Like most cultures without a money economy, hackerdom runs on reputation. You're trying to solve interesting
problems, but how interesting they are, and whether your solutions are really good, is something that only your
technical peers or superiors are normally equipped to judge.
Accordingly, when you play the hacker game, you learn to keep score primarily by what other hackers think of your
skill (this is why you aren't really a hacker until other hackers consistently call you one). This fact is obscured by the
image of hacking as solitary work; also by a hacker-cultural taboo (now gradually decaying but still potent) against
admitting that ego or external validation are involved in one's motivation at all.
Specifically, hackerdom is what anthropologists call a gift culture . You gain status and reputation in it not by
dominating other people, nor by being beautiful, nor by having things other people want, but rather by giving things
away. Specifically, by giving away your time, your creativity, and the results of your skill.
There are basically five kinds of things you can do to be respected by hackers
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