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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

#131

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

NetMageSCW wrote: post #105
volkercraig wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without the gnu projects, software would have remained in the domain of universities and industry. Distributing it for free and encapsulating it with an actual legal license was radical in and of itself, but the notion of being required to distribute source was even more radical. Without that, people don't learn to code outside of industry, people don't share ideas and software remains in corporate silos with no/low…

> outside of industry, people don't share ideas and software remains in corporate silos with no/low interoptability unless a business decides to form a strategic partnership. Computer science and computing was taught and done at universities long before Stallman and GNU came along. I was using C++ Release E at college before GNU started, provided by Bell Labs at no cost.

Provided to whom ?

Most of that stuff was made available to universities and colleges as institutions, but not to individual students. Once you graduate, you have no effective (or legal) access to it anymore ...

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

#132

Post by paulcole »

alwa wrote: post #127
paulcole wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I’d argue their underlying spirit isn’t the same. And your argument is based on the fact that you’d like this to be true as well as the fact that the vc company behind this site said, “Trust us bro!” How is that different from the cow saying, “The farmer told us we’re walking through a fun maze!”

I mean Marketing budgets can fund stuff whose authenticity is independent of who’s writing the check, right? Especially when their audience is extra-contrarian and sensitive to authenticity. Xerox can be an evil megacorp and also be sugar daddy to the PARC. If the fun maze is taking YC’s money and using it to start a company, sure, I see your point. I’d say (right here on YC’s digital estate!) probably don’t do that.…

> Marketing budgets can fund stuff whose authenticity is independent of who’s writing the check, right

I think “follow the money” is the cliche that applies here.

> Especially when their audience is extra-contrarian and sensitive to authenticity.

I think you mean that the audience likes to think of itself as extra-contrarian and sensitive to authenticity?

The audience will talk until they’re blue in the face about why this marketing project (HN) is so much different from and so much more authentic than other marketing projects.

The marketing seems to be working on this supposedly contrarian and sensitive to authentiity audience!

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

#134

Post by wat10000 »

testfrequency wrote: post #9
knorker wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you have to be more specific than "Scott" says a lot.

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

My first computer was an Apple IIGS and everything since then has been a Mac. "Scott" doesn't bring anyone specific to mind for me. Maybe that connection is automatic for newcomers who immediately think "iPhone" when they hear "Apple."

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

#135

Post by steve1977 »

high_na_euv wrote: post #113
steve1977 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reliable as in "exposes the same bug across all platforms"?

Whats so unreliable about electron then?

Probably not much about Electron itself, but it seems to lead to buggy applications.

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

#136

Post by testfrequency »

wat10000 wrote: post #134
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.

My first computer was an Apple IIGS and everything since then has been a Mac. "Scott" doesn't bring anyone specific to mind for me. Maybe that connection is automatic for newcomers who immediately think "iPhone" when they hear "Apple."

I had a very long career at Apple. I have also met and spent time with Woz on multiple occasions. I have some bias here.

Possibly my assumption was incorrectly based more on people who actually worked at Apple vs what the normal public thinks of when they hear “Scott” and “Woz” in the context of Apple.

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

#137

Post by TacoCommander »

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?

You used to have to pay for UNIX just like you pay for Microsoft Windows

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

#138

Post by ABCLAW »

postalcoder wrote: post #20
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.

I can't think of a single person who embodies the spirit of this site more than Woz. dang could replace the guidelines with a picture of Woz and we'd all know what it meant.

I feel like this was more accurate a long time ago when the first rounds of YCombinator hopefuls were all piling in here and nerding out. The vibe, tone, and content has dramatically shifted towards the finance and ambition side of tech over the years.

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

#139

Post by Miraste »

p00dles wrote: post #34
Aloha wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're an engineer, you should admire Woz, if you're a product manager or marketeer, Jobs. Jobs was a brilliant product manager and marketeer - every bit as brilliant as Woz is an engineer. The truth is, the sharpest engineers struggle to make a marketable consumer product - because they make it for themselves, and while thats quite laudable, however it's generally a tiny market compared to one targeted at normal…

They were both brilliant, but from everything that I've read, Jobs was an ass****, and Woz was the opposite, and that is a huge, huge difference. The mythologizing of Jobs is the canonical example of people condoning terrible behavior because they think that a person is smart/valuable/talented/etc. To me this is completely backwards and sets a terrible precedent - that you can act however you want if you get results…

I do wonder if it's possible to be a brilliant marketer, and reach the levels Jobs did, without being an asshole. The core of the profession is learning how to manipulate and use people better than anyone else.

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

#140

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

postalcoder wrote: post #20
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.

I can't think of a single person who embodies the spirit of this site more than Woz. dang could replace the guidelines with a picture of Woz and we'd all know what it meant.

I just watched a Ken Thompson interview when he's 80 years old.

My god jolly, I feel like Ken's the person you might be referring to.

Wozniak is great as well. Perhaps we (or people?) might affiliate him more with Hackernews given he was co-founder of a company which many founders within HN might want to achieve (or replicate?)

But the other way I view HN is a place of curiosity, a place of tinkering. I saw the interview of Ken Thompson and I don't know about you guys, but Ken Thompson talked in his interview about how when he was in between houses at a hotel when he was in high school, and there were girls who he used to wave at so he was half-way through to making essentially a pixelated device through which he could write letters (from what I remember from his interview)

I personally have done something similar although from a software side and not with a hardware side. But I feel like after 70 years, the transition from hardware to software is one which is understandable :)

I mean... Ken's 80 year old and really sharp. I only saw him thinking about things literally 70 year old just once almost like loading things into his mind at the start of interview and he was effortless afterwards talking about it.

I don't know enough about wozniak to qualify him for this

But what I can say was that today I was watching the Ken Thompson interview and literally after 15-30 minutes of the 4 hour interview. I was like, this belongs on hackernews and submitted it here. (Not sure if this counts as promotion but seriously everyone just watch this interview of Ken Thompson!)

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=309siTvApbY

Hackernews discussion I submitted (Currently zero response after 8 hours tho) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46793919] Kenneth Lane Thompson, 1983 ACM Turing Award Recipient (Video Interview)

SO I don't know if there's a particular reason why my HN submission about got literally 0 response after 8 hours or if because of it, Ken Thompson wouldn't qualify for it. But I am gonna be honest and say that in my mind, Ken Thompson's the legend which really embodies the HN spirit. Not sure if other parts of HN community also feel so but I still feel that they do even though there was no response on the HN post (could just be the timing at what I posted and many other things) but yea.

I highly recommend everyone to go watch the interview if you have 4-5 hours of free time right now.

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