5 ms·

Did you read the Naggum link? He is not easily dismissed.

by awt 10y ago

scholia 10y ago
He does have a point. On the other hand, the two decades since he wrote that have been marked by "the consumerization of IT". Even before 1997, it was individuals rather than IT departments who first demonstrated business uses for PCs. I'm not taking a position on either side of this debate, just pointing to the trend....
- awt 10y ago
  I'm currently re-individualizing my personal IT. It is work, but I own the results and they won't be erased by the next minor os "upgrade."
UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
I did. It is just raw elitism. The ironic thing is that in 1997 there were many more, what they consider, "professional" programmers. Today most programmers are targeting the web, and therefore wouldn't gain anything from ultra minimalism. Frankly arguing for a enviroment so minimalist that it wouldn't contain a web browser is a non-starter for almost all professional programming jobs in 2016. And even for the few non-web development jobs that still exist (e.g. game development), you're still dependant on platform libraries in MacOS/Windows/Linux (e.g. OpenGL). Ultimately people can continue this course, but the world has already decided their argument is wrong since this environment doesn't actually exist and it has been almost twenty years. I personally don't know a single development job that would work in such a cut down environment.
- awt 10y ago
  Web development is not serious work (I say this as a web developer). Naggum wrote software for oil rigs. That is a serious business where lives are on the line, not to mention real and not nominal wealth.
  - yoz-y 10y ago
    Yes, _real_ programmers do not use Pascal.
GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
I did read it, yes, and I'm not particularly impressed by an anti-Microsoft rant from a 20-year-old usenet flamewar. Of interest is his third paragraph, the one that starts "in _every_ field ..." and it really makes me wonder if he had ever actually dealt with enterprise software at all.

Did you read the Naggum link? He is not easily dismissed.

by awt 10y ago

Did you read the Naggum link? He is not easily dismissed.

He does have a point. On the other hand, the two decades since he wrote that have been marked by "the consumerization of IT". Even before 1997, it was individuals rather than IT departments who first demonstrated business uses for PCs. I'm not taking a position on either side of this debate, just pointing to the trend....

awt 10y ago
I'm currently re-individualizing my personal IT. It is work, but I own the results and they won't be erased by the next minor os "upgrade."

UnoriginalGuy 10y ago

I did. It is just raw elitism. The ironic thing is that in 1997 there were many more, what they consider, "professional" programmers. Today most programmers are targeting the web, and therefore wouldn't gain anything from ultra minimalism. Frankly arguing for a enviroment so minimalist that it wouldn't contain a web browser is a non-starter for almost all professional programming jobs in 2016. And even for the few non-web development jobs that still exist (e.g. game development), you're still dependant on platform libraries in MacOS/Windows/Linux (e.g. OpenGL). Ultimately people can continue this course, but the world has already decided their argument is wrong since this environment doesn't actually exist and it has been almost twenty years. I personally don't know a single development job that would work in such a cut down environment.

awt 10y ago
Web development is not serious work (I say this as a web developer). Naggum wrote software for oil rigs. That is a serious business where lives are on the line, not to mention real and not nominal wealth.
- yoz-y 10y ago
  Yes, _real_ programmers do not use Pascal.

GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago

I did read it, yes, and I'm not particularly impressed by an anti-Microsoft rant from a 20-year-old usenet flamewar. Of interest is his third paragraph, the one that starts "in _every_ field ..." and it really makes me wonder if he had ever actually dealt with enterprise software at all.