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It was this kind of demo-scene programming in which DHH was utterly uninterested in. "I had a bunch of friends who I loved dearly, but in many ways were exhibi

by Luyt 11y ago

It was this kind of demo-scene programming in which DHH was utterly uninterested in. "I had a bunch of friends who I loved dearly, but in many ways were exhibiting all the traditional programmer stereotype themes of being just overly focused on things I didn't think mattered and at that time programming perhaps also was a little bit different. Growing up, programming was assembler and C. I had a lot of friends in what was called the ‘demo scene’, which is mostly an European thing where you had all these guys on the Commodore 64 and on the Amiga writing these really awesome visual displays of various kinds, and all that stuff was usually in assembler. I had absolutely zero interest in learning or doing anything with assembler, it just didn't make any sense to me at all. I only really got interested in programming when I stumbled across languages that made sense to me on the level that makes sense to me, which is at the very least high level languages like Java, PHP, or whatever have you, anything that's above the “I have to dick around with pointers” or I actually have to move memory spaces around; that stuff has absolutely zero interest to me at all. I didn't start programming until I was in my late twenties, and even then I didn't start programming because I wanted to be a programmer. I started programming because I wanted a few programs. And that was apparently the easiest way to get there because the other way of getting programs is that you actually have to talk to programmers, which is surprisingly painful at times. I found that the easiest way was just to pick it up and learn it myself." Source: http://www.transcribed-interview.com/dhh-rails-david-heinemeier-hansson-interview-randal-schwartz-floss.html http://www.transcribed-interview.com/dhh-rails-david-heineme...

travjones 11y ago
Thanks for the DHH quote. When I first watched the vid, I couldn't figure out what was going on and what the purpose was. The DHH quote was perfectly timed because it explained the context of these types of demonstrations: to make cool looking stuff for its own sake, rather than writing super practical programs. I first got into programming in high school when I took AP Computer Science. To be honest, I hated it and didn't pick up web development until several years after that experience. I thought programming sucked. I literally said multiple times, "I will never program. This is the worst!" I think there were two reasons for this: the programs I was writing were impractical combined with pressure to perform well in the class. It's tough teaching a beginning programming class because most start at the CLI. Although the CLI is great at helping students learn the basics of programming (e.g., loops, conditionals, OOP, etc.), it still left me wanting more. Back then, I was still at a loss as to how someone would write a GUI program, similar to the programs I used all of the time on a computer, not the CLI "junk" I was writing for class. Nonetheless, I picked up web development on my own time and the experience has been incredible. I even developed a preference for the CLI in the practical productivity CLI tools afford a web developer (e.g., git, touch, mkdir, ssh, psql, etc.) And I must admit that basic programming skills that I learned in AP Comp Sci gave me a leg up in getting started, thereby making the path to writing practical stuff for the web a lot shorter. I guess it's kind of vain for me to share my personal story here, but I bet others had a similar experience. If you took an intro programming class in HS or University and you hated it, give programming another shot. This time, you won't have to worry about a grade or writing shitty programs you don't care about. Start a project, get coding, and I think you'll fall in love.
makmanalp 11y ago
This kind of comment frustrates me. Not the original DHH comment, but the above one. So because DHH didn't like it, we're also obligated to? God forbid people enjoy things! It's a sad cultural meme to go to any post and see the top comment be something that tears down the content. Putting that aside, I think the DHH comment isn't the full story on demoscene. Demoscene people were interested in those languages because that's where you perhaps could do the most interesting things at the time. Some people still cling to that, and some don't. For example Farbrausch, one of the most famous demo teams, released the tool they were using themselves, called werkkzeug, which was basically a GUI way to generate cool demos that still were tiny and had procedurally generated textures and effects etc etc. Similarly, I've seen a neat demos that use modern tools, a lot use GPUs and shaders these days, but it depends what they're trying to do. Sometimes they want to squeeze all that into a tiny binary - can we have a fully running game engine in smaller size than a jpeg of my face? But a lot of times size isn't a consideration, and it's about how cool of a thing can you do! One example that comes to mind is Agenda Circling Forth. I think it's very beautiful. I wouldn't hesitate to call it art at this point. Here is a video of it running: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5w7Gh7WBjw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5w7Gh7WBjw Some articles with more technical details: https://directtovideo.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/agenda-circling-forth/ https://directtovideo.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/agenda-circli... https://directtovideo.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/a-thoroughly-modern-particle-system/ https://directtovideo.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/a-thoroughly-... Tens of millions of particles, and in 2010! Very impressive, and you'll notice that almost none of the discussion is about assembly and compilers and bit twiddling. So what did all this effort accomplish? First of all, fun! I don't think anyone worried about any of this if they didn't think it was enjoyable. Second, a lot of interesting ideas were created and popularized that made their way into the roots of the computer graphics and video game industries of today. And a lot of the people came from there too. A lot of these people work at Unreal, CryTek, etc where they build the engines that power games we play today. Unfortunately I think it's hard for a small demo team today to "beat" the output of years of concerted effort and millions of research and man hours that goes into something like the Unreal Engine. So fun matters more. I guess there's also an interest in those things because of a "back to the basics" feel. If you want to do any computer graphics today you need tools upon tools upon tools upon languages and it's all a bit too much. Some folks yearn for the days where they can write some code that looks like "top left pixel is green". A bit similar to why people had so much fun with neocities recently. Anyway, these are my two cents on why people enjoy this. Raining on people's parade is not a nice thing and I keep seeing it happen here.

