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Unix koans

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Re: Unix koans

#31

Post by mikeash »

coldtea wrote: post #30
mikeash wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's so terrible about it? Why should buddhism or zen be exempt from the sort of emulation, attempts at understanding, fun-making, and mixes of all three that we apply to essentially everything else? I mean, these particular writings are terrible, but that's because of how they're written, not what they're attempting to do.

> What's so terrible about it? Why should buddhism or zen be exempt from the sort of emulation, attempts at understanding, fun-making, and mixes of all three that we apply to essentially everything Because those belong to a culture (with the sociological sense), whereas the second kind of use you describe is what's called syncretism, and is a quite vulgar disregard for subtetly, context, fitness and it's subject matt…

Unless "belong to a culture" is supposed to be the answer, this appears to just say "it is because it should be" and not really an answer to my question at all.

Re: Unix koans

#32

Post by coldtea »

mikeash wrote: post #31
coldtea wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's so terrible about it? Why should buddhism or zen be exempt from the sort of emulation, attempts at understanding, fun-making, and mixes of all three that we apply to essentially everything Because those belong to a culture (with the sociological sense), whereas the second kind of use you describe is what's called syncretism, and is a quite vulgar disregard for subtetly, context, fitness and it's subject matt…

Unless "belong to a culture" is supposed to be the answer, this appears to just say "it is because it should be" and not really an answer to my question at all.

There are no answers to questions outside of a framework like a culture (that is, outside of desired goals and accepted means to get to them).

Historically, most civilizations, including western thought, have found that syncretism is bad. It results in a shallow understanding of what it is dealing with and a hodgepodge of incompatible ideas.

Budhism (and lots of other things) was evolved and developed to be seen as a whole and in a few specific contexts. Not for mixing and matching random parts. You might get something out of it, but it won't be budhism anymore -- and, judged by budhist standards, it would be BS.

I guess it would be the equivalent of copy/pasting code, instead of properly thinking about your program's architecture.

Re: Unix koans

#33

Post by mikeash »

coldtea wrote: post #32
mikeash wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless "belong to a culture" is supposed to be the answer, this appears to just say "it is because it should be" and not really an answer to my question at all.

There are no answers to questions outside of a framework like a culture (that is, outside of desired goals and accepted means to get to them). Historically, most civilizations, including western thought, have found that syncretism is bad. It results in a shallow understanding of what it is dealing with and a hodgepodge of incompatible ideas. Budhism (and lots of other things) was evolved and developed to be seen as a…

> Budhism (and lots of other things) was evolved and developed to be seen as a whole and in a few specific contexts.

Wha? Buddhism has a long history of evolving and mixing with local cultures, just like any religion. The zen stuff that these "koans" are either imitating or satirizing (depending on your view) comes from mixing Buddhism and Confucianism and Taoism and who knows what else.

Re: Unix koans

#34

Post by sophacles »

pmr_ wrote: post #22
patrickmay wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the beginning was the command line: http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html

I'm curious why people still throw around this essay even though Stephenson said he changed his view on the topic. Of course the points made are still valid but they are by no means absolute truth and never were.

A question and a comment.

Q: Do you have a source for the change in viewpoint?

Comment: Just because an author changes his views, doesn't mean that other people don't still agree with what was written. Authors don't get to tell people how to interpret and understand their writings.

Actually, scratch that last bit - As the author of this comment, what it really means is that you love it and should send me lots of dollars in gratitude.

Re: Unix koans

#35

Post by pmr_ »

sophacles wrote: post #34
pmr_ wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious why people still throw around this essay even though Stephenson said he changed his view on the topic. Of course the points made are still valid but they are by no means absolute truth and never were.

A question and a comment. Q: Do you have a source for the change in viewpoint? Comment: Just because an author changes his views, doesn't mean that other people don't still agree with what was written. Authors don't get to tell people how to interpret and understand their writings. Actually, scratch that last bit - As the author of this comment, what it really means is that you love it and should send me lots of doll…

Source: see question 8 here: http://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/neal-stephenson-r...

Comment: I fully agree that a change of opinion does not invalidate the old argument. I thought I made that clear, but apparently I was wrong.

Re: Unix koans

#36

Post by samatman »

austinl wrote: post #12

I think it's kind of strange that we've appropriated eastern philosophy to teach programming. Having read the Tao Te Ching and The Analects (two very conflicting works, philosophically), books like the Tao of Programming and The Codeless Code just seem to mask random programming knowledge in a foreign writing style to make it more entertaining. Not saying that what's taught in those books is incorrect or not valuable…

You may find it strange, but Dr. Ting does not[0]. eForth and Zen is written by a native Chinese speaker who is able to read the source texts in the original Ancient Chinese.

http://www.ultratechnology.com/efzen.htm

Re: Unix koans

#37

Post by Dewie »

jumpwah wrote: post #2

Some people seem to forget why we still use cli, from discourses on the graphical user interface, they think that it's not 'modern'...

I've been using the CLI more lately, but I do something new only after having looked it up with my GUI web browser first... (yes, I know, RTFM and all that)

Re: Unix koans

#38

Post by mturmon »

nabla9 wrote: post #20
austinl wrote: post #12

I think it's kind of strange that we've appropriated eastern philosophy to teach programming. Having read the Tao Te Ching and The Analects (two very conflicting works, philosophically), books like the Tao of Programming and The Codeless Code just seem to mask random programming knowledge in a foreign writing style to make it more entertaining. Not saying that what's taught in those books is incorrect or not valuable…

"Misuse" of koans has long history. After Zen master Yuanwu's Blue Cliff Records - collection of 100 classical koans with his commentary verses - started to spread around, his successor Dahui noticed how monks and laypeople treated the collection as intellectual and artistic work (Yuanwu Keqin wrote and spoke very beautifully, so they do have artistic value) and burned all copies he could find. The original use of ko…

I still think of this one whenever some lab apparatus starts working after an expert walks in and fiddles with some wires or power-cycles it --

  A novice was trying to fix a broken lisp machine by turning the power off and on.  
  Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly - 
  "You can not fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding 
  of what is going wrong."
  Knight turned the machine off and on.
  The machine worked.

Re: Unix koans

#39

Post by dredmorbius »

pmr_ wrote: post #22
patrickmay wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the beginning was the command line: http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html

I'm curious why people still throw around this essay even though Stephenson said he changed his view on the topic. Of course the points made are still valid but they are by no means absolute truth and never were.

What Stephenson changed his view on primarily was his choice of OS, mostly because OS X offered most of the power of UNIX while also presenting a user-friendly GUI. I believe he's had a few things to say on this since (principally that he's increasingly less happy with OS X) though I don't have any specific links at the moment.

Re: Unix koans

#40

Post by mattdeboard »

mikeash wrote: post #31
coldtea wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's so terrible about it? Why should buddhism or zen be exempt from the sort of emulation, attempts at understanding, fun-making, and mixes of all three that we apply to essentially everything Because those belong to a culture (with the sociological sense), whereas the second kind of use you describe is what's called syncretism, and is a quite vulgar disregard for subtetly, context, fitness and it's subject matt…

Unless "belong to a culture" is supposed to be the answer, this appears to just say "it is because it should be" and not really an answer to my question at all.

Upon hearing this, the GP was enlightened.
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