How To Annoy a Hacker

I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of software that cater to hackers. Bug trackers, project managers, forums, so much time I've had to spend describing work (which is time I have not spent working).

So, for all those of you who manage hackers, work with hackers, design software to be used by hackers, or are friends with hackers, please read the following ways to annoy hackers. 

1) Make him move his hands away from the keyboard over and over

This is why vim and emacs are still the most popular editors. For the hacker, who types a lot of code, e-mail, and IRC chat, the keyboard is a far more natural way to interface with a computer than pointing and clicking. If you want the hacker to fill out a form, let the form be tabbed through. Let the enter key submit the form. The more efficient the better.

2) Force him to implement an idea in a certain way

Don't shut down his creative mind. "Write me a sharepoint website" is a bad request, because it forces the hacker to implement a website in sharepoint. "Write me a website that can do A, B, and C" is a good request, it tells the hacker what you need and doesn't presuppose any method of getting it done. With this request, the hacker can take the best method he knows to get your request done efficiently and well. Be careful though, some hackers may try to over-engineer a simple problem to make it more interesting. This can cause problems if not done correctly.

3) Don't give a reason for a request

"Just Because" is never a reason to do things a hacker does not want to do (but, it is the best reason to do something a hacker wants to do). "Just Because" means all the requirements are not in the open, which will cause problems in the future. However, if you give a reason for what you want, the hacker might be able to give you a way to do it without any work from anybody, or if work is required, the solution can be exactly what you need now and in the future.

4) When asking for help, show no desire to find the answer.

Finding an answer is more important than knowing the answer. Learning how to find an answer is very important. When you ask for help, you should be looking for clues to help you find the answer. Do not expect to be spoon-fed, it's boring and a hacker knows that spoon-feeding only increases dependancy, but if you teach a person to fish...

5) Use urgent communication for non-urgent things

Everyone has a healthy fear of red ink, red flags, red lights. So if you use large, red text in an e-mail to tell the hacker that he needs to change "utilize" to "leverage" in the documentation, your hacker is going to get justifiably annoyed. Firstly, why are you using e-mail to send an issue that should be in the bug tracker? E-mail is more urgent than the bug tracker, instant message is more urgent than e-mail, phone is more urgent than instant message. Choose the appropriate method to communicate the appropriate level of urgency. Second, why are you using fancy large, red, bold text when plain text would do? Your large, red, bold text is far more difficult to read, and it assumes that your hacker can't read and interpret what you're trying to say (after all, you have to do the work to highlight the important bits).

If a hacker is looking for basic information about how to start using something, it should be easy to find. The most necessary information should be the most prominent. The least important information can be buried behind a click or two. Many websites and programs suffer from this, too much information, too much unimportant information to skim over until the important information. Organize information for efficiency and you will have a happy hacker.

The bottom line is efficiency. Doing unexciting things efficiently makes more time for exciting things. Doing exciting things efficiently makes more time for other exciting things. The more wasted time, the less happy your hacker will be.