by Luyt 11y ago

travjones 11y ago

Thanks for the DHH quote. When I first watched the vid, I couldn't figure out what was going on and what the purpose was. The DHH quote was perfectly timed because it explained the context of these types of demonstrations: to make cool looking stuff for its own sake, rather than writing super practical programs. I first got into programming in high school when I took AP Computer Science. To be honest, I hated it and didn't pick up web development until several years after that experience. I thought programming sucked. I literally said multiple times, "I will never program. This is the worst!" I think there were two reasons for this: the programs I was writing were impractical combined with pressure to perform well in the class. It's tough teaching a beginning programming class because most start at the CLI. Although the CLI is great at helping students learn the basics of programming (e.g., loops, conditionals, OOP, etc.), it still left me wanting more. Back then, I was still at a loss as to how someone would write a GUI program, similar to the programs I used all of the time on a computer, not the CLI "junk" I was writing for class. Nonetheless, I picked up web development on my own time and the experience has been incredible. I even developed a preference for the CLI in the practical productivity CLI tools afford a web developer (e.g., git, touch, mkdir, ssh, psql, etc.) And I must admit that basic programming skills that I learned in AP Comp Sci gave me a leg up in getting started, thereby making the path to writing practical stuff for the web a lot shorter. I guess it's kind of vain for me to share my personal story here, but I bet others had a similar experience. If you took an intro programming class in HS or University and you hated it, give programming another shot. This time, you won't have to worry about a grade or writing shitty programs you don't care about. Start a project, get coding, and I think you'll fall in love.

makmanalp 11y ago

This kind of comment frustrates me. Not the original DHH comment, but the above one. So because DHH didn't like it, we're also obligated to? God forbid people enjoy things! It's a sad cultural meme to go to any post and see the top comment be something that tears down the content. Putting that aside, I think the DHH comment isn't the full story on demoscene. Demoscene people were interested in those languages because that's where you perhaps could do the most interesting things at the time. Some people still cling to that, and some don't. For example Farbrausch, one of the most famous demo teams, released the tool they were using themselves, called werkkzeug, which was basically a GUI way to generate cool demos that still were tiny and had procedurally generated textures and effects etc etc. Similarly, I've seen a neat demos that use modern tools, a lot use GPUs and shaders these days, but it depends what they're trying to do. Sometimes they want to squeeze all that into a tiny binary - can we have a fully running game engine in smaller size than a jpeg of my face? But a lot of times size isn't a consideration, and it's about how cool of a thing can you do! One example that comes to mind is Agenda Circling Forth. I think it's very beautiful. I wouldn't hesitate to call it art at this point. Here is a video of it running: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5w7Gh7WBjw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5w7Gh7WBjw Some articles with more technical details: https://directtovideo.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/agenda-circling-forth/ https://directtovideo.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/agenda-circli... https://directtovideo.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/a-thoroughly-modern-particle-system/ https://directtovideo.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/a-thoroughly-... Tens of millions of particles, and in 2010! Very impressive, and you'll notice that almost none of the discussion is about assembly and compilers and bit twiddling. So what did all this effort accomplish? First of all, fun! I don't think anyone worried about any of this if they didn't think it was enjoyable. Second, a lot of interesting ideas were created and popularized that made their way into the roots of the computer graphics and video game industries of today. And a lot of the people came from there too. A lot of these people work at Unreal, CryTek, etc where they build the engines that power games we play today. Unfortunately I think it's hard for a small demo team today to "beat" the output of years of concerted effort and millions of research and man hours that goes into something like the Unreal Engine. So fun matters more. I guess there's also an interest in those things because of a "back to the basics" feel. If you want to do any computer graphics today you need tools upon tools upon tools upon languages and it's all a bit too much. Some folks yearn for the days where they can write some code that looks like "top left pixel is green". A bit similar to why people had so much fun with neocities recently. Anyway, these are my two cents on why people enjoy this. Raining on people's parade is not a nice thing and I keep seeing it happen here.