Programming blogs • Hacker News Board

Re: Programming blogs

#61

Post by kragen » Wed, Apr 27, 2016, 7:16 AM UTC

Ace17 wrote: post #60

kragen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, Uncle Bob is a know-nothing blowhard with a grossly inflated opinion of his own competence and an attitude problem to match. Sometimes he says things that are true, and sometimes he says things that are just false enough to be badly misleading, and you can't tell the difference unless you already know it. He consistently substitutes dogma for evidence and insight. Not recommended.

Interesting. Could you please give an example of one thing he said that was "just false enough to be badly misleading" ? (Not trying to prove you wrong here, just being curious)

Here's a list of errors I found in an article of his about a year ago: https://lobste.rs/c/grmdxi

Re: Programming blogs

#62

Post by lomnakkus » Wed, Apr 27, 2016, 8:56 AM UTC

MIKarlsen wrote: post #8

gjolund wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love that video. There is nothing offensive in the video, I think he does a pretty good job explaining how bat shit ridiculous javascript is. If you are writing js professionally and haven't already come to terms with that and the existential crisis it entails... you're gonna have a bad time.

I know I shouldn't be turned off by this, but I so am. And I'm starting to dislike the dev-community more and more for each day I try to learn programming myself. Elitism at its worst. I guess it started a few years back when I started an introductory programming-class at university where I was supposed to learn Java. I had already tried some light-weight languages like HTML and CSS and felt comfortable modding Wordp…

Like one other responder said: Please don't take it personally. I don't know anybody who says they hate JavaScript means that they hate JavaScript programmers or think less of them in any way.

> and I've learned that no languages are better or worse than others

This is decidedly untrue. Even if languages which are Turing Complete are strictly speaking equivalent, you should be easily disabused of this notion by simply trying to implement any algorithm of your choice in JavaScript and then trying the same in Brainfuck.

(Yes, Brainfuck is obfuscated on purpose, but I'm just trying to make the point crystal clear. The same thing applies to other comparisons, just to a lesser degree.)

Think of "Language X is better than Language Y" as a comparison operator for a partially ordered set.

Re: Programming blogs

#63

Post by Ace17 » Wed, Apr 27, 2016, 8:58 AM UTC

kragen wrote: post #61

Ace17 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Could you please give an example of one thing he said that was "just false enough to be badly misleading" ? (Not trying to prove you wrong here, just being curious)

Here's a list of errors I found in an article of his about a year ago: https://lobste.rs/c/grmdxi

Thanks, but the comment you linked to is just a list of disagreements without explanations (whose author even admits it later by stating that "simple ridicule is both easier to write and more entertaining to read" (!)).

I was hoping for something more tangible. Searching wikipedia doesn't support the author's claims about FP ( things like "FP is about higher-order abstraction facilities, not immutability").

Re: Programming blogs

#64

Post by kragen » Wed, Apr 27, 2016, 4:32 PM UTC

Ace17 wrote: post #63

kragen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a list of errors I found in an article of his about a year ago: https://lobste.rs/c/grmdxi

Thanks, but the comment you linked to is just a list of disagreements without explanations (whose author even admits it later by stating that "simple ridicule is both easier to write and more entertaining to read" (!)). I was hoping for something more tangible. Searching wikipedia doesn't support the author's claims about FP ( things like "FP is about higher-order abstraction facilities, not immutability").

Yeah, I didn't bother to explain in depth how things really are, because that would have required an order of magnitude more effort than just listing Bob's absurd nonsense claims, which is adequate for my audience. I'm sorry that Wikipedia isn't sufficiently clear and correct to replace knowing what you're talking about, and I'd fix that if I knew how, but I don't.

Teaching difficult ways of thinking, in person, to people who trust and respect you, is already hard enough. Trying to teach them to random people on the internet who think you're quite possibly full of shit and may not even bother reading to the end of what you write, that's an exercise in futility.

Forgive me if I don't accept the implied invitation.