Peter Seebach has written The Hacker FAQ, a document designed to explain to managerial types how to handle “hackers”. He’s also sold it to IBM and, at their request, written a complementary piece called (naturally) The Manager FAQ, to explain the curious habits of “suits” to hackerkind.
I like the manager document better than the hacker document, which comes too close in my eyes to painting hackers as highly creative and prodigiously talented Heinleinian supermen, but I sense there’s a sales-pitch angle here. Why should we put up with these stubborn weirdos that play games all day? Because they’re incredibly productive creative types, and they’re just decompressing when it looks like they’re lazing about, it says.
Well, maybe sometimes, they’re just lazing about.