3 ms·

> By that argument, we should keep anyone that isn't professionally certified out of every activity where people are also professionals. Want to create a start-

> By that argument, we should keep anyone that isn't professionally certified out of every activity where people are also professionals. Want to create a start-up? Sorry, you're not professional enough to create a start-up, so you're legally banned from doing so. That's what's called a slippery-slope argument. It's also a fallacy. A startup does not have to ask Apple to provide a storefront, distribution network and billing system for them. > How can you hope to speak for all iPhone users? Do you really think that the interests and goals of every single iPhone user align perfectly with no conflicts? By creating a marketplace with a baseline of quality, you improve everybody's bottom line. Developers can spend less effort convincing the customer that their product isn't a buggy piece of crap that won't run, or needs special access to a restricted service, or any of the other things that Apple's review process screens out. Apple is removing barriers-to-purchase for the customers by converting them into barriers-to-entry for the developers. Doing this has made the App Store an impulse-buyer's dream, and this benefits everyone. > We should also make it easier to identify 'professional' programmers from the lowly hobbyists by creating a 'professional programmer' certification program. Perhaps that's coming, too. Despite your sarcasm, a legal profession with Bar exams or medical profession with licenses is still substantially better than one without. Even if, at the very least, they only provide a mechanism for taking consistently poor practitioners out of the system. But that's unlikely, because professional certifications are used when the professional himself is the product. Here, the app is the product, and Apple is screening on the merits of the product. I'm going to guess it's logistically impossible to train so many reviewers to look at each product in detail (with turnover, very high submission rates, etc.), so they have to give them broad rules. Right now, someone is claiming that CS5-compiled Flash games HAVE made it to the App Store, and that they are slow pieces of crap: http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bpdpo/see_for_yourself_why_flash_was_banned_from_the/ http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bpdpo/see_for_yoursel... If CS5 unleashes a tidal wave of Flash games into the App store, then yes, I imagine that iPhone owners will be disgusted with the state of the market, hurting everyone trying to sell a product there. (Think of the "September that never ended" and what it did to Usenet.) Even developers who've spent a little more time learning Objective-C so they can create a better product.

gloob 17y ago
That's what's called a slippery-slope argument. It's also a fallacy. It was reductio ad absurdum, not slippery slope. Slippery slope would be "If we let Apple do this, the next step will be having to be 'professional enough' to be legally permitted to start a startup", which is not what the gp said.
pyre 17y ago
> (Think of the "September that never ended" and what it did to Usenet.) The idea that you can stay isolated from the rest of the world in some ivory tower, and that this would be a good thing is a ridiculous notion. The "September that never ended" was just "the rest of the world discovering Usenet." The people that get all worked up over that just come off to me like a group of kids that make a fort for 'members only' but are upset when their parents force them to place nice with everyone else. > Right now, someone is claiming that CS5-compiled Flash games HAVE made it to the App Store, and that they are slow pieces of crap: http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bpdpo/see_for_yoursel.. http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bpdpo/see_for_yoursel.... If CS5 unleashes a tidal wave of Flash games into the App store, then yes, I imagine that iPhone owners will be disgusted with the state of the market, hurting everyone trying to sell a product there. (Think of the "September that never ended" and what it did to Usenet.) Even developers who've spent a little more time learning Objective-C so they can create a better product. You're ignoring that this affects more than just Flash CS5. There are other products like MonoTouch that are affected by this. Apparently MonoTouch was used to create 10 of the top 100 AppStore apps. I'm assuming that is a good indicator of whether or not they are 'crap apps.' (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1256761 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1256761) > Perhaps that's coming, too. Despite your sarcasm, a legal profession with Bar exams or medical profession with licenses is still substantially better than one without. Even if, at the very least, they only provide a mechanism for taking consistently poor practitioners out of the system. The difference here is that the legal and medical professions have serious consequences for poor practitioners. If we want to create a 'professional certification' program for programmers, you might as well do that for any profession. You need to look at the logic of your argument. The logic behind professional certification programs for the legal and medical professions don't really apply elsewhere to entire professions. Don't just say "I look down with disdain on poor programmers, therefore it logically follows that they need to be eradicated." You could apply that same logic to every job in the world, then we would live in a world where you couldn't get any job without some sort of certification.

gloob 17y ago

That's what's called a slippery-slope argument. It's also a fallacy. It was reductio ad absurdum, not slippery slope. Slippery slope would be "If we let Apple do this, the next step will be having to be 'professional enough' to be legally permitted to start a startup", which is not what the gp said.

pyre 17y ago

> (Think of the "September that never ended" and what it did to Usenet.) The idea that you can stay isolated from the rest of the world in some ivory tower, and that this would be a good thing is a ridiculous notion. The "September that never ended" was just "the rest of the world discovering Usenet." The people that get all worked up over that just come off to me like a group of kids that make a fort for 'members only' but are upset when their parents force them to place nice with everyone else. > Right now, someone is claiming that CS5-compiled Flash games HAVE made it to the App Store, and that they are slow pieces of crap: http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bpdpo/see_for_yoursel.. http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bpdpo/see_for_yoursel.... If CS5 unleashes a tidal wave of Flash games into the App store, then yes, I imagine that iPhone owners will be disgusted with the state of the market, hurting everyone trying to sell a product there. (Think of the "September that never ended" and what it did to Usenet.) Even developers who've spent a little more time learning Objective-C so they can create a better product. You're ignoring that this affects more than just Flash CS5. There are other products like MonoTouch that are affected by this. Apparently MonoTouch was used to create 10 of the top 100 AppStore apps. I'm assuming that is a good indicator of whether or not they are 'crap apps.' (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1256761 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1256761) > Perhaps that's coming, too. Despite your sarcasm, a legal profession with Bar exams or medical profession with licenses is still substantially better than one without. Even if, at the very least, they only provide a mechanism for taking consistently poor practitioners out of the system. The difference here is that the legal and medical professions have serious consequences for poor practitioners. If we want to create a 'professional certification' program for programmers, you might as well do that for any profession. You need to look at the logic of your argument. The logic behind professional certification programs for the legal and medical professions don't really apply elsewhere to entire professions. Don't just say "I look down with disdain on poor programmers, therefore it logically follows that they need to be eradicated." You could apply that same logic to every job in the world, then we would live in a world where you couldn't get any job without some sort of certification.