Enthousiasm is the main currency among developers
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Enthousiasm is the main currency among developers
 
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The following 10 year old Usenet article is quite interesting:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/4563e504dba92253 Although it is quite long and partly about Common Lisp, its main point is that enthousiasm and positive energy are the main/natural currency among developers. I think that this is also the main driving force behind Pharo. The author is Erik Naggum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Naggum), a programmer and (in)famous, provocative participant to many discussions. He died a couple of years ago. Sven |
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This article is really encapsulates the attitude and what is wrong with programming in general. The attitude of superiority and intelligence that seems to plague coders and being the biggest obstacle to progress. And what biggest proof of lack of progress than the fact that Lips is probably the very best that programming languages have to offer. 40 year old technology, how sad that is ? Actually if there is one thing thats driving the coding community is lack of enthusiasm, is about sticking to what is already there , is the fact of being "practical" and "realistic" about code in general. How much progress we have seen the last 40 years ? Sure its alot , but what happens if you take games out of it , how much hardware would have progress ? How much software ? Very
little. If you take out games that exercise a clear push to graphics and processing power and complex data manipulation approaches , AI and many other things , the rest of software out there , if you remove some exceptions here and there, is the same boring stuff which makes you wait for a year to add a single feature you need with a dozen more you don't need. Its not enthusiasm that drives coding, its money and profit. Then we arrive at the open source phenomenon, which
I agree its great and amazing and where exciting stuff really happens. But even open has some major issue to resolve. First is to anyone surprise is that all that open source is rarely used and recycled, most open source projects seem to start from scratch , rarely using source from other projects. And then of course there is the big issue of licence , its open source, but its not really open ... GPL as an example of a licence driving open source back instead of forward. For me the main problem with is the whole aura of "elitism" , what better example than Lisp, where beginners are attacked and be excluded. It took me 4 years to really get into Lisp after hearing about because of all the bad attitude. Its the whole motivation to prove that coding is for "smart people" and not "normal" people as he mentions in his
article. There is something "mysteriously" superior about coders .... The only thing I find "mysterious" about coders is that they think they are "superior" or somewhat special. They are not. And if we can really kick all that non sense outside coding, if we can make coding for "stupid" , "normal" people and open source project non "VIP Clubs" , if we really make coding inviting for people then maybe just maybe we will see open source that instead of 10 developers and 1 million user will have 1 million developer that are also users. Of course in the end what is wrong with the coding community is not detached with what is wrong with the world and human attitude in
general. Saying that I am not saying there not some amazing projects out there and some great people, but I really cant share his enthusiasm and optimism. PS : he seems to complain a lot about the forks of Lisp. Is it not Lisp a factory of programming languages ? I agree with him that those should not be called Common Lisp if they do not conform but I disagree that their existence is a bad thing. You cant go forward if you dont reinvent the wheel. Even though "reinventing" seems to be a forbidden word in coding. From: Sven Van Caekenberghe <[hidden email]> To: "[hidden email] Development" <[hidden email]> Sent: Friday, 27 January 2012, 10:18 Subject: [Pharo-project] Enthousiasm is the main currency among developers The following 10 year old Usenet article is quite interesting: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/4563e504dba92253 Although it is quite long and partly about Common Lisp, its main point is that enthousiasm and positive energy are the main/natural currency among developers. I think that this is also the main driving force behind Pharo. The author is Erik Naggum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Naggum), a programmer and (in)famous, provocative participant to many discussions. He died a couple of years ago. Sven |
Re: Enthousiasm is the main currency among developers
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In reply to this post by Sven Van Caekenberghe
Gerald Weinberg accurately describes us in this book titled:
