Are the examples given by the author really that worthy of respect? If you write yet another unnecessary Foo to Javascript translator, or over-complicate your code to show off how well you know the dark corners of your chosen language (both examples given by Chris), should people really be impressed? And if people aren't, should they put on a fake smile and pretend to be?
You can't impress developers
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Re: You can't impress developers
#12Took a break from HN (and others) for about 8 months at the end of 2012 and start of 2013. The HN I came back to feels very different. Everyone knows better and is eager to prove it by putting others down. Comments are no longer about the OP, but about how the OP is laughable, let me tell you how to do it. So sad.
Re: You can't impress developers
#13This conversation reminds of the old programmer joke: How many programmers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Five. One to screw in the light bulb and four to say, "I could have done that."
Surely at least one or two of them would say "Instead of wasting time with light bulbs I would have been building something people want."
Re: You can't impress developers
#14I had missed the first link about a Python interpreter in JS. I too find it incredible and very exciting.
I'm not sure I want to manipulate the DOM in Python instead of JS/jQuery, but it could prove super cool to write web workers in Python for instance.
The more you can compute in the browser the better. The client is where CPU cycles go to die, we need to change that.
Re: You can't impress developers
#15This conversation reminds of the old programmer joke: How many programmers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Five. One to screw in the light bulb and four to say, "I could have done that."
Surely at least one or two of them would say "Instead of wasting time with light bulbs I would have been building something people want."
And the other two built a social network for the lightbulbs?
Re: You can't impress developers
#16[deleted]
Re: You can't impress developers
#17I become impressed when I see utility. Anyone can mock up a poorly featured demo. Programmers tend to be a lot more receptive when someone says:
We created X, and here's the successful, maintainable, real world product we used to implement it called Y
than:
We created X, here's a 10 line incomplete demo that isn't really useful for anything and that we didn't explain well
Re: You can't impress developers
#18Brython has bubbled up on HackerNews several times. It might not be "not impressed", just "not impressed anymore." Edit: Added quotation marks.
This. I didn't say anything on the Brython post from yesterday, but I certainly wasn't very impressed having seen it at least twice before on HN and what with the dozens of foo-to-JS transcompilers that have been cropping up lately.
I didn't upvote, I didn't downvote, and I didn't comment though.
Maybe the lesson is "if you don't have something nice[1] to say, don't say it at all".
[1] or meaningfully constructive, at least
Re: You can't impress developers
#19Developers are critical thinkers. If the person hasn't evolved enough to account for the notion of being human; or if the context is such that critical thinking implies critiquing without appreciation, you get what the OP is complaining about. HN is definitely the latter since comments in this community are largely reserved for criticism while the appreciation is (usually) limited to upvotes.
I want to say it's the nature of the game but that's simply not true, we take pride in being assholes. For Brython, while I was appreciated the amount of work and the complexity that went into it, I was unimpressed by the methodology.
Re: You can't impress developers
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely at least one or two of them would say "Instead of wasting time with light bulbs I would have been building something people want."
And the other two built a social network for the lightbulbs?
I believe there's either products or perhaps a kickstarter for lamps where the light will change depending on whether your friends lamps are on or off.