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God's Lonely Programmer

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Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#41

Post by _exec »

I've stumbled upon Terry's work a long time ago...and suffice to say he's been a major inspiration. It's a shame the majority of netizens (Yes, HN and Reddit included) can't look beyond his eccentricity and mental health issues (then again, it takes some digging and google-fu to find out the full story / context behind the man...his posts don't exactly come with a disclaimer).

Going down the rabbit hole of Googling, Redditing, finding out more about him and his story ("a one-man novel, modern x64 almost-but-not-quite-entirely-unlike-retro OS?" type of thing is catnip to my synapses), I've also come to understand a friend's schizophrenic relative a bit better. I've read accounts of schizophrenia and art intersecting, but did not understand what it is, what it's like, *, until I witnessed schizophrenia intersecting with IT, at which point the gates of empathy, admiration and fascination were flung wide open.

[/r/programming's 637 comments thread from 2010] http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/e5d8e/demo_vide...

[another /r/programming thread] http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/lhefd/losethos_...

His username on HN is / has been some variation on "TempleOS", "LoseThos", "SparrowOS", "TempleOSv2", etc. AFAIK all hellbanned due to un-PC comments posted in his, for lack of better phrasing, "Moments of Un-Clarity".

The irony (perhaps using the wrong word) of being hellbanned when the story of of your life's work..your magnum opus (especially in this case, an objective article that places it in context and with some background) is featured on HN's front page, makes me sad.

I consider his work to be a prime example of ["Outsider Art"] {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art} in our field.

I wish to collaborate with him one day.

Edit: Formatting, more caffeine.

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#42

Post by vinceguidry »

yzzxy wrote: post #22

I wonder if there is something the programming community could do to help him. I'm not sure what this could entail, but I'd hope there are people who would be willing to talk with him about his interests or attempt to set up some kind of assisted employment situation - he is by all accounts a very talented engineer.

One of the wonderful things about Western society is that it's got enough social welfare structures to allow someone like Terry to exist, is wealthy enough to allow them to thrive, should they want to, and enough individualism to where he's not constantly being beaten over the head with other people's demands for him to change to fit their idea of what a person should be.

As someone who has at times relied on this social largesse, I can say that attempts to do more wouldn't really have the desired effect. His is a wholly self-directed life, attempts to 'help' would take the self-directed quality out of his life that is being selected for. If you're worried for his well-being, I can say from experience that a person's subconscious mind is a lot more capable than we give it credit for.

If Terry wants to work, he will find work. His subconscious mind will proclaim through God that he is to glorify Him through this new avenue, which just so happens to be in a company in return for a salary. If he wants to do something else, he will do that something else.

He doesn't need us, and that's the real beauty of it.

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#43

Post by nyolfen »

_exec wrote: post #41

I've stumbled upon Terry's work a long time ago...and suffice to say he's been a major inspiration. It's a shame the majority of netizens (Yes, HN and Reddit included) can't look beyond his eccentricity and mental health issues (then again, it takes some digging and google-fu to find out the full story / context behind the man...his posts don't exactly come with a disclaimer). Going down the rabbit hole of Googling,…

the dude is straight up racist and just because he's eccentric and mentally ill doesn't mean it should be tolerated

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#45

Post by yzzxy »

vinceguidry wrote: post #42
yzzxy wrote: post #22

I wonder if there is something the programming community could do to help him. I'm not sure what this could entail, but I'd hope there are people who would be willing to talk with him about his interests or attempt to set up some kind of assisted employment situation - he is by all accounts a very talented engineer.

One of the wonderful things about Western society is that it's got enough social welfare structures to allow someone like Terry to exist, is wealthy enough to allow them to thrive, should they want to, and enough individualism to where he's not constantly being beaten over the head with other people's demands for him to change to fit their idea of what a person should be. As someone who has at times relied on this so…

I don't know if this is true. I find it extremely unlikely that the average employer would even consider employing someone with apparent mental health issues, so it's possible many people in similar situations just give up.

I don't think he should be forced to work, or even pushed to do so. But I really don't see the harm in making an offer of employment or something similar - It's not "condescending" as some other commenters have contended and implies nothing beyond what it is. If he wants to live on the social welfare that he almost surely deserves and spend his life coding or doing whatever he chooses, that's fine. I'm just suggesting that other doors could be opened.

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#46

Post by blt »

I really like the "modern, souped-up, multi-tasking, cross between DOS and a Commodore 64" vision for TempleOS. The OS also has some innovative design choices like using the C compiler as the shell and compiling most programs on the fly. It reminds me of Lisp Machines in a way. A different vision of what computing could be like if closed-source binary-distributed software didn't exist.

I wish the source code (http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/LineRep.html) were easier to read though. It's very dense with a lot of abbreviated variable names and no comments. It's the main reason why I haven't installed TempleOS yet, because of course I'd want to hack on it, and the code seems tough to learn.

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#47

Post by jack9 »

nyolfen wrote: post #43
_exec wrote: post #41

I've stumbled upon Terry's work a long time ago...and suffice to say he's been a major inspiration. It's a shame the majority of netizens (Yes, HN and Reddit included) can't look beyond his eccentricity and mental health issues (then again, it takes some digging and google-fu to find out the full story / context behind the man...his posts don't exactly come with a disclaimer). Going down the rabbit hole of Googling,…

the dude is straight up racist and just because he's eccentric and mentally ill doesn't mean it should be tolerated

> just because he's eccentric and mentally ill doesn't mean it should be tolerated

So let's all be intolerant of the mentally ill? There's no celebration of his social contributions here, this is recognition of his technical achievement. Social behavior is orthogonal to the discussion.

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#48

Post by _exec »

nyolfen wrote: post #43
_exec wrote: post #41

I've stumbled upon Terry's work a long time ago...and suffice to say he's been a major inspiration. It's a shame the majority of netizens (Yes, HN and Reddit included) can't look beyond his eccentricity and mental health issues (then again, it takes some digging and google-fu to find out the full story / context behind the man...his posts don't exactly come with a disclaimer). Going down the rabbit hole of Googling,…

the dude is straight up racist and just because he's eccentric and mentally ill doesn't mean it should be tolerated

Is he actually racist, or are his moments of unclarity racist?

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#49

Post by yzzxy »

GuiA wrote: post #40

I'm a huge fan of Terry's work, because he works hard, has a clear vision for what he wants to do, and makes it happen. That's more than can be said of many self-professed hackers who never see a project to completion or are motivated solely by peer recognition. You may disagree with the logical coherency of his goals - I for one think the "temple for God" thing is pure kookery - but he is a master craftsman, and in…

As the commenter I believe you are quoting, I think you are reading a little too much into what I said. Nobody implied helplessness as a being, or that Terry should be compelled to enter gainful employment. I think it would be insane not to say that extremely high barriers to entry for someone with perceived mental health issues exist at almost any company. By "assisted employment" I mean having an employer who will try to understand his situation throughout hiring and ongoing employment. If there is some other implication to that phrase, I wasn't aware of it.

I've read pretty much every interview, story, and page regarding TempleOS and Terry's work and haven't seen anything reinforcing the rigid belief you are espousing that Terry has no interest in working. It could be true, or not - but we have no idea of staring into another human being's brain and finding out without asking them. If there's some kind of statement he's made either way, then I think we should defer to it.

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