The Psychology Of Computer Programming, published in 1971. He talked about Ego-less programming[2], which nowadays empowers open source projects. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Computer-Programming-Silver-Anniversary/dp/0932633420 [2] http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?EgolessProgramming On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 10:12 AM, dimitris chloupis <[hidden email]> wrote: > This article is really encapsulates the attitude and what is wrong with programming in general. The attitude of superiority and intelligence that seems to plague coders and being the biggest obstacle to progress. And what biggest proof of lack of progress than the fact that Lips is probably the very best that programming languages have to offer. 40 year old technology, how sad that is ? Actually if there is one thing thats driving the coding community is lack of enthusiasm, is about sticking to what is already there , is the fact of being "practical" and "realistic" about code in general. How much progress we have seen the last 40 years ? Sure its alot , but what happens if you take games out of it , how much hardware would have progress ? How much software ? Very little. > > If you take out games that exercise a clear push to graphics and processing power and complex data manipulation approaches , AI and many other things , the rest of software out there , if you remove some exceptions here and there, is the same boring stuff which makes you wait for a year to add a single feature you need with a dozen more you don't need. > > Its not enthusiasm that drives coding, its money and profit. > > Then we arrive at the open source phenomenon, which I agree its great and amazing and where exciting stuff really happens. But even open has some major issue to resolve. First is to anyone surprise is that all that open source is rarely used and recycled, most open source projects seem to start from scratch , rarely using source from other projects. And then of course there is the big issue of licence , its open source, but its not really open ... GPL as an example of a licence driving open source back instead of forward. > > For me the main problem with is the whole aura of "elitism" , what better example than Lisp, where beginners are attacked and be excluded. It took me 4 years to really get into Lisp after hearing about because of all the bad attitude. Its the whole motivation to prove that coding is for "smart people" and not "normal" people as he mentions in his article. There is something "mysteriously" superior about coders .... The only thing I find "mysterious" about coders is that they think they are "superior" or somewhat special. They are not. > > And if we can really kick all that non sense outside coding, if we can make coding for "stupid" , "normal" people and open source project non "VIP Clubs" , if we really make coding inviting for people then maybe just maybe we will see open source that instead of 10 developers and 1 million user will have 1 million developer that are also users. > > Of course in the end what is wrong with the coding community is not detached with what is wrong with the world and human attitude in general. > > Saying that I am not saying there not some amazing projects out there and some great people, but I really cant share his enthusiasm and optimism. > > PS : he seems to complain a lot about the forks of Lisp. Is it not Lisp a factory of programming languages ? I agree with him that those should not be called Common Lisp if they do not conform but I disagree that their existence is a bad thing. You cant go forward if you dont reinvent the wheel. Even though "reinventing" seems to be a forbidden word in coding. > > ________________________________ > From: Sven Van Caekenberghe <[hidden email]> > To: "[hidden email] Development" <[hidden email]> > Sent: Friday, 27 January 2012, 10:18 > Subject: [Pharo-project] Enthousiasm is the main currency among developers > > The following 10 year old Usenet article is quite interesting: > > http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/4563e504dba92253 > > Although it is quite long and partly about Common Lisp, its main point is that enthousiasm and positive energy are the main/natural currency among developers. I think that this is also the main driving force behind Pharo. > > The author is Erik Naggum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Naggum), a programmer and (in)famous, provocative participant to many discussions. He died a couple of years ago. > > Sven > > |
Re: Enthousiasm is the main currency among developers
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In reply to this post by kilon
Hey Dimitris,
Thanks for the reaction, although it is not the one that I expected ;-) I did a lot of Common Lisp programming in the past, including publishing several open source projects. So yes I know that community. And yes it has an aura of elitism about it and a reputation of being unfriendly to newcomers; whether this is true or not is should not be discussed here. Smalltalk has a number of principles ( http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/smalltalk.html ) that are quite different; one of the main goals is to empower its users by offering a comprehensible system. My point of view and conviction is that positive energy and enthousiasm drive open source. I recognize it in the Pharo community. Sven On 27 Jan 2012, at 10:12, dimitris chloupis wrote: > This article is really encapsulates the attitude and what is wrong with programming in general. The attitude of superiority and intelligence that seems to plague coders and being the biggest obstacle to progress. And what biggest proof of lack of progress than the fact that Lips is probably the very best that programming languages have to offer. 