Peter Naur's view of programming
hiringengineersbook.com
Peter Naur's view of programming
1–10 of 198 posts
Re: Peter Naur's view of programming
#2The referenced article by Peter Naur (Turing Award winner, invented Backus-Naur-Form) is well worth a read.
Re: Peter Naur's view of programming
#3_My_ source code is invaluable. It's open, public, free to reuse under the GPL. It's a complete implementation of a painting application used by millions of people. It's a huge amount of knowledge readily accessible. You won't be able to buy something like this for any sum of money, so it's free.
Re: Peter Naur's view of programming
#4_My_ source code is invaluable. It's open, public, free to reuse under the GPL. It's a complete implementation of a painting application used by millions of people. It's a huge amount of knowledge readily accessible. You won't be able to buy something like this for any sum of money, so it's free.
Is it really the source code that has value, or your continued expansion and development of said code? Genuine question.
The reason I'm asking, while I was writing the article, I was considering including the youtube-dl fiasco (when the RIAA took it down from GitHub) as an example. People were concerned not because the code was gone (lots of mirrors popped up quickly), but because they were worried that the contributors would stop further development.
I think that's another indicator that the code itself carries little value. However, the problem space you've loaded and mapped to code in your own head, does have lots of value. Of course the fact that you're sharing it with the world in the best format we know so far (code) for free is much appreciated :)
Re: Peter Naur's view of programming
#5Re your newsletter form, I'd take out the first name requirement.
Re: Peter Naur's view of programming
#6Re your newsletter form, I'd take out the first name requirement.
Thanks for your suggestion! It's actually optional. I had a problem with spam signups and thought it might help a bit.
Re: Peter Naur's view of programming
#7_My_ source code is invaluable. It's open, public, free to reuse under the GPL. It's a complete implementation of a painting application used by millions of people. It's a huge amount of knowledge readily accessible. You won't be able to buy something like this for any sum of money, so it's free.
Is it really the source code that has value, or your continued expansion and development of said code? Genuine question. The reason I'm asking, while I was writing the article, I was considering including the youtube-dl fiasco (when the RIAA took it down from GitHub) as an example. People were concerned not because the code was gone (lots of mirrors popped up quickly), but because they were worried that the contribut…
I think both can be true.
A snapshot of source code can be useful as a basis for some other project. However, you're also correct that, if the source code is abandonware and you/others have no interest in maintaining it, it almost certainly becomes less useful over time and at some point just breaks.
Re: Peter Naur's view of programming
#8_My_ source code is invaluable. It's open, public, free to reuse under the GPL. It's a complete implementation of a painting application used by millions of people. It's a huge amount of knowledge readily accessible. You won't be able to buy something like this for any sum of money, so it's free.
Is it really the source code that has value, or your continued expansion and development of said code? Genuine question. The reason I'm asking, while I was writing the article, I was considering including the youtube-dl fiasco (when the RIAA took it down from GitHub) as an example. People were concerned not because the code was gone (lots of mirrors popped up quickly), but because they were worried that the contribut…
Youtube-dl is an app chasing a moving operating of trying to interact with other sites APIs... many of which don't really even want to let youtube-dl do that. Most apps aren't in such a difficult space and keep working basically forever.
Re: Peter Naur's view of programming
#9I agreed with a lot of the points and that often source code might not be valuable but.... Much of it sounded like only thinking of a small team doing something no one else care about.
Conversely we have github and the millions of libraries it hosts in the form of source code.
We also have examples of WebKit based on KHTML, Blink based on that. Electron/Edge/Brave/Vivaldi based on Chromium. There is no one programmer who has the entirety of Chromium in their head and I'm pretty confident most teams would not find it easier to write their own browser from scratch. Chromium or WebKit are embedded in many places. PS5 and Oculus Quest are two off the top of my head.
Re: Peter Naur's view of programming
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it really the source code that has value, or your continued expansion and development of said code? Genuine question. The reason I'm asking, while I was writing the article, I was considering including the youtube-dl fiasco (when the RIAA took it down from GitHub) as an example. People were concerned not because the code was gone (lots of mirrors popped up quickly), but because they were worried that the contribut…
Youtube-dl is an app chasing a moving operating of trying to interact with other sites APIs... many of which don't really even want to let youtube-dl do that. Most apps aren't in such a difficult space and keep working basically forever.
> Most apps aren't in such a difficult space and keep working basically forever.
Sadly, this doesn't match my experience. Software that isn't actively maintained always dies, sooner or later.