Closure, from why the lucky stiff (2013)

Post by rahoulb » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 10:33 AM UTC

tyg13 wrote: post #92

preseinger wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

right! and, to build on that: people who see programming as maths understand it fundamentally differently than those who see it as prose, they approach every aspect of programming differently, evaluate "quality" on entirely different metrics, etc. in my experience, this is a major source of friction in programming teams, and deserves to be addressed more directly -- if i had it my way, i'd prefer that those who see p…

As both a writer and someone who has a degree in math, I see the segregation of prose and mathematics into fundamentally different categories as arbitrary, perhaps even incorrect. I see an artistic element to mathematics, just as much as I see a mechanical element to prose. The mechanics of the thing tell us what we can do, the art of it tells us what we want to do. Perhaps even _why we do it.

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 10:46 AM UTC

joshbert wrote: post #131

astrange wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to remember multiple incidents where Rails programmers complained that everyone at the conference they went to was playing Werewolf instead of sticking to the topic. It made me wonder what kind of community would lead to that. As for _why, there is nothing special about him. If you need an overly precious twee white guy, we have a natural source of them called the city of Portland. You can go find another ten…

> As for _why, there is nothing special about him That sounds patently false to me considering we're still talking about him almost 20 years after his flagship work was published. Minimizing _why because of a tired, narrow-minded focus on identity politics seems disingenuous and like a missed opportunity to learn

Post by krainboltgreene » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 5:00 PM UTC

wyclif wrote: post #133

astrange wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to remember multiple incidents where Rails programmers complained that everyone at the conference they went to was playing Werewolf instead of sticking to the topic. It made me wonder what kind of community would lead to that. As for _why, there is nothing special about him. If you need an overly precious twee white guy, we have a natural source of them called the city of Portland. You can go find another ten…

I don't think that's true at all. If you go back and read his stuff, it ages pretty well in my estimation, largely because _why was apolitical. And he was way more informed by good humanities sources than any average Portland woke hipster.

Post by preseinger » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 6:07 PM UTC

rahoulb wrote: post #142

preseinger wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

right! and, to build on that: people who see programming as maths understand it fundamentally differently than those who see it as prose, they approach every aspect of programming differently, evaluate "quality" on entirely different metrics, etc. in my experience, this is a major source of friction in programming teams, and deserves to be addressed more directly -- if i had it my way, i'd prefer that those who see p…

With Ruby I feel (feel being the operative word) like I’m free to get the computer to do what I want and create something that looks good and makes me happy. But in other languages I immediately feel cramped and constrained - and the code looks ugly to my eyes. As for correctness and quality, number one is it has to fulfil the business requirements I’m being paid for (and I’ve shipped lots of crappy code that I’m ash…

Post by preseinger » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 6:27 PM UTC

tyg13 wrote: post #92

preseinger wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

right! and, to build on that: people who see programming as maths understand it fundamentally differently than those who see it as prose, they approach every aspect of programming differently, evaluate "quality" on entirely different metrics, etc. in my experience, this is a major source of friction in programming teams, and deserves to be addressed more directly -- if i had it my way, i'd prefer that those who see p…

As both a writer and someone who has a degree in math, I see the segregation of prose and mathematics into fundamentally different categories as arbitrary, perhaps even incorrect. I see an artistic element to mathematics, just as much as I see a mechanical element to prose. The mechanics of the thing tell us what we can do, the art of it tells us what we want to do. Perhaps even _why we do it.