40 year old technology, how sad that is ? Actually if there is one thing thats driving the coding community is lack of enthusiasm, is about sticking to what is already there , is the fact of being "practical" and "realistic" about code in general. How much progress we have seen the last 40 years ? Sure its alot , but what happens if you take games out of it , how much hardware would have progress ? How much software ? Very little. > > If you take out games that exercise a clear push to graphics and processing power and complex data manipulation approaches , AI and many other things , the rest of software out there , if you remove some exceptions here and there, is the same boring stuff which makes you wait for a year to add a single feature you need with a dozen more you don't need. > > Its not enthusiasm that drives coding, its money and profit. > > Then we arrive at the open source phenomenon, which I agree its great and amazing and where exciting stuff really happens. But even open has some major issue to resolve. First is to anyone surprise is that all that open source is rarely used and recycled, most open source projects seem to start from scratch , rarely using source from other projects. And then of course there is the big issue of licence , its open source, but its not really open ... GPL as an example of a licence driving open source back instead of forward. > > For me the main problem with is the whole aura of "elitism" , what better example than Lisp, where beginners are attacked and be excluded. It took me 4 years to really get into Lisp after hearing about because of all the bad attitude. Its the whole motivation to prove that coding is for "smart people" and not "normal" people as he mentions in his article. There is something "mysteriously" superior about coders .... The only thing I find "mysterious" about coders is that they think they are "superior" or somewhat special. They are not. > > And if we can really kick all that non sense outside coding, if we can make coding for "stupid" , "normal" people and open source project non "VIP Clubs" , if we really make coding inviting for people then maybe just maybe we will see open source that instead of 10 developers and 1 million user will have 1 million developer that are also users. > > Of course in the end what is wrong with the coding community is not detached with what is wrong with the world and human attitude in general. > > Saying that I am not saying there not some amazing projects out there and some great people, but I really cant share his enthusiasm and optimism. > > PS : he seems to complain a lot about the forks of Lisp. Is it not Lisp a factory of programming languages ? I agree with him that those should not be called Common Lisp if they do not conform but I disagree that their existence is a bad thing. You cant go forward if you dont reinvent the wheel. Even though "reinventing" seems to be a forbidden word in coding. > > From: Sven Van Caekenberghe <[hidden email]> > To: "[hidden email] Development" <[hidden email]> > Sent: Friday, 27 January 2012, 10:18 > Subject: [Pharo-project] Enthousiasm is the main currency among developers > > The following 10 year old Usenet article is quite interesting: > > http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/4563e504dba92253 > > Although it is quite long and partly about Common Lisp, its main point is that enthousiasm and positive energy are the main/natural currency among developers. I think that this is also the main driving force behind Pharo. > > The author is Erik Naggum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Naggum), a programmer and (in)famous, provocative participant to many discussions. He died a couple of years ago. > > Sven > > |
Re: Enthousiasm is the main currency among developers
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In reply to this post by kilon
2012/1/27 dimitris chloupis <[hidden email]>:
> This article is really encapsulates the attitude and what is wrong with > programming in general. The attitude of superiority and intelligence that > seems to plague coders and being the biggest obstacle to progress. And what > biggest proof of lack of progress than the fact that Lips is probably the > very best that programming languages have to offer. 