dchoung

Hackers & Painters is a good book. You have to keep in mind though, that it is actually a collection of essays, and not a typical start-to-end type of book. So, if some of the topics might seem a bit disjointed or don't seem to flow well from one to the other, it makes sense once you realize this fact.

Having said that, the main topics the book goes through seem to be:

• Why nerds are nerds
• What's a startup all about
• Programming languages

He also has an essay on dealing with spam that is equally interesting, but doesn't seem to fall under any of the 3 larger topics.

I found all 3 areas were more than sufficient to keep me interested and reading. The last section, about programming languages, was filled with lots of details on the history of languages, especially of Lisp (Honestly, it makes me want to at least check it out now).

Overall, this book is a good read. One great thing about the fact that it is a collection of essays though, is that you don't have to read the book through in a linear fashion. He even mentions that in the beginning of the book.