Hacker Heaven

WHAT? No, I'm not working the midnight shift at McDonald's- I'm a Computer Programmer- and, thusly, I have condemned myself to pointless typing/programming exercises at all hours of the night and day just to get a stupid ball to bounce around the screen while Billy Joel plays in my ear. (From the radio, not from the computer- I have not achieved Hacker status, people who can get Handel's Messiah, in full stereo, out of the computer speaker.) And I'm not even doing this for a Computer Science Class...that makes me a "Computer Person".

People wonder sometimes about the creature life of us computer people- who can sit down and make sense of messages such as : "Runtime error: 0034:DFBE" and "Unrrecoverable Application Error" and "Hard Disk Destroyed". Well, I wonder about myself sometimes as well. Computer Science? HAH! If anything, Computers should be an art class. Because that's what running them is- an art.

And I'm not including the people at IBM or Compaq or any other big companies that clear several hundred million in profit each year. What they do, they call it computing, but it isn't. Not really. They work nine-to-five, with a horde of software and hardware engineers crammed around a whole bunch of screens trying to figure out how far back they can push the computer boundaries- and how much more obsolete they can make every other machine on the market today.

No, computing is defined as the one-on-one challenge. One computer user, one computer, and one large headache. The challenge is, of course, to get the computer to do what you want it to do.

And in computers, more than anything else, the science has become an art. Programmers know all those fancy computer languages, sure- but the way they throw them together is amazing. And complex. And downright scary at times.

I consider myself to be a "recreational programmer" (which means I'm not good enough to be a REAL programmer) so it takes me twice as long to get the computer to do something new and fantastic. And with twice the headache. Therefore, twice the Tylenol.

However, the real fun begins when you try to use the programs that are offered by the major software companies today. Ninety-nine precent of the time everything runs as smooth as silk- it's the other one percent that's mind-boggling. For example: "How come my term paper always comes out in pink neon in colour? I've typed in every command I know at the Word Processor, I've hit the computer several times with a hammer, I've called in all my friends that may know something about this, I've picked up some "How-to" books from Time/Life, I've paid $500 dollars for a Word Processing seminar and I've even tried to read the manual. And I still get a pink neon printout. I don't understand it."

That's when we tell the person to change the colour of the ink in the printer from pink neon to black. It's always the small things, but hey.

Therefore, and thusly, if you want to be one of the hacking elite, be prepared. Sleepless nights, reading every computer magazine in the world, spending $10,000 in computer equipment, and the hardest challenge of them all- reading the computer manual FRONT to BACK. And the Tech Notes. And the Installation Notes. And every other piece of paper you can get your hands on.

Then you can welcome the dawn just like many other programmers do...and wonder why you can't get your !@#@%$!@#$!@#!@!@%!@%! ball to bounce around the screen!!