40 year old technology, > how sad that is ? Actually if there is one thing thats driving the coding > community is lack of enthusiasm, is about sticking to what is already there > , is the fact of being "practical" and "realistic" about code in general. > How much progress we have seen the last 40 years ? Sure its alot , but what > happens if you take games out of it , how much hardware would have progress > ? How much software ? Very little. > Sure arrogance and exclusion are not welcome, I wish no one feel intimidated in Smalltalk community. Smalltalk should remain a vector of learning. I wish intelligence were a plague, alas, I had the impression that miss-consideration of intelligence was :) But your words certainly did not mean that. > If you take out games that exercise a clear push to graphics and processing > power and complex data manipulation approaches , AI and many other things , > the rest of software out there , if you remove some exceptions here and > there, is the same boring stuff which makes you wait for a year to add a > single feature you need with a dozen more you don't need. > > Its not enthusiasm that drives coding, its money and profit. > Is it only driving coding? Are our own profits just measured by money? Isn't there any such thing as a group profit? > Then we arrive at the open source phenomenon, which I agree its great and > amazing and where exciting stuff really happens. But even open has some > major issue to resolve. First is to anyone surprise is that all that open > source is rarely used and recycled, most open source projects seem to start > from scratch , rarely using source from other projects. And then of course > there is the big issue of licence , its open source, but its not really open > ... GPL as an example of a licence driving open source back instead of > forward. > But redoing is essential in human activities. That's how we learn. If we fail to redo, then we forget our parents knowledge, and finally loose the skills. Nicolas |
Re: Enthousiasm is the main currency among developers
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2012/1/27 Nicolas Cellier <[hidden email]>:
> 2012/1/27 dimitris chloupis <[hidden email]>: >> This article is really encapsulates the attitude and what is wrong with >> programming in general. The attitude of superiority and intelligence that >> seems to plague coders and being the biggest obstacle to progress. And what >> biggest proof of lack of progress than the fact that Lips is probably the >> very best that programming languages have to offer. 40 year old technology, >> how sad that is ? Actually if there is one thing thats driving the coding >> community is lack of enthusiasm, is about sticking to what is already there >> , is the fact of being "practical" and "realistic" about code in general. >> How much progress we have seen the last 40 years ? Sure its alot , but what >> happens if you take games out of it , how much hardware would have progress >> ? How much software ? Very little. >> > > Sure arrogance and exclusion are not welcome, I wish no one feel > intimidated in Smalltalk community. > Smalltalk should remain a vector of learning. > I wish intelligence were a plague, alas, I had the impression that > miss-consideration of intelligence was :) > But your words certainly did not mean that. > >> If you take out games that exercise a clear push to graphics and processing >> power and complex data manipulation approaches , AI and many other things , >> the rest of software out there , if you remove some exceptions here and >> there, is the same boring stuff which makes you wait for a year to add a >> single feature you need with a dozen more you don't need. >> >> Its not enthusiasm that drives coding, its money and profit. >> > > Is it only driving coding? > Are our own profits just measured by money? > Isn't there any such thing as a group profit? > >> Then we arrive at the open source phenomenon, which I agree its great and >> amazing and where exciting stuff really happens. But even open has some >> major issue to resolve. First is to anyone surprise is that all that open >> source is rarely used and recycled, most open source projects seem to start >> from scratch , rarely using source from other projects. And then of course >> there is the big issue of licence , its open source, but its not really open >> ... GPL as an example of a licence driving open source back instead of >> forward. >> > > But redoing is essential in human activities. That's how we learn. If > we fail to redo, then we forget our parents knowledge, and finally > loose the skills. > > Nicolas I forgot one last thing, GPL does not prevent to redo, it prevents form preventing to redo :) Nicolas |
Re: Enthusiasm is the main currency among developers
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In reply to this post by Sven Van Caekenberghe
Very interesting article indeed. Some more interesting snippets
(emphasized mostly by me: "Over and over again, I felt "Yeah! I am _good_ at this!" ... All around me were people who felt the same way, who were *competent and intelligent and caring* about each their own fields, and we could talk about and study each other's work and share information and sit down together and solve problems bigger than each of us could deal with alone. For every hardware or software product, there are enthusiasts: wild, untamed, uncontrollable people who overflow with excitement that "normal" people have no way to understand. It is that _excitement_ that sets us apart from the crowd. It is that _excitement_ that causes people to join free software and open source projects to give away their work to others of the same kind. This is why free software and open source are mostly developer-to-developer, because *only developers share their joy*. Users do not understand, they do not care, and they do not understand why we care. *The currency in the developer community is enthusiasm*. As a developer, you are not judged solely by your