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There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him

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Re: There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him

#91

Post by quietbritishjim »

pixl97 wrote: post #69
quietbritishjim wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flutter / Dart? It's compiled ahead of time and doesn't use an embedded browser so I'd expect it to be a lot lighter, though I haven't measured. But the general lack of really cross-platform (desktop + mobile + maybe web) ecosystems is just as much as sign that devs consider multi-gigabyte Electron apps "good enough" as the apps themselves.

>at devs consider multi-gigabyte Electron apps "good enough" as the apps themselves. This kind of misses out on a hierarchy of devs here and the amount of work to make it happen. Electron took a large chunk from a multi-billion dollar endeavor to use to make all this work. Electron only worked because Chrome was there. Chrome worked because Google already had unlimited money from advertising, and getting advertising…

True, not every dev has the power of a multi-billion dollar company behind them. But a few do.

My point was, if enough people really considered this a big deal then at least one huge tech company might have invested in a solution that provides a lighter weight solution that's truely multiplatform (desktop and mobile).

I don't have much visibility on how decisions are made to maintain massive open-source infrastructure projects, and no doubt there are significant business case inputs to them, but they must be at least partially technical. So, as I see it, the lack of such things give insight that even developers don't prioritise them.

As I mentioned, Flutter is almost there and maybe its lack of uptake on desktop is just enough to show that there really isn't demand (though I expect the main reason is its use of the Dart programming language, which is very nice but quite niche).

Re: There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him

#92

Post by pixl97 »

aix1 wrote: post #85
pixl97 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>without even trying to understand it or think critically about what it does and where it might break. You are living in a past, but one much farther back than you expect. People were copying code from SO since it became popular. People are including node modules blindly before AI. Most developers suck, terribly. Maybe being on HN is a type of filter that shows you're just a little bit better than the average, but th…

First of all, that's a very different sort of thing compared to blindly taking reams of code from an LLM. The amounts of code in a given SO answer or a magazine article are tiny and the code has undergone review of one sort or another. Similarly, if I take QR decomposition code from Numerical Recipes, that's quite likely to be better quality than what I -- or most folks -- can code up in a comparable amount of time.…

Really what you're saying is it is an issue of quantity.

> if I take QR decomposition code from Numerical Recipes,

I'm going to assume the vast majority of code written does not look anything like this, but is dumb little chunks of glue for other important chunks, that are quite often imported from other libraries.

As someone that is not a SWE looking from the outside, I think there is a disconnect between what a SWE is told they are getting paid for and what a SWE is actually getting paid for by (many/most) businesses.

You are under the assumption you are getting paid for writing code. But for the vast majority of business that is just the icky bits getting ground up in the sausage factory that nobody wants to know about. Management above you only cares about what gets wrapped in casings and is ready to sell to the customer (either internal or external). They do not care if the product is technically good as long as they can sell it. For each individual person in the company becoming a better programmer is hard to measure and rarely rewarded by the company they work for. Turning out tons of lines of code and applications that have at least some semblance of working is far more likely to get you a pay raise.

Re: There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him

#93

Post by iwisjwudjqjdw »

high_na_euv wrote: post #26
nekooooo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

modern engineering is launching an electron to-do list app that uses 2gb of ram.

Which, at least works relibly across all platforms and devices unlike desktop frameworks? People wouldnt use electron is they had good alternative

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Re: There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him

#94

Post by dhosek »

rsanek wrote: post #43
appplication wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was behind Woz in Heathrow security a few years back. I was taken aback he’d just be in the regular airport security line given he’s probably worth 1B+. I asked him if he was who I thought he was (he was wearing a face mask, but it was printed with a picture of his own face on it so I wasn’t sure). He said yes and asked if I wanted to take a selfie. Very humble dude.

I think his net worth is probably a couple of orders of magnitude lower https://swipefile.com/steve-wozniak-co-founder-of-apple-on-h...

Even 7 zeros is pretty much you can do what you want anytime you want. Ten million dollars sitting in a bank account earning 3% is 25k a month and nobody with those kinds of assets is leaving them in a bank account earning 3%.

Re: There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him

#95

Post by mghackerlady »

checker659 wrote: post #84
mghackerlady wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me he's second only to stallman for me. Woz is an engineering genius, but stallman is pretty much the reason we're on this site right now in a way

Care to explain?

Without Stallman there wouldn't be GNU, so the operating system used to host this site and the majority of the web wouldn't exist. The compiler used to build that operating system wouldn't exist. The free software movement that later birthed its little cousin "open source" wouldn't exist, neither would the free culture movement to some extent. The ideals of the free software movement inspired the architects of the World Wide Web to make it a freely available technology, so without stallman the net would be vastly different, likely staying fragmented between different protocols like it used to be. Plus, the operating system you're using likely has some GNU stuff in it somewhere

Re: There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him

#96

Post by iwisjwudjqjdw »

LukeShu wrote: post #12
testfrequency wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s more likely just you. Anyone who knows Apple knows who “Scott” is referring to. Scott Forstall.

Heh, I assumed he was referring to "Scott the Woz" Scott Wozniak, a vintage-gaming youtuber. I assumed that the GP took a more literal attack on "only one 'Woz'", hile you took a more symbolic "only one engineer of such quality". In the context of Apple, sure "Scott" is Scott Forstall, but that's not necessarily the context.

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Re: There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him

#99

Post by rainbowcash »

pavlov wrote: post #90
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #2

Woz is by far the person in computing history for whom I have the most respect. Dude is an absolute legend , and from everything I have heard is humble and kind on top of his crazy skills. If I could get to the point where I had even 10% of his skill and generosity of spirit, I would consider myself to have done pretty well.

Woz is great, but I'd still go for Alan Kay.

Great mention of Alan Kay - however I enjoy hearing from them both. Both have an infectious enthusiasm for teaching and making things so dang simple. I enjoy coming back to their talks and learning something new

Re: There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him

#100

Post by randycupertino »

Peroni wrote: post #56

I once approached Woz about potentially speaking at Hacker News London, fully expecting my email to be completely ignored. A few days later, he actually responded enthusiastically and mentioned an upcoming trip to the UK. He loved the grassroots nature of the meetup and was really up for giving a talk (for free!) to the community. I then had multiple delightful interactions with his wife who managed his logistics. De…

I sat next to him in business class on a flight back from Poland to the SF a few years ago and he was so gracious, talking with and taking photos with all his seatmates. I just wanted to sleep because I was coming back from a conference and I was actually annoyed with all the "fanfare" around him which was loud and kept everyone up! It must have been hard for him to constantly deal with. He was super nice though and made time for everyone who wanted to chat with him.

My other airline celebrity encounter was Pauly Shore, who I was standing next to at the baggage carosel and thought to myself, "huh this guy sounds just like Pauly Shore" and lo - it was the man (and his entourage) himself. I always thought the voice was an affectation but nope he actually does talk like that. Woz was definitely more exciting to encouter!

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