11–20 of 106 posts
I am a fan of the word "bozo", and even used it in a book title. It explains so many bad things in our industry. The fact that this author is associating it with Google is just the icing on the cake for me.
SCNR
"Others, like James Gosling, quietly change the world by building something (the core Java language and libraries) that make so much sense and are so elegant that you just smile when you use them ." I'm afraid everybody says this about whatever is new. Nowadays people would say this about Guido, Matz, etc.
Also, I'm not sure that of all of Gosling's achievements, I would point to Java-the-language (or the UTTERLY GODAWFUL initial libraries) as a particular exemplar of elegance. NeWS was much, much, much more interesting and forward-thinking, for one.
Many rants posted to HN could simply be entered as text on HN but end up being blog posts one someone's blog. Lots of creative ideas turn into blog post rants that point to code on github with no history, no evidence of the messy process of creation, only the illusion that the author typed it all as if by divine inspiration.
I wish more of the elites among us would let us see their ugly commit history, their discarded design ideas, their untested, uncommented code.
In some circles, this is called keeping it real. Open source should not require such artifice if we have a meritocracy.
On the other hand, maybe all great luminaries started out as aggressive self-promoters (picture accomplished performers busking on the street in their younger days).
Its possible for someone who was once quite good to become more of a bozo, sometimes its an ill advised step outside their comfort zone, sometimes they get pushed there by well meaning management. Like many things, and perhaps related to the nostalgia effect, it is 'obvious' in hindsight when the bozos came, but often times their initial arrival is silent and unheralded.
I saw some of that going on at Google just before I left, I mentioned it to Eric (who had seen it at Sun when we were there and was well familiar with the effect). It isn't at all clear to me that its something you can stop.
These companies seem to suffer brain-drain and increasing mediocrity in the same way that online communities suffer the constant erosion of their best users.
http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/social-software-sundays-2-the-...
The most absurd thing in my opinion is self-promotion. Let's be honest, some of the most influential people in HN, Github, etc., are accomplished, naked self-promoters. Many rants posted to HN could simply be entered as text on HN but end up being blog posts one someone's blog. Lots of creative ideas turn into blog post rants that point to code on github with no history, no evidence of the messy process of creation,…
It's going to happen to everyone, so I just figure, why not turn it around and use it as a learning experience (for me) and then a teaching opportunity for others?
Case in point: I did something really stupid with MySQL's client library without realizing it when I designed my own interface to it, and it bit me hard enough to bring down a bunch of database-backed stuff on my systems. In fixing it, I discovered both a thing to make sure I never do again in my own code, and also uncovered a possible way to launch a denial-of-service attack on a MySQL daemon
Then I turned it into a post. So I screwed up. It happens. What I found out as a result more than makes up for it.
Steve Kleiman, another Sun alum, had some international 'no bozo' stickers. I still have one stuck to a filing cabinet. Its possible for someone who was once quite good to become more of a bozo, sometimes its an ill advised step outside their comfort zone, sometimes they get pushed there by well meaning management. Like many things, and perhaps related to the nostalgia effect, it is 'obvious' in hindsight when the bo…
The most absurd thing in my opinion is self-promotion. Let's be honest, some of the most influential people in HN, Github, etc., are accomplished, naked self-promoters. Many rants posted to HN could simply be entered as text on HN but end up being blog posts one someone's blog. Lots of creative ideas turn into blog post rants that point to code on github with no history, no evidence of the messy process of creation,…
How about posts describing times when the author has screwed up? I try to learn something from my mistakes and then share that knowledge in the hopes it will reduce incidences of that same mistake in the wider world. I don't care that it means admitting that I did something stupid or was ignorant of some particular technique at the time. It's going to happen to everyone, so I just figure, why not turn it around and u…
Microsoft from 1992 onwards? I guess we did; 20x increase in adjusted share price; in OSes alone, the release of Windows 3.1 (IMO the breakthrough move to GUI on PC, away from DOS), NT 3.1 (the original seed that grew to NT 3.51, NT 4, Win2K and all current kernels), breakthrough success of Windows 95. Looks like it worked pretty well, and made a lot of people very wealthy.
The most absurd thing in my opinion is self-promotion. Let's be honest, some of the most influential people in HN, Github, etc., are accomplished, naked self-promoters. Many rants posted to HN could simply be entered as text on HN but end up being blog posts one someone's blog. Lots of creative ideas turn into blog post rants that point to code on github with no history, no evidence of the messy process of creation,…
I don't think tendency toward self-promotion really correlates with technical chops in one direction or the other.
