Solid interview but honestly a bit boilerplate in parts. The bit about "program death" and Naur's theory is gold though, even worth re-reading every few years.
His take on AI feels a bit cautious though. I think he's underestimating how fast tactical tornadoes are gonna become the default just because managers love seeing shit get done fast, even if it's messy...
People of ACM – Russ Cox
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Re: People of ACM – Russ Cox
#12Cloudflare says I'm not allowed to view the page. At least they are protected from "attacks."
Re: People of ACM – Russ Cox
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Re: People of ACM – Russ Cox
#14He puts words around what I've been feeling for the past 6 months or more:
> Ousterhout introduces the term “tactical tornado” for a programmer who churns out tons of working but overly complex code that doesn’t fit well into the existing system. Worse, a bad manager often sees a tactical tornado as the most productive programmer on a team, failing to recognize the complexity and code debt left behind for the rest of the team to clean up. If we aren’t careful managers, AI agents can easily become the ultimate tactical tornadoes.
Re: People of ACM – Russ Cox
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Re: People of ACM – Russ Cox
#17Re: People of ACM – Russ Cox
#18A good read. Except this weird remark:
"It used to be that if you could get a basic operating system coded and running, that was an indirect proof that you understood the basics of how operating systems worked."
How many -- and we are even supposedly talking about students -- have coded an operating system and got it running?
Re: People of ACM – Russ Cox
#19A good read. Except this weird remark: "It used to be that if you could get a basic operating system coded and running, that was an indirect proof that you understood the basics of how operating systems worked." How many -- and we are even supposedly talking about students -- have coded an operating system and got it running?
I know of schools where that was part of the CS curriculum. I don't know if you couldn't graduate without it, but most people didn't.
Re: People of ACM – Russ Cox
#20A good read. Except this weird remark: "It used to be that if you could get a basic operating system coded and running, that was an indirect proof that you understood the basics of how operating systems worked." How many -- and we are even supposedly talking about students -- have coded an operating system and got it running?
I know of schools where that was part of the CS curriculum. I don't know if you couldn't graduate without it, but most people didn't .
> part of the CS curriculum
Well, maybe in the old days, when computers were simple (and even then, it would've been a very tough take in a curriculum).