Re: Help, please.

[nowhere@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Chael Hall)]

>
>I am very new to the world of hacking... Could you all give me a hand
>understanding...(aka suggested reading and helpful tips for a newbie.)
>
>Thanx in advance
>
>Stephen

Stephen,

     I would strongly suggest _Hackers_ by Steven Levy (ISBN: 0-440-13405-6).
After you have read this book, you will have a very good understanding of
what true hacking is (versus all of the new "meanings.")  After that, perhaps
the _Hacker Crackdown_ by Bruce Sterling (?).  Then after that, you pretty
much choose your own course...  If you want to get into MSDOS programming,
you will get lots of interrupt listings, disassemblers, etc.  If you want to
get into UNIX programming, you will get lots of UNIX books, recompile your
kernel a few times, etc.  :)  Hacking is a very personal experience for me,
and usually I'm hacking.  The term is defined as "learning by trial and
error."  You can hack a car if you get the manual, sit down, and just start
fiddling until you get it right.

     Incidentally, psychology backs up hacking as a good method for learning,
because operant conditioning (where when you are on the right track, you
start getting positive responses [rewards], so you go in that direction, and
when you eventually get it right, you will remember how you got there) is
known to be a strong teaching tool.  For example, your program isn't working,
but when you add a particular statement to the code, it starts to behave,
but the results aren't right.  So you follow in that vein of thinking and
soon enough the whole thing is fixed (aside from new undocumented features.)
I thought that psychology would come in handy sometime...

Chael

--
Chael Hall
nowhere@bsu-cs.bsu.edu, 00CCHALL@BSUVC.BSU.EDU
(317) 285-3648 after 5 pm EST