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Closure, from why the lucky stiff (2013)

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Re: Closure, from why the lucky stiff (2013)

#81

Post by fknorangesite »

astrange wrote: post #73
q845712 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly at the time I remember getting weird twee/precious vibes from the Ruby community and I wasn't particularly interested in it or Rails. I only discovered _why's poignant guide later after I had to learn Rails on the job, and to be honest I never finished it. I still strongly prefer the worldview, circumstances, mindset, etc. where that kind of content is written, read, and celebrated over today's focus on Infl…

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…

> They have waxed mustaches and are running combination coffee bars and thrift stores.

Ah, has Portland moved on from keeping alive the Dream Of The 90s to the Dream Of The Late 2000s?

Re: Closure, from why the lucky stiff (2013)

#82

Post by [deleted] »

Arubis wrote: post #14

_why's work was much of what got me into Ruby in the first place. Not so much quirky as proudly both hyperliterate and unhinged, like the computing world's extension of depressed indie bands meeting David Foster Wallace in the early aughts. Most of us that would've been into _why's stuff now have more traditional-looking jobs and responsibilities. But I'm so grateful for what he showed us then, and miss the more genu…

[deleted]

Re: Closure, from why the lucky stiff (2013)

#83

Post by partdavid »

ornornor wrote: post #10
maxfurman wrote: post #4

I'll take this opportunity to link to Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby - https://poignant.guide - one of the most unique and inspiring programming language tutorials you'll ever read.

I never got it. Everyone says it’s fantastic, I feel like an idiot for absolutely not getting it at all when it came out and still not today.

That's okay.

Another senior DBA lived on a boat, so I took my DBAs over to his boat and we spent the afternoon, then went for a walk in the tony seaside town at which his boat was moored. We went to an art gallery.

One of the pieces was a semi-abstract gradient, but the colors could definitely remind one of the sky, and the steely gray of the ocean. I loved the way you looked at it and kind of got lost in the middle. It "felt" like the ocean more than "looking" like the ocean to me.

Another DBA was standing there looking at it and said, "I don't get it."

"I'm not sure there's something to 'get', exactly."

"Is there a boat or a person hidden in it? I can't find it."

For this person, looking at a picture had to have a point--a subject. It was, on some level, a "Where's Waldo?" exercise and since he didn't solve the problem of finding Waldo, he didn't get it.

But not everything's like that. It's okay to not like something. It's okay to not get it. You can still be a DBA. You can still have a picnic on the boat.

Re: Closure, from why the lucky stiff (2013)

#84

Post by rjbwork »

local_crmdgeon wrote: post #55
Arubis wrote: post #14

_why's work was much of what got me into Ruby in the first place. Not so much quirky as proudly both hyperliterate and unhinged, like the computing world's extension of depressed indie bands meeting David Foster Wallace in the early aughts. Most of us that would've been into _why's stuff now have more traditional-looking jobs and responsibilities. But I'm so grateful for what he showed us then, and miss the more genu…

I miss that in general. Everyone has become a Cool Internet Person who acts like a celebrity, or at least in a homogenized way. I miss the internet of weirdos, that felt separate from the real world. I worry a lot that I contributed to how this is now, too, in my professional life.

Honestly, internet of weirdos that feels separate from the real world is on private discords now. I pluck people from various semi-public communities that seem cool and build cool private communities.

Re: Closure, from why the lucky stiff (2013)

#85

Post by throwanem »

hereonout2 wrote: post #78
throwanem wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't. Even in the terms of the false dichotomy you've constructed here, I would much rather participate in a community of professionals who've organized themselves around sufficiently overlapping shared intents, than one accreted around the kind of twee, precious narcissism that characterized the early days of Ruby and Rails. That comparison is informed by direct experience with both, and is the precise reason why…

There was a lot of quirkiness and egotism then, the cult of personality was rife, not just with project leaders such as DHH but ancillary dramas from folks like Zed Shaw. The stuff from _why was always wacky but some of their projects were also really inspiring for younger programmers, of which I was one. I could take or leave the cartoon foxes but I remember seeing the code for the Camping framework when it was rele…

Ruby itself was tolerably well documented, but that was a rare bright spot, and of limited utility when Rails leveraged the malleability of the language into near incomprehensibility even by the language's own low standard. And while you're not wrong that by spending enough money it was possible to obtain halfway decent documentation for Rails that if you were very lucky might still be mostly applicable after a couple of point releases, not everyone had a lot of money to spend in that way. Pay-to-play access to knowledge required for basic competence is another example of structural exclusivity, and one that stood in stark contrast to most contemporaneous projects of similarly high profile, by comparison with which Rails had all the openness of a Freemason lodge in 18th-century Italy - oh, they advertised themselves very effectively, that I grant you, but in terms of actually fostering development among those so attracted, I think a secret society in which membership could be a death sentence would probably do a lot better.

