I'm thinking of buying your book, but since it is from 2004 I was just wondering if there are any key findings or events that would have dramatically changed your viewpoint on certain of the issues you write about, so I could bear that in mind while reading.<p>Maybe are you planning to release an updated version in the near future?
As way of a cautious recommendation:<p>About a year and a half ago, I was stuck for a week away from home traveling for work. Searching for something to read while I was gone, I popped into an Atlanta Barnes and Noble and futilely tried to find some books which were on my Amazon wish list. Of the five or six I looked for, they didn't seem to have any, save for "Hackers and Painters" (which required a storewide manhunt to track down where exactly they had decided to shelve it).<p>I read it in my hotel room that night and spent the rest of the week enthralled by the thought of quitting my job and working at a startup (either my own, or someone else's). When I got home, I told my girlfriend that I was possibly in the middle of something, and would need to take the next few weeks to decide if I was about to upend my (our) life. She was understandably nonplussed by this discussion.<p>Fast-forward a few weeks and I managed to come back down from the ledge. It may have just been the comfort of home, or the general inertia of a content over-priviledged life; but I reverted back to my previous plans, and set aside the fanciful notion of slaying dragons and working at a startup.<p>So by all means, you should read it. Just be careful about your mindset when you do, lest you also be swept away by notions of ramen dinners and liquidity events. Like a call to the sea, it has the potential to plant itself in your mind and than drive you mad if unheeded. You've been warned.
I just looked through a copy. There's not much I'd change if I were writing those essays today. Obviously e.g. "A Plan for Spam" is obsolete in the sense that the state of the art has moved way past such techniques. Ditto for "The other Road Ahead." But the rest I'd write much the same today.
<a href="http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm</a><p>Probably worth linking to here.<p>While I enjoy pg's writing and I think the essays convey a good message in spirit, I do think there's quite a substantial populist aspect to some of them.<p>I'm glad I read all of them, but if I had to choose, I'd probably get On Lisp in deadtree format first.
I just reread a bunch of the essays. There is very little that needs updating (and later essays address this).<p>I get the sense that PG wrote the essays and that book so they could be read many years in the future. Call it a decade for the timely ones, and much more than that for the rest. A few of the updates would be along the lines of "This needs to change from the future tense." For example, this brief review of the iPhone from 2001:<p><i>With Web-based software, most users won't have to think about anything except the applications they use. All the messy, changing stuff will be sitting on a server somewhere, maintained by the kind of people who are good at that kind of thing. And so you won't ordinarily need a computer, per se, to use software. All you'll need will be something with a keyboard, a screen, and a Web browser. Maybe it will have wireless Internet access. Maybe it will also be your cell phone. Whatever it is, it will be consumer electronics: something that costs about $200, and that people choose mostly based on how the case looks. You'll pay more for Internet services than you do for the hardware, just as you do now with telephones.</i>
I put together this 76-point summary of Hackers and Painters on my blog: <a href="http://www.rosshudgens.com/thoughts-from-paul-graham/" rel="nofollow">http://www.rosshudgens.com/thoughts-from-paul-graham/</a>
This book was an epiphany for me! A colleague lended it to me, I started because the title sounded interesting, but I was thinking "here's another cocky all-knowing hacker type giving out cool advice". Boy, was I wrong. I first read the title essay and the truth of it struck me so much I took the day off (not literally, just hid somewhere where I coulnt be found) and finished the whole thing. That was almost three years ago. I've given quite a number of copies as presents and observed similar reactions. I go back and reread parts of the essays every now and then.<p>A good/bad analogy is a good book (or the good book), most of the advice has <i>very</i> long shelf life.<p>I created my HN account soon afterwards and applied for YC that winter (rejected). I haven't done much in all this time, though. Books can carry you only so far.
I still recommend it and lend it to friends. It's mostly made up of essays from his website, so if you want to avoid spending money, you can get most of the book from simply reading the essays on his site. The age of the essays is not a good reason not to read them, however.
The idea from the book that seems most obsolete to me is that a web startup founder could gain a competitive advantage by using Lisp. (Not that a Lisp might not be the best choice, but your competitors are more likely to be using it too, and if they're not they're using something much closer than they were in 2004.)
I read it a few months back, it's still a good read. PG's blog posts aren't easily dated, as you'll often see posts from 5 years ago linked here on HN.
Technology predictions are very tough. (Look at The Road Ahead - missed the Internet ahead) Anything that survived 7 years should be considered a gem that's beyond technology and more about the humanities. (I mean this in the sense of being non-formulaic)