domain Subdomain : home.paulisageek.com dyndns.org for dynamic ips
Learn lots of languages
At least one of each type Ones I use everyday
Scripting : python, bashWeb : PHP, python, SQLClient Side : Javascript, CSS, HTMLSpeed : C, C++, Java
Fun problems to learn : http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems
Opensource
Give your code to the world Easy to link to Good for archiving Get known! Make friends! Better than a resume I use – github Others recommend - Google Code
LETS HACK SOMETHINGAzeroth
Ok, that’s a bit big
Who would win in a WoW duel? Many ways to architect. I’m doing it this
way to teach Javascript and YQL
Firefox YQL wowarmory
2 x character + server Fetch character info
Return XMLJSON
We’ll do it live!
Git Linux Apache MySQL PHP http://paulisageek.com/hacku/
TCP/IP
DNS
HTTP
Linux
Apache
SQL
PHP
URL/URI
Free-ish Hosting
App engine EC2 Find an old machine and run it in your
dorm dyndns.org
Microformats
microformats.org Use known classnames for known types <a class=“fn”>
REST
JSON + YAML
IDEAS
Search Engine
Crawler Indexer Webmap Ranking function Runtime system Web frontend
Games
Client side – directx, opengl Web based – ikarium Flash – kongregate.com Great experience and people will
actually use it
Opensource
Find a opensource thing you use Join the mailing list Report some bugs Fix some bugs that bother you Add some features that you want
Other
Find something you need and build it so others can use it too