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A motto for programmers: "Tuere usorem, data, veritatem"

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Re: A motto for programmers: "Tuere usorem, data, veritatem"

#41

Post by Nevermark »

bambax wrote: post #31
jraph wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't take "protect" the same way as you at all. Big tech is putting inside our heads that users shall be protected by removing control from them and that's detrimental. This gatekeeping is not protection, it's dystopia. Protect can be taken as in "Protect the user from bad decisions", or as in "Protect users' freedom" [1], which would completely go your way. I understood protect as "make the user your first prior…

Ok -- but then the word 'protect' is too ambiguous and overused, and we should find a better one.

Until then, I like "protect". :)

Very few mottos can withstand literal dissection. For that matter, many phrases have entirely different meanings than if they were read as normal words.

Words bend to the context, and by associating a motto with the ideal it is proposed for, it quickly becomes its own context.

"Protect the user, their data and the truth!", if you say it loudly, comes across to me like something the Three Musketeers would exclaim. If they were programmers, about to enter the forest of dark patterns, risking their lives for the users they know, and those they will never meet.

Love it. All subjective of course.

Re: A motto for programmers: "Tuere usorem, data, veritatem"

#42

Post by blenderob »

I'm disappointed to see this kind of cringey, ChatGPT-generated nonsense-Latin being posted and upvoted on HN.

Yes, I know the author added a disclaimer:

> PS: I don’t know any Latin, ChatGPT did the translation for me, so there may be some mistakes.

But there aren't just "some mistakes". The Latin is essentially nonsense. The closest meaning I can draw from that phrase is:

"Protect wife, given things, truth."

That's barely coherent, let alone proper Latin. Is "usorem" even a word?

Of course, it's your blog and you're free to post what you like. But I'd hope the HN community would be more discerning. Imagine if someone posted an article with nonsense Fortran code generated by ChatGPT, adding a note like:

"PS: I don’t know Fortran, ChatGPT translated this Python to Fortran for me, so there may be some mistakes."

If the Fortran didn't even compile, would we still upvote it? I doubt it.

And really, why write nonsense Fortran when you could just write clear Python, Go, or Rust that the community very well understands? Likewise, why attempt fake Latin when you can just write plain English, which most people here understand?

Re: A motto for programmers: "Tuere usorem, data, veritatem"

#44

Post by jraph »

bambax wrote: post #31
jraph wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't take "protect" the same way as you at all. Big tech is putting inside our heads that users shall be protected by removing control from them and that's detrimental. This gatekeeping is not protection, it's dystopia. Protect can be taken as in "Protect the user from bad decisions", or as in "Protect users' freedom" [1], which would completely go your way. I understood protect as "make the user your first prior…

Ok -- but then the word 'protect' is too ambiguous and overused, and we should find a better one.

Fair enough, I suppose we can just drop it :-)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45100163#45100585

Re: A motto for programmers: "Tuere usorem, data, veritatem"

#45

Post by globnomulous »

globnomulous wrote: post #37
phtrivier wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be the proper translation of the moto, then ?

Beats me. The very idea of a "user" is, in every phase of Latin that I know, gobbledygook. There's no translation for it. It makes as much sense as "haver" would make to us ("haver of what? "). Maybe "emptores" (buyers)? Sort of? "Data," in our sense, too, sounds wrong to me as a concept in Classical Latin -- too disembodied for effective, accurate translation. Maybe 'cognoscenda,' "that which is to be known/understo…

On the other hand, maybe the original motto really is a perfect motto for programmers. It nicely exemplifies the inadvertantly silly results of the DIY, libertarian, anti-establishment spirit of so many programmers (Who needs experts, knowledge of history, or formal training when you have the internet??) who inexplicably start blogs in the apparent, equally inexplicable belief that the world needs to hear their thoughts on things they know nothing about.

Re: A motto for programmers: "Tuere usorem, data, veritatem"

#46

Post by mrkeen »

I don't disagree, but it's useless because it's not instructive.

You can agree with it or dismiss it. You can tell yourself you're doing it when you're not. It doesn't say how to do anything.

Compare with "Accountants don't use erasers", which instructs how to protect data and the truth.

Re: A motto for programmers: "Tuere usorem, data, veritatem"

#47

Post by jraph »

blenderob wrote: post #42

I'm disappointed to see this kind of cringey, ChatGPT-generated nonsense-Latin being posted and upvoted on HN. Yes, I know the author added a disclaimer: > PS: I don’t know any Latin, ChatGPT did the translation for me, so there may be some mistakes. But there aren't just "some mistakes". The Latin is essentially nonsense. The closest meaning I can draw from that phrase is: "Protect wife, given things, truth." That's…

I found that particular aspect cringe too, I wouldn't trust ChatGPT to be good at translating to Latin and wouldn't expect it to work remotely well for this. I also wish people refrained from using LLMs at all.

But apart from this aspect, I suspect the whole idea / approach pleases / feels good and that's what gets upvoted.

edit: the HN post is flagged now, so… xD

Re: A motto for programmers: "Tuere usorem, data, veritatem"

#49

Post by jraph »

globnomulous wrote: post #45
globnomulous wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beats me. The very idea of a "user" is, in every phase of Latin that I know, gobbledygook. There's no translation for it. It makes as much sense as "haver" would make to us ("haver of what? "). Maybe "emptores" (buyers)? Sort of? "Data," in our sense, too, sounds wrong to me as a concept in Classical Latin -- too disembodied for effective, accurate translation. Maybe 'cognoscenda,' "that which is to be known/understo…

On the other hand, maybe the original motto really is a perfect motto for programmers. It nicely exemplifies the inadvertantly silly results of the DIY, libertarian, anti-establishment spirit of so many programmers (Who needs experts, knowledge of history, or formal training when you have the internet??) who inexplicably start blogs in the apparent, equally inexplicable belief that the world needs to hear their thoug…

That's quite the uncharitable view.

They explicitly put a humble disclaimer that they don't actually understand Latin.

What you see as "belief that the world needs to hear their thoughts" might be "willingness to share".

It's nice that people engage with the unknown (here, Latin). That's how one learns. There's also nothing wrong with sharing this process. The result is obviously wrong here, and I would have been too shy to put it in the title of a blog post, but this doesn't have dramatic consequences.

We are far from tech bros arrogantly imposing their shit tech to the world here.

Re: A motto for programmers: "Tuere usorem, data, veritatem"

#50

Post by mcv »

bambax wrote: post #7

As a user, I want to be enabled / to be able to do more things with a piece of software than what I could do without it. I do NOT want to be "protected".

Empower the user, protect the data.

My Latin is too poor for this, but Google suggests "usorem potestatem da, data protege".

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