> The ruby and rails community set a path that is followed by many to this day.

I've already acknowledged this, albeit without the unwarranted gloss. I might instead have said that Rails' one unqualified success was as a fount of good ideas badly implemented. But since on reflection I'm pretty sure Rails' use of ActiveRecord popularized ORMs in web application development, I suppose it isn't even fair to say that all the ideas were good.

Re: Closure, from why the lucky stiff (2013)

#86

Post by ertian »

throwanem wrote: post #72
q845712 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly at the time I remember getting weird twee/precious vibes from the Ruby community and I wasn't particularly interested in it or Rails. I only discovered _why's poignant guide later after I had to learn Rails on the job, and to be honest I never finished it. I still strongly prefer the worldview, circumstances, mindset, etc. where that kind of content is written, read, and celebrated over today's focus on Infl…

I don't. Even in the terms of the false dichotomy you've constructed here, I would much rather participate in a community of professionals who've organized themselves around sufficiently overlapping shared intents, than one accreted around the kind of twee, precious narcissism that characterized the early days of Ruby and Rails. That comparison is informed by direct experience with both, and is the precise reason why…

It must have been awful when you were forced to engage with a whimsical community like that. I mean...I'm assuming you were forced, because why else would you harbor so much bitterness over the fact that there were once some people who did things differently than you would have liked?

Re: Closure, from why the lucky stiff (2013)

#87

Post by rescripting »

th0ma5 wrote: post #67

My complicated feelings is that producing it and consuming it was all very unhealthy. There is nothing mystical about a machine and it isn't curious or interested that you can make a universal machine do the logic of any conceivable machine. I feel these works did a lot to hobble people in their growth by putting too much emphasis on fantasy and not enough of actual understanding. I blame our mess of a JavaScript eco…

This take reads like you've never created anything for the intrinsic joy of creation. Not everything must be utilitarian. Art is still art even if its clumsily made or seen only by the artist.

Most of us do this to feed and clothe ourselves and our families. Its easy to lose sight of the fact that we're often engaged in creative, artistic pursuits. If you were lucky enough to become enchanted by computers before you had to keep a roof over your head you likely stayed up late writing code, tweaking parameters and watching the pixels or the numbers fall out the other end. Late nights driven only by your own curiosity and the joy you felt while doing it. No feature requests, design documents, or stakeholders except yourself.

Of course there is also the code that keeps the planes in the sky and the electricity in the wires, necessary and beautiful in its own right, but that isn't what this is about.

Re: Closure, from why the lucky stiff (2013)

#88

Post by AeroNotix »

rjbwork wrote: post #84
local_crmdgeon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I miss that in general. Everyone has become a Cool Internet Person who acts like a celebrity, or at least in a homogenized way. I miss the internet of weirdos, that felt separate from the real world. I worry a lot that I contributed to how this is now, too, in my professional life.

Honestly, internet of weirdos that feels separate from the real world is on private discords now. I pluck people from various semi-public communities that seem cool and build cool private communities.

There is a huge difference between pockets of weirdos sharing giphy memes in walled gardens using tools provided by a corporation and what felt like practically the entire internet being comprised of, built for and used by absolute weirdos.

Re: Closure, from why the lucky stiff (2013)

#89

Post by bdowling »

fknorangesite wrote: post #81
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…

> They have waxed mustaches and are running combination coffee bars and thrift stores. Ah, has Portland moved on from keeping alive the Dream Of The 90s to the Dream Of The Late 2000s?

For reference,

https://youtu.be/TZt-pOc3moc

Re: Closure, from why the lucky stiff (2013)

#90

Post by throwanem »

ertian wrote: post #86
throwanem wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't. Even in the terms of the false dichotomy you've constructed here, I would much rather participate in a community of professionals who've organized themselves around sufficiently overlapping shared intents, than one accreted around the kind of twee, precious narcissism that characterized the early days of Ruby and Rails. That comparison is informed by direct experience with both, and is the precise reason why…

It must have been awful when you were forced to engage with a whimsical community like that. I mean...I'm assuming you were forced, because why else would you harbor so much bitterness over the fact that there were once some people who did things differently than you would have liked?

Come now. Surely you can find something to criticize in what I've actually said, without needing to resort to footless inference about my person.
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