511–520 of 624 posts
I've been working on a side project related to being an easier coding environment. I hope that is not a terrible idea.
https://www.apogeejs.com/web/apogee.html?url=/web/examples/q...
I've always assumed it was more a "me" issue, and so I've attempted to work in the more "normal" manner, but with pretty poor results. I've all but given up on Python due to its lack of a decent REPL and gone back to Ruby, where at least I have pry to dig in with as needed.
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Go ahead and do so, please. You keep saying that things could be better but show no counterexample. Lead the change or stop whining. Nobody is going to do the job for you if they're satisfied by their current tools, especially if they think you're wrong. Do it and prove everyone else wrong. If everyone thinks the status quo can't be improved, but you're enlightened, it's your chance to turn your "likely can be improv…
> Lead the change or stop whining. Ugh. Look, just because they themselves have not attempted to create something better doesn't mean that their criticisms are invalid.
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>Programming is in some cases over-complicated, for no reason. Which part is over-complicated for no reason?
Most of us don't have the scaling issues that Google or Facebook have but we use tools as if we did.
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/usr/local/bin has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with programming. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. It is completely superfluous knowledge. It is only required because, as the author correctly points out, the tools we use are BAD. They are absolutely fucking AWFUL. /usr/local/bin is an implementation detail from an OS nobody has used for decades. It's still here because we refuse to fix these ridiculous things. Nobody sho…
> /usr/local/bin is an implementation detail from an OS nobody has used for decades Linux, MacOS, the BSDs... They're very much used today, not just decades ago. the /bin, /usr/bin and /usr/local/bin are very simple to understand after around 10 minutes of looking at the contents of / (root). */bin/ has binaries, */lib/ has libraries, */include/ has headers. Its as simple as it gets, I dont see a way you could make a…
> Its as simple as it gets, I dont see a way you could make a "better" system
I do, we could stop separating binaries from the associated other files they require in order to work. That is an artifact of how UNIX was originally implemented that is irrelevant today. Case in point: the existence of containers, flatpak, AppImage, and other such things that do exactly that! Not to mention all the operating systems, like Windows and Mac, that always worked that way.
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> I so completely disagree. Writing JavaScript is already so simple that almost nobody knows how to do it any more. You can download a colossal framework and a billion NPM packages to write some completely unoriginal CRUD application and bitch about how hard life is. Fearing writing original code is the name of the game. The reason for this seems more that there a many coders that forget about the task of vetting the…
I don’t think it’s because they forgot to vet their dependencies. I think it’s because there’s a culture of “just get it done” that fosters short cuts, and it’s coupled closely with a culture of worship around open source as if it should be implicitly trusted. The result has been a massive proliferation of perpetually-junior engineers writing code and rising in ranks to run things.
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> Lead the change or stop whining. Ugh. Look, just because they themselves have not attempted to create something better doesn't mean that their criticisms are invalid.
They are if they are nonspecific. Saying "X is bad" requires a counterexample, at least.
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> it barely caters to developers at all. Take for example the "Developer" menu item, which is two levels deep in Chrome. Sure, but it's also in every single right click menu on every page and has several keyboard shortcuts (F12, Ctrl+Shift+I) In my opinion, having to go two menus deep is not "barely catering to the audience at all". The vendor of that product just likes to have clean menus.
A thought experiment if you have time for it: Let's say you take a word processor. It's a great word processor, well-designed for its purpose. But it's primarily designed for "consumer" text editing, things like resumes, school papers, and the like. And let's say you add some programmer specific functionality to it, but do it in a way that doesn't interfere with any of the consumer-first features. E.g., you make it a…
What's the alternative though? Is the suggestion that browsers ought to be competitive out of the box with whole off-the-shelf IDEs that can cost thousands of dollars, prioritizing that use case over even web browsing?
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That doesn't make any sense. You don't inspire creativity-explosions by shutting down existing platforms, you do it by providing new affordances, which is what Flash did. And videos aren't even interactive! There's not even any comparison here.
Mass creativity follows the path of least resistance. Existence of YouTube - as a much easier and more social venue for self-expression - precludes mass popularity of Flash vids/games. To beat YouTube, a new affordance must be both easier and more socially appealing (because mass creativity tends to be done mostly to show off in front of friends/colleagues or romantic interests).
?? What kind of bizarre red-pill nonsense is this? You think all those interactive Flash microsites were to impress girls? lol
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I think the author is not talking about career programming. If that's your job, you have no excuses not learning command lines and all the other stuff. This, I think, is more intended for people who are not really programmers, but would like to write a bit of logic, and find themselves with tools intended for professionals. Because I am an experienced programmer now, I may be biased but I have a feeling we raised the…
I want the play the piano but don't want to put in the time. Answer "don't be lazy". I want the learn to dance but don't want to put the time. Response: "Don't be lazy". What is special about programming that should be easy where playing the piano or learning to draw well is not? Maybe it's just fundamentally hard? I'm not suggesting it can't be made more approachable for beginners and for small tasks but most non-tr…
I think this is not exactly the same. Tom is I want to X, but I don't want to learn Y. Consider
> I want music at my party but I don't want to learn the piano
Easy, just put on spotify
> I want to compose, but I don't want to learn the piano
Well there are many evolving tools for doing that without needing to learn the piano, such as sibelius.