Paul Graham published a great essay on the parallels between hackers and painters. I find it funny that this would come up on the net this week as I was pondering some of the same things in the past few weeks, since I visited the amazing Da Vinci show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art this year. I’d like to add a few points to Paul’s discussion on this, however. Unlike other great forms of art, great programming is more appreciated for its risk taking at the time at which it happens. For example, if you visit the Musee D’Orsay, which covers the full range of 19th century art, you come to realize that the paintings that received the most prizes in art competitions were not the ones that took the most risks. They were generally more bland and the more daring pieces were often the cause of much controversy and shunned by the “people who mattered”. In the same fashion, some of the greatest books in history have had very rough beginning, often being recognized as masterpieces only years after their author’s death. In the programming world, however, a great piece of code is highly praised for its ingenuity…