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Paul Graham: Six Principles for Making New Things

paulgraham.com

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Re: Paul Graham: Six Principles for Making New Things

#101

Post by ojbyrne »

Reddit started out as a blatant copy of digg, which was 6 months old when reddit launched. I think that sort of invalidates large parts of this essay.

Some digg copy from Dec. 2004: "What's Digg? Digg is a technology news website that combines social bookmarking, blogging, RSS, and non-hierarchical editorial control. With digg, users submit stories for review, but rather than allowing an editor to decide which stories go on the homepage, the users do."

Reddit copy from August 2005: "A source for what's new and popular on the web--customized for you. We want to democratize the traditional model by giving editorial control to the people who use the site, not those who run it. All of the content on reddit is from users who are rewarded for good submissions (and punished for bad ones) by their peers. You decide what appears on your front page and simultaneously, which submissions rise to fame or fall into obscurity."

And, yes, I realize there was nothing completely original about digg, the idea was originally done by kuro5hin, yadda, yadda, and I actually have plenty of respect for PG and the reddit guys. I'm just saying....

Re: Paul Graham: Six Principles for Making New Things

#102

Post by sigmund_freud »

iamelgringo wrote: post #44

I enjoyed the article, as I enjoy most of Paul's articles. But, I'm coming to the tech world after having worked in the health care industry for 15 years. And, I studied art for 6-7 years, thinking that I could make a career out of it. So, I guess that I have a different perspective on the geek/hacker culture. And, something about hacker culture that never really set well with me was this--the nastiness. Paul referen…

The reason is very simple. Most of the trolls are nerds, and so they never get laid. Because of sexual frustration they decide take it out on someone by trolling. So trolling stems out of nerd sex denial. Sigmund Freud has explained the critical role sex plays in human psychology; even all wars & bloodshed that happens is in one way or the other connected to sex. In the end, its darwinian instinct.

Re: Paul Graham: Six Principles for Making New Things

#103

Post by Andrew_from_V »

iamelgringo wrote: post #44

I enjoyed the article, as I enjoy most of Paul's articles. But, I'm coming to the tech world after having worked in the health care industry for 15 years. And, I studied art for 6-7 years, thinking that I could make a career out of it. So, I guess that I have a different perspective on the geek/hacker culture. And, something about hacker culture that never really set well with me was this--the nastiness. Paul referen…

Credit where credit is due... the quote is based on Henry Kissingers' original:

"University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small."

http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/1477

As for why trolls exist at all, I think it is because it is so darned easy to be rude and generally small-minded and full of self-puffery when the troll has such near-anonymity and therefore no sense of responsibility. I also think that geek communication tends to be brief, and it is easy to be rude with a few short direct words... in the real world, such behaviour is not tolerated but in forums, the troll can just keep posting, and posting, and posting.

As readers, we also absorb rudeness better, and remember the smallest slights, whereas we skip over the fluffy bunny comments where someone chips in with a happy "me too!" or "hug" and a row of smiley faces.

Andrew.

Re: Paul Graham: Six Principles for Making New Things

#106

Post by dmitriid »

pg wrote: post #65
serhei wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, at this stage, the amount of flak that Arc has received is so disproportionate to the normal amount of flak that new ideas receive because it hasn't solved any problems that real hackers have encountered , well enough that they'd want to switch to writing programs in it. You haven't really solved the overlooked problem of core language design until people start using your cleaner core language, and to do…

It solves the problem hackers face in every program they write, and which high level languages exist to solve: making programs smaller. Try translating some Arc programs into Common Lisp or Scheme and you'll see what I mean. And incidentally, I don't have to give hardened users of existing languages reason enough to switch. There are new people learning to program all the time, and to them, all languages are on a lev…

Arc Challenge has shown that for many languages this translates into roughly as many lines of code (see Seaside solution, for instance)

Re: Paul Graham: Six Principles for Making New Things

#107

Post by jxgfromK5 »

vlad wrote: post #32
nostrademons wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Where is it, then? Where is the final, perfect Lisp that's so easy to write?" Maybe there isn't a final, perfect Lisp. Maybe there are lots of individual Lisps that are each perfect for some class of problems. That's one of the great strengths of Lisp: if an existing implementation is almost-but-not-quite what you need, you can throw a few macros on it and adapt it into a new language that is what you need. It's one…

What you're doing is arguing semantics. Whoever feels like replying to a reply of a reply long enough that all meaning has been lost and the other person stops posting, is the "winner." Whover is smarter and can come up with great examples can easily make another person defensive and tired of arguing. This person can then "win" arguments simply because the person who just wrote about actually developing something is…

Actually you're wrong because you're assuming that writing (trolls or anything) isn't a skill. It is, and if you got trolled it's your own fault and I'm your feelings were hurt. In addition, you obviously don't understand the first thing about "semantics."

Re: Paul Graham: Six Principles for Making New Things

#108

Post by kizildere »

Great essay Paul, I especially liked this part: "Don't worry about trying to look corporate, the product is what wins in the long run."

This is so true! I consider this one of the top reasons many startups fail but at the same time, this is a result of the paradox of offline vs. online culture as it still holds true that many offline businesses would fail without looking corporate. Its a transition so we'll be fine in a couple years. Do you agree?

Basar Kizildere Istanbul, Turkey

Re: Paul Graham: Six Principles for Making New Things

#109

Post by steelstonehenge »

Hi Paul:

   My father-in-law was an inventor.  His one claim to fame was a cheap plastic pulley-like thing you could stick on the bottom of a telephone, and wrap the cord around it.  It was called a "Cord Caddy."  He made a small...no a medium fortune on this in the early 1970s.
   I went to a few home trade shows in L.A. with him.  The creative energy at these places was palpable.  (I even got to meet Ron Popeil there once).  You'd go around the booths, see all these incredibly simple....no STUPIDLY simple things all these guys were making fortunes at.  I'd mutter at myself, "Heck, anybody can come up with this crap."  And then a voice from above thundered down, and slapped me upside the head.  My ears are ringing thirty years later.  The Voice from above said,  "Yes...but you DIDN'T, did you!"
That's the secret. ANYONE can come up with stuff...but almost nobody does. The real inventors in this country are a minuscule percentage of the population who actually DO something with their dumb ideas. I have unmitigated respect for Ron Popeil and his ilk, regardless of the obnoxious late night commercials.

eric

Re: Paul Graham: Six Principles for Making New Things

#110

Post by qwerty »

IMHO the reason behind the response to Arc is "underwhelming" - because the anticipation has been built for 5 years, but it turns out the implementation is a "just" set of macros. And it certainly don't fit the "iterate rapidly" concept.

Now - this is not a criticism of PG's work - on the contrary, I believe his design matches up with his philosophy in On Lisp very well. Looking past how the process, people now actually start to play with the language and make use of it.

What I'm mostly interested though - are the learning lessons if PG is willing to share them. Why did it take as long as it had? Is it because this is not his day job, or are there additional design changes or problems that he has to solve along the way, etc. Getting a sense of that will shed light for other aspiring developers.

I for one tend to try to shoot for just the right things and have scratched quite a few prototypes so I can go for the perfect one, so would sure love to hear from PG on his experiences.

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