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Paul Graham is fast becoming one of my favourite dispensers of wisdom. His new article What the Bubble Got Right talks about the .com bubble and the fact that just because people got carried away doesn't mean that everything that went on during the .com era is invalid. He makes some good points about how new communication media don't come along often, and how every time they have, they've changed things in the long run.

Paul's recent keynote at OSCON attracted a lot of attention, but having heard him speak I immediately went out and bought his book. I'd recommend it, it's a good read, and he makes some telling points about the culture of the new economy.

Hackers & Painters: Essays on the Art of Programming by Paul Graham, ISBN 0596006624, 225 pages, £11.16

Eric S. Raymond, author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, writes in the foreword to Hackers & Painters: "Paul's writing is, as you'll soon learn from the rest of this book, wonderfully lucid stuff. Reading Paul's essays is like having a conversation with a genius who doesn't need to score any points by proving it to you, except that most geniuses aren't as articulate as he is. You get to share Paul's sense that the Universe is a fascinating place, and his knack for looking at it from an unusual angle."