work, but by *how great you think it is*, what went into making it great, and for *your capacity to understand how great somebody else's work is*. All of the software tools on the Internet have a following behind them: People who _care_ and who are willing to help others who care. All languages have groups of dedicated people behind them that profess their love for their language .. they feel personally betrayed by incompetent, unintelligent, or careless people. But give them half a chance to prove otherwise, and developers *will love them again, forgiving and forgetting*, because they share the overall enthusiasm that drives us all. In fact, developer to developer, *we do not only expect enthusiasm, we demand it*. The demand for enthusiasm is a profound recognition of the competence, intelligence and caring that _must_ go into computer software. However, there is something _very_ seriously wrong with the Common Lisp community. People _in_ the community feel that it is perfectly OK to debase, denigrate, ridicule, denounce, disrespect, insult, defame, and smear Common Lisp. The desire to maintain a greatness is so powerful ... that they split whenever they need an incompatible feature. A new name is often chosen for the new language. Anything to keep people looking upwards and onwards. The new feature is great to those who follow it, and the old feature is great to those who stay. The enthusiasm that really helps improve a language is a love for it the way it is and has evolved so far, with an understanding and appreciation of its "momentum of evolution" so that any changes that are proposed seek to retain the users and the investments in it and does not splinter off into a different language and break with the past." Janko S, Sven Van Caekenberghe piše: > The following 10 year old Usenet article is quite interesting: > > http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/4563e504dba92253 > > Although it is quite long and partly about Common Lisp, its main point is that enthousiasm and positive energy are the main/natural currency among developers. I think that this is also the main driving force behind Pharo. > > The author is Erik Naggum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Naggum), a programmer and (in)famous, provocative participant to many discussions. He died a couple of years ago. > > Sven > -- Janko Mivšek Aida/Web Smalltalk Web Application Server http://www.aidaweb.si |
Re: Enthousiasm is the main currency among developers
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In reply to this post by Sven Van Caekenberghe
On Jan 27, 2012, at 6:13 AM, dimitris chloupis wrote: > This article is really encapsulates the attitude and what is wrong with programming in general. The attitude of superiority and intelligence that seems to plague coders and being the biggest obstacle to progress. Yes! The "Everyone is dumb but me" phenomenon... What those "intelligent" people don't get is that complexity is inherently exponential. So even if you are 10 times more intelligent than me (very well possible), it is *completely* irrelevant considering that complexity grows non-linearly. If you combine this with the notion of Evolution: that it is impossible to creat "the perfect" out of nothing, yet entropy grows when you incrementally improve things... than this has some very serious consequences. > For me the main problem with is the whole aura of "elitism" , what better example than Lisp, where beginners are attacked and be excluded. We had the same effect in Squeak at the end. No progress, every improvement was actively fighted against, if needed with the nice argument that one can do it even better, and only "the best" is worth for Squeak. Another thing that "intelligent" people don't get is that critizising is trivial: You can *always* do better, there is no perfection. It's an endless process. This implies that one has to accept and embrace imperfection if one wants to have a future. Else you end up never finishing anything, the death of any incremental progress. Pharo was started with the explicit goal to do as many mistakes as possible, as fast as possible. Marcus -- Marcus Denker -- http://marcusdenker.de |
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On Jan 27, 2012, at 2:33 PM, Marcus Denker wrote: > Pharo was started with the explicit goal to do as many mistakes as possible, as fast as possible. But to steadily improve, improve and improve. Stef |
Re: Enthousiasm is the main currency among developers
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On 27 Jan 2012, at 16:47, Stéphane Ducasse wrote: > On Jan 27, 2012, at 2:33 PM, Marcus Denker wrote: > >> Pharo was started with the explicit goal to do as many mistakes as possible, as fast as possible. > But to steadily improve, improve and improve. With lost of enthousiasm and positive energy. |
Re: Enthousiasm is the main currency among developers
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On 27 Jan 2012, at 16:58, Sven Van Caekenberghe wrote: > With lost of enthousiasm and positive energy. euh, with lots of enthousiasm and positive energy. (But typing/spelling wrong is required etiquette on this list ;-) |
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In reply to this post by Marcus Denker-4
