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I'm a fucking webmaster (2016)

justinjackson.ca

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Re: I'm a fucking webmaster (2016)

#41

Post by zeta0134 »

dncornholio wrote: post #35
dgb23 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has to be a joke right?

I don't get the issue. You write a function to check if a number is odd. You seem to have this function in every project so you make a package for it so you, and others, can easily include it. This is exactly what npm is made for?

The issue is the idea of introducing an external dependency for a one line function that anyone with a rudimentary understanding of programming should be able to write in their sleep. The idea of sharing code isn't flawed here, but the risk / reward in these cases is very much out of whack.

Re: I'm a fucking webmaster (2016)

#42

Post by jraph »

dncornholio wrote: post #35
dgb23 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has to be a joke right?

I don't get the issue. You write a function to check if a number is odd. You seem to have this function in every project so you make a package for it so you, and others, can easily include it. This is exactly what npm is made for?

Testing whether a number is odd is done in 3 characters:

    n % 2
if you don't like the % you can also do it using a bitwise AND, this also handles negative numbers:

    n & 1
this is equal to 1 if the number is odd, 0 if it is even, and will be converted to true or false in a if statement. You don't need a library for this.

And you should not need a library to handle string conversions, you should be aware of the types you manipulates. If you do need to handle strings, that's still easy:

    Number(n) & 1
And Number(n) is a no op if n is already a number. But wait, no, actually, you don't even need this because % and & will auto cast the string to a number anyway. You can use parseInt(n) if there's a chance that your number is going to be non integer, but meh.

So n & 1 will cover everything.

All this is readable and idiomatic, there's no need to write a function for that, let alone a full fledged library with unit tests, package.json and all this crap that bloats the node_module folders of everybody.

isOdd = require('isOdd') and your entry in the dependencies of your package.json is going to be more verbose than isOdd = n => n & 1. Even "isOdd(n)" is longer than "n & 1". Nothing beats the "& 1".

If people are going to write libraries for all kind of similarly small and trivial things, soon we will need more than the Earth to handle our code.

Re: I'm a fucking webmaster (2016)

#43

Post by nonrandomstring »

scandox wrote: post #9

I know this is kind of negative: but I don't like nostalgia much and I think I like tech-nostalgia least. Don't get me wrong I like old tech, but just for what it is. Text based, simple, fast etc...but I don't like wallowing in a warm, fuzzy feeling about how it was. I mean I personally do recall 5.25" disks. I liked their look and feel as a kid. Fine. But making a big deal out of it feels retrograde...

> I know this is kind of negative: but I don't like nostalgia much and I think I like tech-nostalgia least.

It's not negative. It's an interesting sentiment, but one I think is based on a misperception or mischaracterisation, if you'll permit me;

Nostalgia is about experience and feelings. It often has idealising elements, attempting to restore something bound to a specific past time or culture that can never actually be revisited. Wallowing in a warm, fuzzy feeling" as you describe it, is depressive.

That's not what's going on in tech.

Tech people are experiencing disgust, frustration, anger, hopelessness and a whole range of sentiments hostile to current tech which is objectively broken in a number of ways. And justifiably so. We have wandered off the path, not just the path of "excitement and fun" but right off the path of utility into the long grass of bloated, brittle, precarious, unfathomable and unmaintainable complexity under the yoke of exploitation and false efficiency.

The desire to move "backwards" is a desire to fix things.

Many of the qualities of earlier tech can, and should be revisited.

We're in a cul-de-sac and unable to progress precisely because we label earlier technologies as "necessarily inferior". It is an arrogance and parochialism of false progress to do so. That mind-set always sees any sort of back-tracking as negative regression, or "anti-progressive". But sometimes the way forward is back. Remembering where you've been, is central to any successful algorithm that's navigating a maze (which is what technology is).

Projects like Gemini and distributed "New Web" based on overlay networks are not regressive. They are very contemporary attempts to distil the best elements of the 90s internet culture and re-orient development from there, but with the hindsight of knowing how not to do things.

