Claude Montpetit -- Montpetit.net -- en

Paul Graham wrote an article that I really enjoyed reading:
Hackers and painters.
This text may be of interest if you are in the technology field, but also if you are a creator in any other domain. In this article, the term hacker identifies software creators in a wide sense, not necessarily the ones that hack their way into closed systems, as the Medias often depicts them.

Here are some pieces.

Unfortunately, most companies won't let hackers do what they want either. Universities and research labs force hackers to be scientists, and companies force them to be engineers.
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So instead of entrusting the future of the software to one brilliant hacker, most companies set things up so that it is designed by committee, and the hackers merely implement the design.
If you want to make money at some point, remember this, because this is one of the reasons startups win.
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Scientists start out doing work that's perfect, in the sense that they're just trying to reproduce work someone else has already done for them. Eventually, they get to the point where they can do original work. Whereas hackers, from the start, are doing original work; it's just very bad. So hackers start original, and get good, and scientists start good, and get original.
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It's unrealistic to expect that the specifications for a program will be perfect. You're better off if you admit this up front, and write programs in a way that allows specifications to change on the fly.
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Everyone by now presumably knows about the danger of premature optimization. I think we should be just as worried about premature design-- deciding too early what a program should do.

Update: This essay is reviewed and commented by Tim O'reilly.