111–120 of 122 posts
Very endearing post :). I’m keeping a collection of computing holy wars that I come across if anyone wants to check it out: https://josh8.com/blog/wars_of_computing.html I’ll add a footnote to this post, it captures the spirit well. If anyone has suggestions for things to add to my list it’d be much appreciated
Very endearing post :). I’m keeping a collection of computing holy wars that I come across if anyone wants to check it out: https://josh8.com/blog/wars_of_computing.html I’ll add a footnote to this post, it captures the spirit well. If anyone has suggestions for things to add to my list it’d be much appreciated
A lot of the cultural phenomena around Rust can best be explained in religious terms. It's no accident that we are sometimes referred to as the "Rust Evangelism Strike Force," and the word "zealot" is frequently used, of course largely by critics. There's a deeper level as well. The concept of "memory safety" which is a core principle of Rust has, I believe, a lot in common with religious concepts of purity and clean…
I would say, turn off the bots but I'm sure you won't.
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Probably no religions, probably no philosophies, but maybe some mythologies? And at least a couple of shared cultures?
I would say there's hacker culture, humor and tradition, yes. Even ideology (what is Free/Libre Sofware if not an ideology?). If that's what you mean. But religiosity or mysticism? Not in programming , though of course individual hackers probably run the gamut from religious to atheist, with all beliefs in between. TFA is a joke, by the way. The author obviously understands this. But I'm worried it will get interpret…
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I think people can be canonized by others without a church, yeah. An Irish Catholic might fight me if I insult St. Patrick. A wokester might fight me if I insult George Floyd. A techie might fight me if I insult Elon or Stallman. The behavior is there and very real, and whether it's fueled by a religious or abstract idea is completely irrelevant to me if I don't share those beliefs. If someone does canonize Stallman,…
Stallman isn't dressed as Jesus, but as a (mock) saint named Saint I gnu cious. Get it? "Gnu". > But you already don't believe there's a supernatural element I didn't mention my own beliefs whatsoever. In order to note all of the examples in TFA are wrong, I don't need to refer to my own beliefs. The rest of your comment... I just don't know how to engage with it. So I guess I won't.
I couldn't answer this either! And that was the day I stopped hating religious people or seeing myself as somehow different or better than them.
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I recall that at Apple, in the 90s, a man named Guy Kawasaki was Chief Evangelist at Apple, and he really connected with the community back when things were pretty rough for Apple. I actually didn’t realize that evangelist had a religious context until many years later - I thought it just meant someone who is enthusiastic and pushes the product.
Well, it does now
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It's a fuzzy matter because it doesn't have a single agreed on definition. But yes, some parts are definitely showing their age: > Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Putting things together from a kit of parts isn't necessarily the optimal way to do many things. In many cases tight integration actually produces superior results, and debugging a system made from many cooperating bits isn't necessarily an…
>Putting things together from a kit of parts isn't necessarily the optimal way to do many things. In many cases tight integration actually produces superior results, and debugging a system made from many cooperating bits isn't necessarily any easier. The reason why this is part of the Unix philosophy is not merely because of the productivity it provides, but largely because of the power it affords end users. Most of…
A year or so later, we got individual student accounts. I resolutely refused to discover how they implemented it.
The Unix Philosophy is about building small components that compose well together. The fact that some applications benefit from tight integration in no way derogates from its value.
Very endearing post :). I’m keeping a collection of computing holy wars that I come across if anyone wants to check it out: https://josh8.com/blog/wars_of_computing.html I’ll add a footnote to this post, it captures the spirit well. If anyone has suggestions for things to add to my list it’d be much appreciated
I wish I could find it, but the Jacob Thornton vs Doug Crockford semi-colon in JS war was fun.
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Stallman isn't dressed as Jesus, but as a (mock) saint named Saint I gnu cious. Get it? "Gnu". > But you already don't believe there's a supernatural element I didn't mention my own beliefs whatsoever. In order to note all of the examples in TFA are wrong, I don't need to refer to my own beliefs. The rest of your comment... I just don't know how to engage with it. So I guess I won't.
> Do you have any actual religious behaviors to point to that aren't already human behaviors? I couldn't answer this either! And that was the day I stopped hating religious people or seeing myself as somehow different or better than them.
This may shock you but I don't hate religious people. I guess good for you that you stopped hating them?
You assume way too much. I notice you failed to respond any of my questions, and so I'm uninterested in continuing this conversation.
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I would say there's hacker culture, humor and tradition, yes. Even ideology (what is Free/Libre Sofware if not an ideology?). If that's what you mean. But religiosity or mysticism? Not in programming , though of course individual hackers probably run the gamut from religious to atheist, with all beliefs in between. TFA is a joke, by the way. The author obviously understands this. But I'm worried it will get interpret…
I think it gets interesting when you get to mythology, which is not necessarily meant to be taken literally. The founding myths of programming? Babbage and Lovelace. The Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT. von Neumann and Turing.