re where did the hacker ethic go where did the hacker ethic go we hackers of the s and are now comfortably employed and supporting families the next generation takes the radical lead now don t look for radicalism among us old ones we re gone perhaps all of us hackers have become ick professionals i have noticed my and my associates progression from hackers to computer professionals it is rather distasteful it occurs when a series of things happen one s ego outgrows one s talent knowledge one s financial situation takes precedence a change in priorities esp family possibly leading to the hacker s attitude makes the shift from fun to work one s vocation burns away the creativity needed for the hobby or the biggest killer imo one s dreams are sadly shattered on the hard rocks of society s version of reality without the dream the motivation dies without the motivation the effort seems useless another set of problems stems from our children while most of us remember when there were several completely different computer systems our children are growing up with just a few choices msdos mac amiga and do not enjoy the diversity we did i remember the great computer fallout of the early eighties vividly as i was forced to stop using skills developed for systems that were now dead the diversity of systems before then allowed for widely divergent paradigms that period forced hackers to continually learn new systems in the attempt to keep up not to mention that if a program was needed we were forced in most situations to write it ourselves as a commercial offering was just not available now our children are being taught the user mentality as the number of us old timers dwindle we are not being replaced by the next generation kendall kendall sears krsear ulkyvx louisville edu programmer child development unit amiga department of pediatrics currently running amigaos university of louisville xx and supporting unix sys v rev life is a game you play once in order to win you must make a difference remember this is not a practice session
