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Nat Friedman: So, I'll let you in on the secret. Here are the steps to becoming a hacker:

1. Download the source code to the program you want to change
2. Untar it on your hard drive
3. Get it to build and run
4. Open the source code in an editor
5. Find the part of the code that you need to change to make the program do what you want it to do
6. Make the changes you need to make to the code and test it to make sure it works
7. Run the diff -u command and email the output to the mailing list

Contrast this with ESR's advice, you will see that Nat's advice is so much easier.