A discussion with the young Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who plan SHDH sets the record straight about hackers and explains the spirit of this party for programmers.

The Life of the Party

There are several eggs and several chickens that hatched SuperHappyDevHouse in May 2005.

At the time, co-founder David Weekly lived in a home that he and his roommates called SuperHappyFunHouse in homage to the Saturday Night Live skit, “SuperHappyFunBall.” As the name suggests, SuperHappyFunHouse prided itself on throwing a good, large party. These super fun soirées topped out at 400 for the final fête, when the SWAT team showed.

So, the housemates scaled back to movie nights, in an effort to “regroup” and find a more suitable format for social gathering.

Another co-founder, Jeff Lindsay was once a regular at Tom Harrison’s LAN parties, which the San Jose State University business student hosted throughout high school. Lindsay graduated to inviting other young entrepreneurs to the office on weekends, when they developed projects and shared ideas. Lindsay started calling these get-togethers DEV LANs.

Eventually, Lindsay pitched Weekly the idea of hosting these project development parties at SuperHappyFunHouse. And Weekly agreed. Thus, SuperHappyDevHouse was born on May 28, 2005 with 15 computer programmers in attendance.

Three years into its existence, Lindsay, Weekly, Harrison, Mike Lundy, and Joël Franusic keep SHDH growing. SuperHappyDevHouse hosts 150 to 200 people every six weeks at rotating venues throughout San Francisco Bay and Silicon Valley, California.

SuperHappyDevHouse will celebrate a “silver anniversary” for SHDH25 on May 17, 2008 at Sun Microsystems Executive Briefing Center in Menlo Park, California. More than 200 people are expected to attend.

Computer Hackers Set Record Straight

Dubbed “a party for hackers and thinkers” by its creators, the planners of SuperHappyDevHouse point out that a computer hacker might not be what you think.

To refer to a hacker as someone who engages in illicit or deceptive activity on computers “is a fairly common misconception,” says Lundy, who currently works at RADAR. “The term hacker actually just refers to someone who enjoys figuring out how things work.”

These young computer scientists prefer to use the term “Cracker” for technologists with ill intent.

“Crackers are those people who are getting into systems where they shouldn’t be,” explains Weekly, who started his company PBWiki at the first SuperHappyDevHouse. “The people here all love computing technology and are building things, not destroying things… What DevHouse really is it’s a love fest for technology.”

There is a brief, jovial discussion about whether or not the term “cracker” will ever catch on. Then we’re back to the next exchange of ideas. It is this consistent, almost constant, exchange of ideas that defines DevHouse.

“There’s the full range of computer person here, from the hacker that works on the kernel to the user interface designer,” explains Franusic, “there’s a sort of cross-pollination that has been very useful to me personally.”

“The spirit of this event is very healthy,” adds Lundy “because it reverses the tendency for entrepreneurs to keep everything a secret … it proves you can still run a company and succeed by being completely open about what you’re doing.”

What To Do At DevHouse

Some programmers come to learn a new computer language or platform they’ll use to work on their personal websites. Others give lightning talks, or five-minute, multimedia presentations that discuss current projects and recent innovations. Some computer hackers and non-technologists just come to socialize.

If you have heard about DevHouse, but can’t make it to San Francisco or Silcon Valley to attend, numerous international cities now host their own version of SHDH.

You will find CocoaDevHouse and SuperHappyDevClub in London and Cambridge, UK; Cologne DevHouse in Cologne, Germany; SuperHappyDevFlat in Zurich, Switzerland; SuperHappyGrow-OpDevHouse in Vancouver, Canada; and SuperHappyDevHouse Aotearoa in New Zealand. In the United States, sister events include PhoenixDevHouse in Arizona, BostonDevHouse in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and DevHouse Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.

Or you can learn how to start your own Super Happy Dev House by contacting the planners, who are always happy to share their expertise, knowledge, and love for computing technology.