> Don't get me wrong I like old tech, but just for what it is. Text based, simple, fast etc...

All of those qualities are also possible with new tech. And they make the new tech even better. And as energy and environment bite, we'll start to see them as positive qualities to move toward... in other words our definition (direction) of progress will evolve.

Re: I'm a fucking webmaster (2016)

#44

Post by tomhoward »

soco wrote: post #38
tomhoward wrote: post #20

My 1996 self feels very seen. I think a lot about the way the web was back in the mid 90s, compared to the bleeding-edge technologies of today, particularly blockchain and cryptocurrency. And one major aspect I keep coming back to is that web technologies in the 90s, and even their descendent technologies now, are simple enough for most technology-literate people to understand, and that carried with it a lot of comfo…

Erm, no, many understand very well what blockchain is and it's definitely not opaqueness what they accuse it of. But everybody can choose their own strawman to fight, can't they.

I didn’t/don’t dispute that “many understand very well what blockchain is”.

My assertion is quite different: that people familiar with basic computing technologies have a natural intuition for web technologies, which brings with it comfort and trust, whereas this is not true of blockchain and cryptocurrency.

As I said I was excited by the potential of blockchain and crypto, and would welcome it being widely adopted, but I suspect this factor is a major barrier. I’d welcome evidence to the contrary, not sneering.

Re: I'm a fucking webmaster (2016)

#46

Post by prawn »

blowski wrote: post #29
scandox wrote: post #9

I know this is kind of negative: but I don't like nostalgia much and I think I like tech-nostalgia least. Don't get me wrong I like old tech, but just for what it is. Text based, simple, fast etc...but I don't like wallowing in a warm, fuzzy feeling about how it was. I mean I personally do recall 5.25" disks. I liked their look and feel as a kid. Fine. But making a big deal out of it feels retrograde...

Exactly. The problem with the 1993 web was that it was usable by and appealed to only a very small part of the population. When people say stuff like this, it sounds to me like they're saying "I wish the web could go back to being a more exclusive club of which I was a member".

Maybe it wasn't that it was exclusive, but that it felt manageable and comprehensible. It felt like you could be aware of the breadth of it all (even if some was already out of reach). Now, that feels beyond impossible - we have every niche and every underworld.

I started as a web designer as images were being added to browsers and you could change the default grey background colour. Things are a bit different now...

Re: I'm a fucking webmaster (2016)

#47

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

dncornholio wrote: post #36
SenHeng wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

isOdd and isEven pop up often but they and all those other packages were explicitly created for the sole purpose of boosting the author's profile. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29241943

too be honest, a comment of someone doesn't make it true. It could be he has actual use cases for these repositories. Just that someone thinks it should'nt be used like this, doesn't mean it's true. It seems like a lot of people think they think how npm should work, while forgetting to see how npm actually works. There's even an example of a well respected npm author that has repositories with just a few lines.. Y'al…

> It could be he has actual use cases for these repositories.

If that were true, it would be useful for the author to actually explain that in his repo documentation. As it is, concluding that this is a joke is by far the most reasonable response.

Re: I'm a fucking webmaster (2016)

#49

Post by f0e4c2f7 »

His description of what web dev felt like in those early days captures how I feel about VR now.

Back then it was obvious to me that was the coolest thing you could possibly learn. Still to me it is outrageously cool that I can think something up and then in not that much time it can be a website.

So whats the new magic? To me it's the idea of being able to think something up and conjour it into the virtual world too.

Re: I'm a fucking webmaster (2016)

#50

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

dncornholio wrote: post #35
dgb23 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has to be a joke right?

I don't get the issue. You write a function to check if a number is odd. You seem to have this function in every project so you make a package for it so you, and others, can easily include it. This is exactly what npm is made for?

How far do you take this: an `inc()` function? If we get to a stage where every piece of software in the world depends on one random person's ridiculous npm module, we'll be in a pretty precarious state.
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