Faking It

[foxgrrl]

I don't really think that I'm a good photographer, and that I'm just pretending to be a good one by taking awesome looking pictures.

I don't really think that I'm a good hacker, and that I'm just pretending to be a good one by writing 0-day remote root exploits.

Comments

[roadknight.livejournal.com]

Whenever somebody, esp. one of my geek mob, says this, I am quick to remind them of the 3 Laws of Computer Graphics, which, interestingly enough, apply to a large chunk of programming/hacking in general.

They are:
Lie, Cheat and Steal whenever possible.

Lie: CG is about looks and appearance. If you can convince somebody that they're looking at what you say they're looking at, you win, even if you're lying your face off and they're looking at something completely different.

Cheat: You don't REALLY need to compute the pattern of absolutely every photon to enter and exit a scene. There are equally good-looking shortcuts that take 1/10th or even 1/100th of the time.

Steal: If somebody got something right or looking just like YOU want it to look, and it saves you time and you can use it, steal it. Everybody does it, it's just a matter of whether you call it "building on previous research" or "cut and paste" or "An efficient implementation of the Foobly[96] Encabulation Algorithm". Nobody starts off with and empty vi session and starts typing "include

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Whenever somebody, esp. one of my geek mob, says this, I am quick to remind them of the 3 Laws of Computer Graphics, which, interestingly enough, apply to a large chunk of programming/hacking in general.

They are:
Lie, Cheat and Steal whenever possible.

Lie: CG is about looks and appearance. If you can convince somebody that they're looking at what you say they're looking at, you win, even if you're lying your face off and they're looking at something completely different.

Cheat: You don't REALLY need to compute the pattern of absolutely every photon to enter and exit a scene. There are equally good-looking shortcuts that take 1/10th or even 1/100th of the time.

Steal: If somebody got something right or looking just like YOU want it to look, and it saves you time and you can use it, steal it. Everybody does it, it's just a matter of whether you call it "building on previous research" or "cut and paste" or "An efficient implementation of the Foobly[96] Encabulation Algorithm". Nobody starts off with and empty vi session and starts typing "include <stdio.h>"

Point being:
It is RARELY about HOW you get there or get the result. The vast majority of the time, it's ALL about the result. The question isn't "Did you undo the Gordian knot by untying it", but "did you undo it at all".