MULTIQUOTE!
(this is possibly going to be a really boring post, hopefully the OP has had his use from the thread already, though the derail happened a long time ago)
Isaac wrote:Probably to those who write code for Windows, I think. Editing other's code would break a lot of licensing rules. In Linux you can fix what ever you need.
That's an open-source vs. proprietary issue more than anything else - I think there are examples of both for each OS (although finding proprietary software written for Linux distributions is probably a lot harder).
Jeff250 wrote:In lieu of there being a word that would function as an alternative, I think that that's unfortunate. Because of your DBB avatar, I'm curious: do you work at Microsoft? I suppose that a lack of a hacker culture at Redmond only serves my point that Google attracts more hackers. And, if you're Microsoft, I think that that's a problem.
OK, a little more detail: there are still terms people use to refer to someone with prodigious skills in programming-related fields that I
have heard more often, but they seem to often be more specific, e.g. I recall someone referring to someone else as a "debugging ninja" or something like that, and the word "guru" has been tossed around now and again as well, or even "xyz god" for people who are probably quite well renowned for their expertise. "Hacker" isn't something I've heard used in quite the same way.
What it
has seemed to refer to, in a less bogeyman-style way (i.e. before the media had much input, in the mid-90s internet or so) is a kind of underground counter-culture that gets its kicks out of breaking software. ("Breaking" in the very loose sense; just any of a number of techniques to make it behave in ways the designer didn't expect.) You didn't really think of hackers as
designing their own software, except sometimes tools they would later use to break something else.
All of the above is anecdotes based on my own experience, but it might hopefully explain why the talk about "you need hackers to be successful" seemed to me to come so far out of left field. My immediate reaction was something akin to "Huh? How are
they going to help?".
That experience might be partially limited, though most of the people I've known in the IT field in past are not doing stuff (specifically at least) for Windows - I would say the majority work in Java, which is pretty much platform-agnostic. The most common other areas are things like web development, a few work with Linux, some do game development... but it's possible that
deep in the Linux field (I haven't ever gotten involved in serious OSS communities for instance) the culture is radically different. I ... don't think that's a very major segment of the IT industry though, if things like Java and VB/.NET are as popular as the surveys say they are.
Now, the Microsoft question. It wasn't part of my point, but we've come this far, so why not?
Short answer is yes; though I picked this avatar chiefly because it's round and I thought something seriously uncool (the button comes from Vista I think) would be amusing, it's probably fair enough to say the idea occurred to me because of that.
Regarding the rest of your post... it's important to distinguish between having a "hacker culture" (going with what I believe you intend the term to mean here) and whether you call them "hackers". It's absolutely true that there isn't a lot of "hacker" terminology thrown around at Microsoft (as far as I can tell; it's a very big company, as I'm sure you know). I don't think that says a lot about the culture of the company though.
In fact, there really isn't one "culture" to speak of - again, Microsoft is so large that the different parts can be exceptionally diverse. There are people working on Mac software, and they may well think different (har har) from the Windows folks. There are also people who work in open-source technologies (yes, really). Then there's the web side of things, and consumer devices, and they all have to operate in different ways, they have different practices, etc etc. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the culture of each segment is closer to the norm for that field than the rest of the company... e.g. the open-source/web type guys might not be all that different from the people at Google.
From what I have direct experience with, though, I wouldn't say it's true that Microsoft doesn't value highly talented people with interests in poking around with their computers, trying to figure out how each last little bit works (to the extent that's possible of course - nobody can know
everything) - actually that sort of thing is practically encouraged. It doesn't mean everyone there will have that sort of "hacker vibe" to them - but you don't have to have that to be valuable. People who like to talk to customers and understand their problems can be just as valuable as a technical expert, because they help ensure that the software said experts design is actually relevant to the customers' problems.
Of course, if "lack of a hacker culture" means "Microsoft's offices aren't like Slashdot but in real life", that's pretty much true. I don't think much of what's missing would actually be helpful, though.
The Google part of the picture is interesting. From memory they actually don't hire as many people per year, but that's because they're (for now) a smaller company, and don't need as many people. There is also the question of whether said recruits are "hackers"... assuming that means "A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular", well. There's no way to do anything other than speculate on that unless you took a poll of the developers asking "do you delight in...?". I have heard anecdotes about the relative quality of the developers, though - there have been people who have worked at both companies, ...
(spent about an hour trying to find some particular guy that was enlightening, failed... oh well)
Anyway, the general gist of what was said was something like - they are more or less equivalent, but it's quite possible the different practices and philosophies at Google make them more productive. (The practices at Microsoft are not monolithic either, I should note; it depends on the sector each division operates in.) What definitely
is true is that Google is a more "sexy" place to work for new college graduates in America. That might be why Microsoft is employing so many people from overseas now (Google does this too, but not nearly in such numbers). Overall, the differences between the calibres of the programmers are not enough to set them apart. It comes down to strategy, management, marketing, that kind of thing.
Which pretty much answers the last part of the post.
Microsoft does have plenty of problems to deal with, but it's not starved of people who know what they're doing. There is always room to grow most teams so they can work faster, of course, but the entire IT industry is experiencing shortages of people.
I've spent much, much too long on this post... hope it helped in
some way...
