True appreciation of program m ing elegance is left for the hackers: com puter hobbyists whose end goal isn't to m ake a profit but to squeeze every possible bit of functionality out of their old Com m odore 64s, exploit writers who need to write tiny and am azing pieces of code to slip through narrow security cracks, and anyone else who appreciates the pursuit and the challenge of finding the best possible solution. These are the people who get excited about program m ing and really appreciate the beauty of an elegant piece of code or the ingenuity of a clever hack. Since an understanding of program m ing is a prerequisite to understanding how program s can be exploited, program m ing is a natural starting point.