The best answer

Ive always wondering where the argument lies between the hacker and the "off-the-shelfer" This guy on slashdot I think articulated it best. I couldnt say it anybetter:

"I was wondering how long it would take somebody to ask this question. (Two minutes after the story was posted, big suprise.) The answer is that economics is irrelevent.

Every time we get a story of the form 'I hacked A to run on B' or 'I hacked C to do E', somebody always asks whether it wouldn't be more cost effective to buy something off-the-shelf. The answer is almost always 'yes'. Even if the hacker is saving money on hardware, he's expending a lot of his well-paid time. But that just doesn't matter.

A good hack is pretty much an end in itself. It might satisfy the hacker's curiousity, or improve his professional skills. Or it might add some minor functionality that the hacker's geeky priorities can't live without. But these are all secondary goals. The big goal is a sense of accomplishment, of having done something special. Asking a hacker why he doesn't just buy an off-the-shelf solution is like asking a Marathon running why he doesn't just call a cab."

Or like asking a climber why he or she doesnt just walk up the back ;)


http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/16/150239&from=rss