Normally I skim these write-ups and then move on, but something about this time finds me exhausted. Enough already. I was a huge proponent of XML and back in the day I would also evangelize its capabilities, its malleability. "What a great language for defining data structures that isn't tied to any physical storage requirements." Regex and enum restrictions on attribute values? Okay cool. Substitution groups? Woah. But then y'all started saying "I can't read this" and "angle brackets are too expensive" and suddenly the XML wave just receded back into automotive and logistics, and the world stopped complaining.
I think it is time to accept that the world doesn't need Lisp. It might be your passion. It might just click with your way of thinking. That's all great, but it is still an existential crisis and you need to deal with it. The world is humming along just as well without esperanto and if it completely disappeared from monthly meetups, the world wouldn't notice.
Trust me, I have been to the brink of destruction and waking up the next day is hard, but I have lived it and I know: it is possible to leave behind those things that you think define your being, your identity. You will not fade away completely. Instead, you will find that your existence can have meaning in other forms.
Oh I see you brought a chess board to a basketball game. Okay cool, but just set that down and let's see if we can still have fun with this other game.
Strangely, it resonates to me in the context of finding "The Best Note Taking App" buzz. Whoa, X has backlinks! Yay, but Y is open source!
At the end of the day we all open the default system notepad.
I tend to agree with you: this did not age well. You know what is just as bad as architecture astronauts, wunderkinds ranting about how other smart people are stupid. This whole post feels like the aftermath of some late night argument that probably he should have just deleted in the morning. Not to mention the subtle digs in the pics that he conveniently forgot to caption: is that the MIT campus and two pics from Harvard? If it was revealed that this rant was related to some collegiate affair that only three people in the world remember, I wouldn't be surprised.
That seems off topic. SICP is about understanding language, not architecture. That would be like saying you need to understand how SED and AWK would be implemented is Lisp before you try to write a script to use them together to parse a document.
Come on. Two typos in the first few pages; p.2 "servicees", p.6 "lanuage". I know you are smarter than me, but if seven people decided that an editor would be useless, or spellcheck was unnecessary, then you should be prepared for unwarranted, biased criticisms of your conclusions. You're better than this.
Honestly, what is the purpose of this post? Is HN really the place for clickbait? You would get the same reaction with something like "Do you think functional programming is beneficial for software delivery?" or "Do you think Christopher Alexander was a mediocre architect who just happened to be a mediocre computer scientist?" Please tell me that the person behind this is harvesting the names from this Op-Ed comment thread to build a feedbag for their mech turk. I can't wait to get my exclusive offer for all-natural, water-based, non-toxic lube.
This is a great comment, but I would generalize to just about any other profession. Are nurses bored with bandaids and hoping for better technology? And also comparisons between computer engineering and construction are always problematic because they are at completely different stages of maturity. Maybe what you suggest did happen in 1500 BC when the homeowner was like "Hey buddy, just build this closet with mud bricks" and the carpenter was like "Nar bro, I got these twigs I cut down that are super cool. Mud is for neubs".
Bandaids, I don't know, but they (at least some) certainly are about new sensors/techniques/catheters,... Also, people wanting to work on the latest and greatest because it is the latest and greatest is also sometimes an issue.
I'm old and changes in technology have baffled me for years. So here's a hypothetical: if RSS was still popular, would we be having this conversation? I assume that the next phase in this saga will be a plethora of products suddenly pop into the app store that have some childish implementation of a recommendation algorithm built into what is effectively an RSS reader: add news sites, "like" a link once in a while, and Boom! the recommendation algorithm will filter your subscriptions for "related" articles. Every few months or so, you'll have to dump the algorithm data and "reset" because the implementation is too clunky and ends up building odd combinations. "Why am I seeing only links about Arianna Grande now? Why am I not seeing 'new artist' articles?" And then people will start to bitch about XML and then the whole system will halt and catch fire (again).
Seriously though RSS has never died and tonnes of us still use it despite the efforts of close-walled companies like Facebook and Twitter disabling it on their services. It is the only way I like to consume my news, particularly tech news, as there are just too many sources to do it any other way.
There are some services/clients that try to do what you describe and filter your feeds to emphasise keywords, authors etc.. that you are interested in. They are generally pretty immature though and I would welcome some better systems for this, as long as it is transparent what they are including and excluding.
I would like to support your comment and add that I enjoy these articles because I like programming languages and thinking about program execution.
However, I think what delibes is getting at is that this is article exhibits a classic trigger for most developers because it starts with naming some language (i.e. Haskell) and then it is filled with assertions that are always "What If": what if your language doesn't support sum types or recursion or algebraic data types or ... Most devs are looking for practical applications for their language of choice so there is a natural inclination toward a critical comparison of "their" language and "my" language.
But we should follow Twisol here and not read this article as "language X is better than language Y" or, more precisely, "throw out unnecessary features from language X because you can still perform some task Z".
Just take the article for what it is: a great "explanation"[1] of the relation between mathematical foundations and language features or characteristics. This article isn't some heretical tantrum so just sit back and enjoy the learning.
This. I've been writing code for years, but every time I pull a repo of the latest web app it turns into a series of frustratingly complicated learning exercises. I'm 17 all over again...
npm? got it.
whoop. yarn? okay cool
nope. bower, now? wow.
all set.. no. webpack. done.
wait. gulp? okay okay. are we there yet?
With all due respect, I don't think the question is "how do we simplify SPAs?"; I think the question is "why do we need to run any app in a browser?" Look at the work associated with the "Next Billion Users" project [1]. Most of our assumptions about how-and-why are merely based on luck-and-whim. We didn't arrive at SPAs through some elaborate Grand Design. I just don't understand what a web application offers that cannot be had with a straight client-server application. Are walled gardens and app stores really tyranny when the garden is limited to a certain company/domain? For example, if my bank offers a client-server app that is walled off from the rest of the Internet, should I consider this stifling? If I was working for this bank and developing their client-server app, should I consider this a step back in my career?
My perspective on this question is that its convenience. If the app is something relatively simple, I just want to use it on the browser and not have to go through the steps of installing software that I probably will only use once. Also using a webapp is less dangerous than installing a program in the sense that it can't read your files, install malware, etc. I can relatively safely use an unknown webapp with confidence, but I would only install a program on my actual computer if I trust the author of it.
I think it is time to accept that the world doesn't need Lisp. It might be your passion. It might just click with your way of thinking. That's all great, but it is still an existential crisis and you need to deal with it. The world is humming along just as well without esperanto and if it completely disappeared from monthly meetups, the world wouldn't notice.
Trust me, I have been to the brink of destruction and waking up the next day is hard, but I have lived it and I know: it is possible to leave behind those things that you think define your being, your identity. You will not fade away completely. Instead, you will find that your existence can have meaning in other forms.
Oh I see you brought a chess board to a basketball game. Okay cool, but just set that down and let's see if we can still have fun with this other game.