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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>Personality Characteristics</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="appendixb.html" title="Appendix B. A Portrait of J. Random Hacker"/><link rel="previous" href="sex.html" title="Sexual Habits"/><link rel="next" href="weaknesses.html" title="Weaknesses of the Hacker Personality"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Personality Characteristics</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="sex.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">Appendix B. A Portrait of J. Random Hacker</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="weaknesses.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><div class="sect1" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="personality"/>Personality Characteristics</h2></div></div><div/></div><p>The most obvious common ‘personality’ characteristics of
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hackers are high intelligence, consuming curiosity, and facility with
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intellectual abstractions. Also, most hackers are ‘neophiles’,
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stimulated by and appreciative of novelty (especially intellectual novelty).
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Most are also relatively individualistic and anti-conformist.</p><p>Although high general intelligence is common among hackers, it is not
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the <span class="foreignphrase"><i class="foreignphrase">sine qua non</i></span> one might expect. Another
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trait is probably even more important: the ability to mentally absorb, retain,
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and reference large amounts of ‘meaningless’ detail, trusting to
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later experience to give it context and meaning. A person of merely average
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analytical intelligence who has this trait can become an effective hacker, but
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a creative genius who lacks it will swiftly find himself outdistanced by
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people who routinely upload the contents of thick reference manuals into their
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brains. [During the production of the first book version of this document,
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for example, I learned most of the rather complex typesetting language TeX
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over about four working days, mainly by inhaling Knuth's 477-page manual. My
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editor's flabbergasted reaction to this genuinely surprised me, because years
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of associating with hackers have conditioned me to consider such performances
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routine and to be expected. —ESR]</p><p>Contrary to stereotype, hackers are <span class="emphasis"><em>not</em></span> usually
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intellectually narrow; they tend to be interested in any subject that can
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provide mental stimulation, and can often discourse knowledgeably and even
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interestingly on any number of obscure subjects — if you can get them to
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talk at all, as opposed to, say, going back to their hacking.</p><p>It is noticeable (and contrary to many outsiders' expectations) that the
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better a hacker is at hacking, the more likely he or she is to have outside
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interests at which he or she is more than merely competent. </p><p>Hackers are ‘control freaks’ in a way that has nothing to do
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with the usual coercive or authoritarian connotations of the term. In the
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same way that children delight in making model trains go forward and back by
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moving a switch, hackers love making complicated things like computers do
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nifty stuff for them. But it has to be <span class="emphasis"><em>their</em></span> nifty
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stuff. They don't like tedium, nondeterminism, or most of the fussy, boring,
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ill-defined little tasks that go with maintaining a normal existence.
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Accordingly, they tend to be careful and orderly in their intellectual lives
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and chaotic elsewhere. Their code will be beautiful, even if their desks are
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buried in 3 feet of crap. </p><p>Hackers are generally only very weakly motivated by conventional rewards
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such as social approval or money. They tend to be attracted by challenges and
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excited by interesting toys, and to judge the interest of work or other
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activities in terms of the challenges offered and the toys they get to play
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with. </p><p>In terms of Myers-Briggs and equivalent psychometric systems, hackerdom
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appears to concentrate the relatively rare INTJ and INTP types; that is,
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introverted, intuitive, and thinker types (as opposed to the
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extroverted-sensate personalities that predominate in the mainstream culture).
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ENT[JP] types are also concentrated among hackers but are in a minority.
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</p></div><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="sex.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="appendixb.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="weaknesses.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">Sexual Habits </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> Weaknesses of the Hacker Personality</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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