Marcus Denker wrote:
> On Jan 27, 2012, at 6:13 AM, dimitris chloupis wrote: > > >> This article is really encapsulates the attitude and what is wrong with programming in general. The attitude of superiority and intelligence that seems to plague coders and being the biggest obstacle to progress. >> > > Yes! The "Everyone is dumb but me" phenomenon... > > What those "intelligent" people don't get is that complexity is inherently exponential. So even if you are > 10 times more intelligent than me (very well possible), it is *completely* irrelevant considering that complexity > grows non-linearly. > > If you combine this with the notion of Evolution: that it is impossible to creat "the perfect" out of nothing, yet > entropy grows when you incrementally improve things... than this has some very serious consequences. > > to have worked well for Linux. I particularly like this... "[the] original formulation was that every problem 'will be transparent to somebody'. Linus demurred that the person who understands and fixes the problem is not necessarily or even usually the person who first characterizes it. 'Somebody finds the problem,' he says, 'and somebody /else/ understands it. And I'll go on record as saying that finding it is the bigger challenge.' " The success of Linux is attributed not to Linus' great hacking skills but to his cultivation of his co-developers. [1] http://catb.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/cathedral-bazaar/ar01s04.html >> For me the main problem with is the whole aura of "elitism" , what better example than Lisp, where beginners are attacked and be excluded. >> > > We had the same effect in Squeak at the end. No progress, every improvement was actively fighted against, if needed with the nice argument that > one can do it even better, and only "the best" is worth for Squeak. > > Another thing that "intelligent" people don't get is that critizising is trivial: You can *always* do better, there is no perfection. It's an endless process. > This implies that one has to accept and embrace imperfection if one wants to have a future. Else you end up never finishing anything, the death of any > incremental progress. > > Pharo was started with the explicit goal to do as many mistakes as possible, as fast as possible. > unknown for [Linus] to release a new kernel more than once a /day!/" alternatively at [2] Linus relates how today a more mature Linux manages "low risk" users as well as how features are selected to match the two month release cycle based on "the most important thing about features are simply whether they are ready, and whether they have actual real users. A lot of that is tied to our release process - it's largely based on _timing_ rather than on features. If something is ready to be merged, works, and has real users, it gets merged." [3] [2] http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/open-sauce/44975-linus-torvalds-looking-back-looking-forward?start=2 [3] http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/open-sauce/44975-linus-torvalds-looking-back-looking-forward?start=3 > Marcus > > -- > Marcus Denker -- http://marcusdenker.de > > > > |
Re: Enthousiasm is the main currency among developers
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In reply to this post by Marcus Denker-4
On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 5:33 AM, Marcus Denker <[hidden email]> wrote:
But criticism is essential. How does one identify a mistake if not by criticising? There's a huge difference between constructive criticism (analysis, testing, comparison, evaluation, measurement) and negativity (denial, fear, slander). How can one engineer without measurement, without thought? Being agile doesn't imply being random. Evolution measures, and most harshly; the weaker don't survive.
best, Eliot |
Re: Enthousiasm is the main currency among developers
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Hi Elliot! When I rethink, why new programming languages came up from zero to a significant market share, like PERL, PHP, Python, Ruby, JAVA, C# (.net) Visual Basic, Visual C++ and others died out, like Delphi, TurboBasic/Pascal/C I could name different reasons: - Free license vs. expensive That was in former times. Today, new criterias play a far more relevant role, hat haven't really existed just 3 years ago: - Has it (the OS,the programming language and GUI framework) an appstore/plugin concept to let free, creative brains being able to participate, earn money with? So, the Pharo developers might now decide, what to invest their brainpower into! :-) Just my 2ct. Guido Stepken Am 27.01.2012 19:46 schrieb "Eliot Miranda" <[hidden email]>:
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Re: Enthousiasm is the main currency among developers
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On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 11:51 AM, Guido Stepken <[hidden email]> wrote:
OK, that looks like a great list. But don't you agree that criticism (in the sense of something that leads to quality software engineering) underlies several of these, such as Rockstable, Fast, running on low-power devices, etc? To me, being critical doesn't mean being uncreative or conservative; it means thinking about what you're doing, and doing a good job.
