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Re: undefined

#221

Post by Jetrel »

soperj wrote: post #137
sokoloff wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect there are CS programs that don’t even teach C at this point.

That seems really weird to me. We even did a machine language course even though we will never do any machine language programming. It's good to understand what the hell is going on. C is amazing in explaining how memory management works, since you have to do it all yourself.

Someone beat me to the punch, but yeah, at this point, C barely works the way actual computers work under the hood. It works the way a PDP-11 does, and most modern computers have been forced (even at the CPU level) to basically act as PDP-11 emulators.

Take, for example, the entire stack-and-heap thing. That's not a bedrock feature of computing; it's merely a thing that was particularly convenient to do on a PDP-11. But if you're working in C, you have to do it - so it stays a "seemingly bedrock" feature even if the hardware has drifted far from the PDP-11. A lot of these features boiled down to the ISA making it fairly convenient to do them that way - there were built-in instructions that made it pretty easy to "color-by-numbers" and get the job done.

---

This is similar to how we (societally) did barely any woodworking with screws before we had the industrial processes (like lathes or whatnot) to make them. Nails weren't some magic ground-truth or axiom of woodcrafting - it was just obscenely difficult to craft a screw, so why would anyone in their right mind attempt to build something with them?

Re: undefined

#222

Post by omot »

LurkingPenguin wrote: post #214
omot wrote: post #207

The myth, that’s the Steve Jobs that I idolize. I’m not sure what he’s actually like or at what cost the world paid to fulfill his vision. There’s two events in my life where I can clearly recall what I was doing at the time. The first is 9/11. I was eight years old and I came down from my bedroom, my parents were staring at the TV in disbelief. I knew I was witnessing something important. The second is Steve Jobs’ d…

> Apparently he was a terrible person. :shrug: Why do I care? I learnt a lot from him and never had to deal with his shit. Do my heroes have to be saints? I find it curious that you seem to think that treating people with decency and respect is the realm of saints. That's a horrifically low bar. What you've expressed is in my opinion one of the most detrimental sentiments in Silicon Valley (and sadly much of society)…

> That’s a horrifically low bar.

That was an expression. I didn’t mean it literally.

In a modern workplace treating people with decency and respect is a must. If you’re experiencing toxicity from “brilliant jerks” consider escalating to HR. Definitely the most under used resource at work. I think the dialogue around workplace and mental health has evolved significantly over the last 10 years.

I don’t condone Steve Jobs’ style in the 2020s moving forward. The world moved past it already and the “next Steve Jobs” I hope will recognize people’s need for psychological safety to work effectively.

Re: undefined

#223

Post by steve_taylor »

nostromo wrote: post #92
microtonal wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overall software quality has dropped markedly at Apple and the hardware more uneven since he left. Mostly on the Mac. The butterfly keyboard and how Apple handled it, were terrible. And macOS quality had gone down release after release. But I have never had any serious software or hardware quality issues with the iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods or any other products. It seems that they had just lost focus on the Mac…

Mac development started stagnating under Jobs though, once the iPod and then iPhone really took off. It's well known that Jobs was basically bored with the Mac and spent all of his time focusing on the iPhone. This is where having a single visionary in charge of everything (including small decisions) breaks down. There are so many days in the week and you can't be everywhere at once. Cook is the better CEO, and Jobs…

> This is where having a single visionary in charge of everything (including small decisions) breaks down. There are so many days in the week and you can't be everywhere at once.

I don’t agree with this. The Mac was his baby and yet it didn’t blind him to the future being in handheld and wearable computing. And it’s led to phenomenal success. He could have doubled down on Mac at the expense of the smartphone market.

Re: undefined

#224

Post by dtjb »

avalys wrote: post #205
na85 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know Steve Jobs personally? I'm stupefied as to how someone who didn't know him socially can miss a CEO of a giant faceless corporation, especially one known to be such a monumental asshole. I mean his company made consumer products. It's like saying you miss the former CEO of Braun. I honestly don't get it.

I’m stupefied as to how someone who didn’t know him socially can miss the CEO of a giant faceless corporation Would you have called Apple “faceless” if Steve Jobs were still CEO? I miss Steve Jobs because he did great things and he inspired others to do great things. The world was a more vibrant and creative place with him in it. As a software engineer I have used Apple products to do almost all of my day-to-day work…

As an interesting aside, Braun was led by Dieter Rams, a towering figure in product design and one of Jobs most influential idols.

https://blogs.lt.vt.edu/andrewpacio/2016/02/19/how-a-designe...

Re: undefined

#225

Post by pcmoney »

nostromo wrote: post #92
microtonal wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overall software quality has dropped markedly at Apple and the hardware more uneven since he left. Mostly on the Mac. The butterfly keyboard and how Apple handled it, were terrible. And macOS quality had gone down release after release. But I have never had any serious software or hardware quality issues with the iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods or any other products. It seems that they had just lost focus on the Mac…

Mac development started stagnating under Jobs though, once the iPod and then iPhone really took off. It's well known that Jobs was basically bored with the Mac and spent all of his time focusing on the iPhone. This is where having a single visionary in charge of everything (including small decisions) breaks down. There are so many days in the week and you can't be everywhere at once. Cook is the better CEO, and Jobs…

Jobs started their own chip division to bring it in house shortly after his return despite knowing that bet wouldnt pay off for 5-10yrs and despite needing to resuscitate a dying company in the short term. He started the process that lead to the m1.

Re: undefined

#226

Post by cm2012 »

Steve Jobs abandoned his daughter until he was forced not to. That outweighs everything else he did in his life.

Re: undefined

#229

Post by LurkingPenguin »

omot wrote: post #222
LurkingPenguin wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apparently he was a terrible person. :shrug: Why do I care? I learnt a lot from him and never had to deal with his shit. Do my heroes have to be saints? I find it curious that you seem to think that treating people with decency and respect is the realm of saints. That's a horrifically low bar. What you've expressed is in my opinion one of the most detrimental sentiments in Silicon Valley (and sadly much of society)…

> That’s a horrifically low bar. That was an expression. I didn’t mean it literally. In a modern workplace treating people with decency and respect is a must. If you’re experiencing toxicity from “brilliant jerks” consider escalating to HR. Definitely the most under used resource at work. I think the dialogue around workplace and mental health has evolved significantly over the last 10 years. I don’t condone Steve Jo…

> If you’re experiencing toxicity from “brilliant jerks” consider escalating to HR.

How do you do that when the brilliant jerk is the person who owns and runs the company, or is otherwise widely considered critical to the organization's success?

"Yeah, Barry can come off as a jerk but don't misread it. He's eccentric and between you and me, I think he's on the spectrum, but he's harmless. The investors love him and the launch of Magic X last year was a game changer for the company. At this rate we'll be going public in 2 years and it's all going to pay off. You can retire in Fiji."

> I don’t condone Steve Jobs’ style in the 2020s moving forward.

This is a different sentiment than "Why do I care?"

I wasn't even speaking specifically about Steve Jobs. The behavior we're talking about didn't just become unethical recently. Just because people have a somewhat better ability to call it out and not be buried these days doesn't mean it wasn't as despicable and unethical then as it is now, and that it wasn't known to be such a decade or three ago.

Re: undefined

#230

Post by fsloth »

TeeMassive wrote: post #227
cm2012 wrote: post #226

Steve Jobs abandoned his daughter until he was forced not to. That outweighs everything else he did in his life.

That's implying he did anything relevant in the first place.

His business acumen, product intelligence, marketing savvy and organizational skills can be considered to be critical for Apples success by some parties. I guess this sounds a fair assesment.
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