I've always thought of "considered harmful" titles as a cute bit of nerd humor, precisely because it's such a pompous and ridiculous-sounding phrase that it's very hard to say with a straight face. I'd usually take it to mean that the author doesn't take him or herself too seriously and knows that the matter they're discussing is ultimately pretty trivial.
“Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful
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Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful
#62Yeah, burn this tired rhetorical device to the ground, along with the "open letter".
Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
So only people with meaningful things to say or build should get noticed and hired?
No. Employers need to realize they don't need to fill every damn position with a "rockstar." But until then, we'll keep playing the game.
Perhaps we can help educate employers by bringing an X-Box with Guitar Hero to interviews. When the inevitable "why did you bring that to the interview?" comes up, we fire it up and reply with "well, your advert did mention wanting a rock star..."
He's a juke box hero, got stars in his eyes
Yeah, juke box hero, got stars in his eyes
(http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/foreigner/jukeboxhero.html)
:-D
Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful
#64"They’ve become boring clichés. Nobody really wants to read “considered harmful” essays any more, because we’ve seen them a thousand times before and didn’t really learn anything from them, since we were too busy being annoyed to really listen to the arguments presented." It's a boring and pompous cliché. In 1968, it was original. Now, write your own title.
My sentiment exactly. If I wrote this post, it would have been titled "Considered harmful" Essays Considered Boring
Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful
#65Indeed. I'm over these as well as any of the, "Why I quit X technology" or similarly titled essays. Oh and the "Open letter to Big Corp". You're not that important. I don't really care why you quit using X. I don't need validation from some blog about what technology to use or not use. I can evaluate X technology on my own, thank you.
Let me reach out to you about why I left Gmail for FastMail. It's because if you're not paying for the product... you ARE the product. Yeah.
No I'm not. My user data is a form of currency that I spend in the manner of my choosing. If I choose to spend it at google, it may cost more than, say, fastmail, but it's still my choice.
Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful
#66Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've always found that quote to be particularly douchey. Then again, I do think that Dijkstra's contributions to CS were more important than Kay's, too, but I suspect that I might not be in the majority there...
Wikipedia's article on Dijkstra says: "He was the first to make the claim that programming is so inherently complex that (...)" Meanwhile Alan Kay had 12 year old kids making computer games (videos on Web Archive). Dijkstra contributed algorithms. In that sense he contributed as a mathematician. That doesn't diminish what he did. But it does not compare with what Alan Kay did for the sum of these two parts: computers…
Programming is not all of CS, and the fact that everyone and their mom are doing OO does not take away from anything of what Dijkstra said. On a more "people" level, I think that arguing for more rigor and formal approaches to programming is truly more important that creating the next generation of code monkeys. I agree that Kay's work has had much more practical influence, but I don't think it has been necessarily any better because of that. But as I said in the original comment, I'm probably in the minority on this.
Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful
#68Every time I see one of these "considered harmful" essays, I immediately assume the person writing it considers all their own opinions to be facts and dissenting opinions to always be wrong.
Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've always found that quote to be particularly douchey. Then again, I do think that Dijkstra's contributions to CS were more important than Kay's, too, but I suspect that I might not be in the majority there...
Wikipedia's article on Dijkstra says: "He was the first to make the claim that programming is so inherently complex that (...)" Meanwhile Alan Kay had 12 year old kids making computer games (videos on Web Archive). Dijkstra contributed algorithms. In that sense he contributed as a mathematician. That doesn't diminish what he did. But it does not compare with what Alan Kay did for the sum of these two parts: computers…
Kay : Dijkstra :: Ruby : Haskell
Dijkstra was correct in saying that you don't even need a computer to do "Computer Science," all you need is a pencil, paper, and a mental model of what you're trying to do given computer constraints.
Dijkstra more theoretical; Kay more hands-on.
I think BOTH are necessary, or at least important.
Re: “Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wikipedia's article on Dijkstra says: "He was the first to make the claim that programming is so inherently complex that (...)" Meanwhile Alan Kay had 12 year old kids making computer games (videos on Web Archive). Dijkstra contributed algorithms. In that sense he contributed as a mathematician. That doesn't diminish what he did. But it does not compare with what Alan Kay did for the sum of these two parts: computers…
Kay : Dijkstra :: Ruby : Haskell Dijkstra was correct in saying that you don't even need a computer to do "Computer Science," all you need is a pencil, paper, and a mental model of what you're trying to do given computer constraints. Dijkstra more theoretical; Kay more hands-on. I think BOTH are necessary, or at least important.
I think that's a pretty good analogy, though maybe you should s/ruby/objective-c/ to bring it closer to smalltalk :)