best, Eliot |
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I see quite a difference between "doing things right" and "doing the right things" ! :-) Am 27.01.2012 22:50 schrieb "Eliot Miranda" <[hidden email]>:
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Re: Enthousiasm is the main currency among developers
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On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 1:53 PM, Guido Stepken <[hidden email]> wrote:
Agreed. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good and all that. But we're talking at different levels here. I want to hear what Marcus thinks to my reply to his post. That's where this thread comes from.
best, Eliot |
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In reply to this post by Marcus Denker-4
Very good Point , I have not consider it in that way , you just opened for me another perspective of the problem. From: Marcus Denker <[hidden email]> To: [hidden email]; dimitris chloupis <[hidden email]> Sent: Friday, 27 January 2012, 15:33 Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] Enthousiasm is the main currency among developers On Jan 27, 2012, at 6:13 AM, dimitris chloupis wrote: > This article is really encapsulates the attitude and what is wrong with programming in general. The attitude of superiority and intelligence that seems to plague coders and being the biggest obstacle to progress. Yes! The "Everyone is dumb but me" phenomenon... What those "intelligent" people don't get is that complexity is inherently exponential. So even if you are 10 times more intelligent than me (very well possible), it is *completely* irrelevant considering that complexity grows non-linearly. If you combine this with the notion of Evolution: that it is impossible to creat "the perfect" out of nothing, yet entropy grows when you incrementally improve things... than this has some very serious consequences. > For me the main problem with is the whole aura of "elitism" , what better example than Lisp, where beginners are attacked and be excluded. We had the same effect in Squeak at the end. No progress, every improvement was actively fighted against, if needed with the nice argument that one can do it even better, and only "the best" is worth for Squeak. Another thing that "intelligent" people don't get is that critizising is trivial: You can *always* do better, there is no perfection. It's an endless process. This implies that one has to accept and embrace imperfection if one wants to have a future. Else you end up never finishing anything, the death of any incremental progress. Pharo was started with the explicit goal to do as many mistakes as possible, as fast as possible. Marcus -- Marcus Denker -- http://marcusdenker.de |
Re: Enthousiasm is the main currency among developers
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In reply to this post by Guido Stepken
On Jan 27, 2012, at 7:06 PM, Eliot Miranda wrote: > > > On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 1:53 PM, Guido Stepken <[hidden email]> wrote: > I see quite a difference between "doing things right" and "doing the right things" ! :-) > > > Agreed. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good and all that. But we're talking at different levels here. I want to hear what Marcus thinks to my reply to his post. I think we need to look at the result. Does this kind of "piss on everything that moves" critique leads to a system that gets better? Or does it lead to complete standstill (because everyone fears to even suggest something). One can train a community to have a "no" reflex... this is what happend to Squeak over the years. Another aspect is: Is it *fun*? That is, does the community has positive energy? It can happen very quickly that this is lost. Marcus -- Marcus Denker -- http://marcusdenker.de |
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In reply to this post by Eliot Miranda-2
I agree whole heartedly after a month of Pharo being used as a tool for newbies.
a) Crashes... b) Bugs in basic functionality: Morphic as well as in other places c) The User Guide is not in synch with the current stable Pharo.. in simple images of browsers..
Very very basic/ simple stuff.. but I realized more sharply that not all are equal in comprehension and guess or accept these to dig their heel in further and experience the joy inside.. they just balk and wonder if Pharo is even half as good as VW/ VA.. where I believe it is just pure uncut diamond inside.. unpolished.. but work is going on from the craftsmen.. every day.. to get there..
But I vote for the basic principle, work hard to get the very basic kernel, a stable system that is guaranteed not to crash and work absolutely predictably.. not throw in stuff which half works even like the debugger stuff currently, which to a beginner is quite confusing when steps out of line.
On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 3:19 AM, Eliot Miranda <[hidden email]> wrote:
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