[blrs]

Yeah, this (article) seems to be totally at odds with the hacker ethic, expressed variously as:

Jon Bentley in Programming Pearls: Column 2.5 "Aha! Algorithms" "Good hackers are a little bit lazy: they sit back and wait for an insight rather than rushing forward with their first idea. That must, of course, be balanced with initiative to code at the proper time. The real skill, though, is knowing the proper time. That judgment comes only with the experience of solving problems and reflecting on their solutions."

Larry Wall in "Three virtues of a programmer" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Wall#Virtues_of_a_program... "1. Laziness - The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find useful, and document what you wrote so you don't have to answer so many questions about it. Hence, the first great virtue of a programmer."

John D Cook in "Why programmers are not paid in proportion to their productivity?" http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2009/12/23/why-programmers-are... "Programmers are most effective when they avoid writing code. They may realize the problem they’re being asked to solve doesn’t need to be solved, that the client doesn’t actually want what they’re asking for. They may know where to find reusable or re-editable code that solves their problem. They may cheat. But just when they are being their most productive, nobody says "Wow! You were just 100x more productive than if you’d done this the hard way. You deserve a raise." At best they say "Good idea!" and go on. It may take a while to realize that someone routinely comes up with such time-saving insights. Or to put it negatively, it may take a long time to realize that others are programming with sound and fury but producing nothing."

[o1iver]

None of these quotes prove your point that the article is "at odds with the hacker ethic". They just prove that you should think (which is also hard work) about what to do instead of just doing whatever comes to you first. Why is that not hard work?

"They may know where to find reusable or re-editable code that solves their problem.": and how do they know that? Probably because they work hard at keeping up with the newest technological developments in different fields...