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Discussion on: Out of everything you've seen or read, what had the biggest impact on your life as a developer?

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Dave Jacoby

For me, it was Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution and the Jargon File it the 1980s anonymous-FTP version.

They showed there's a mindset to computing, a culture that I found appealing. Anyone who has seen the line If you can't be a good example, be a horrible warning and remembered with a piteous laugh a point where someone's catastrophic error will be in their memory forever will remember why you should always mount a scratch monkey.

Computer Culture in 2018 is not the same as in 1988, and new histories and new dictionaries should be written, and are. But this is what made me begin to think that making electrons dance is where I should spend my time.