Note: I wrote this on 30/08/2025 after coming out of a really difficult phase in my life(victorious)

On the Ancient Sport of Hacking

Introduction

I’ve been meaning to write on this topic from a long time. Many people not in the field have a weird understanding on what programming is, and folks(not all) in the industry have no taste when it comes to programming. Let us try to understand what even is programming and why you should care about this ancient sport of hacking.

Humans are crazy species to put it lightly. On the grand scheme of things, to get to where we are today took us very less time. Not even only in the technological front, but if you think about it, the quality of life has improved a lot in the past 200-300 years. The pace of improvement is proceeding at an exponential rate, and it is going to get even better in the coming years.

The ancient sport of hacking

This is third time(here’s the first and second) I’m mentioning in my blogs that human craftmanship and just the idea of building things is a very powerful societal construct that has accelerated our progress a lot. Craftsmen over the course of humanity have gone out of their way to contribute to their niche which not only improved our understanding, but provided example to the progeny just how harmonious the combination of nature and human creativity is.

There is a term in Japanese called monozukuri - meaning the art of craftsmanship. It embodies a profound philosophy emphasizing precision, dedication, and a relentless pursuit of perfection. If you look around, you’ll find countless items - some of which you don’t even think about, but they are invaluable in the value they provide. They have gone eons of iterations to sneakily fit in our lives and make it better.

Not sure if you have heard of it, but one of such inventions was the Computer(readers, this is sarcasm). If you are not part of the bubble, computers are machines that can process instructions fast. They have single handedly revolutionized they way humans work and provided insane amount of productivity boost. Computers reshaped economies, enhanced human productivity, and driven technological revolutions - so much so that we had to come up with a language to talk to computer!!

Programming as an language(and art!)

Software is a great combination of artistry and engineering

It turned out that computers were not like some everyday invention. It was a moonshot invention and in order to use this tool at its fullest, we needed to come up with a language that speaks to computers - thus giving rise to programming languages. What started as a way for scientists and mathematicians to crunch numbers faster is now used by kids around the world to post TikTok compilations.

As the industry grew, so does the number of programming languages - each with a different way to achieve different goals, developed by people with varying tastes. There’s something really fascinating about reading the history of programming language and the creative freedom people took to solve for a problem. Even so fascinating is the way the programming language evolved over time - but for me, by far the most fascinating thing is how people adapted the language to solve problems using the languages’ tools.

The last part I mentioned is why I prefer writing good code as an art. Once you start practicing the art of writing good code and how to use the tools around it effectively, a lot of noise gets reduced and you are able to deliver value consistently.