3 ms·

Your developers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.

by jmcdiesel 10y ago

jacquesm 10y ago
That's an assumption on your part. What a terrible comment.
- freehunter 10y ago
  He's quoting Jurassic Park. The idea is that the technology does something that would normally be considered highly unusual or even ridiculous to consider, like running a very complicated code base through a transpiler to make it run on another tech stack. Generally speaking, this kind of comment would be a compliment. Sort of along the lines of "wow, that's absolutely crazy, you did something no one would have thought possible, good work". It's a much more light-hearted comment than you seem to think it is.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    I don't care what he's quoting and to see this as 'light-hearted' (without any further elaboration on the part of the OP) is extrapolation. FWIW the comment in the movie is also a negative one. > John Hammond: I don't think you're giving us our due credit. Our scientists have done things which nobody's ever done before... > Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should. > John Hammond: Condors. Condors are on the verge of extinction... > Dr. Ian Malcolm: [shaking his head] No... > John Hammond: If I was to create a flock of condors on this island, you wouldn't have anything to say. > Dr. Ian Malcolm: No, hold on. This isn't some species that was obliterated by deforestation, or the building of a dam. Dinosaurs had their shot, and nature selected them for extinction. > John Hammond: I simply don't understand this Luddite attitude, especially from a scientist. I mean, how can we stand in the light of discovery, and not act? > Dr. Ian Malcolm: What's so great about discovery? It's a violent, penetrative act that scars what it explores. What you call discovery, I call the rape of the natural world.
    - icebraining 10y ago
      It can be negative and still light-hearted. The phrase itself has become a meme, usually applied to stuff like KFC's Double Down.
    - rbanffy 10y ago
      One could argue PHP had its shot.
      - jacquesm 10y ago
        You could, but you'd be ignoring the realities on the ground: Wordpress powers a vast chunk of the web[1], whether we like that or not, and frameworks such as Symphony a good bit of the remainder. For the love that Clojure, Rust etc get on HN their over-representation should not lead you to believe that 'PHP has had it's shot', PHP hasn't had it's shot by a long shot... [1] https://managewp.com/statistics-about-wordpress-usage https://managewp.com/statistics-about-wordpress-usage
        rbanffy 10y ago
        If Java is the COBOL of the 21st century, PHP is its RPG... ;-)
        jacquesm 10y ago
        Mapper? Mimer? The reasonably good news here is that PHP code tends to have a rather short life-span so the bulk of it should die off relatively fast once there is an actual alternative. That's the puzzling bit: even Ruby, python and all the other 'better' languages still don't have the deploy situation worked out to the point that PHP has.
    - jmcdiesel 10y ago
      You are far too serious a person. I actually stand by the sentiment. Wordpress is a virus, and like jQuery, it has negatively impacted the development scene of the language is lives in. PHP, on the cusp of becoming a more respectable language (I freely admit my love for PHP, to this day, even though I primarily work in Java and Python now), was taken over by WP "developers" who flooded the market and sell themselves as engineers when all they can do is copypasta a few wordpress idioms. I don't hate on wordpress itself, its a fine, though early on troubled codebase. The predatory community it has created, the security issues it continues to create, and the low-barrier to entry that floods the market with a ton of really bad code isn't something I would want to bring into another language's world. And here's where the light-hearted part comes in... I know that projects like these would NEVER actually cause that kind of effect on their language because nobody would take it seriously... but the analogy of what COULD happen (you know, fictional, like ridiculous unrealism of the base concept of the movie) was apt. I fail to understand why in a world so caught up in negativity and rigidness, people chose to not allow themselves to enjoy or notice light-hearted humor, and actively defend their stance against it, as if somehow eliminating light hearted jest is a benefit to a world already buried in such negativity...

Your developers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.

jacquesm 10y ago

That's an assumption on your part. What a terrible comment.

freehunter 10y ago
He's quoting Jurassic Park. The idea is that the technology does something that would normally be considered highly unusual or even ridiculous to consider, like running a very complicated code base through a transpiler to make it run on another tech stack. Generally speaking, this kind of comment would be a compliment. Sort of along the lines of "wow, that's absolutely crazy, you did something no one would have thought possible, good work". It's a much more light-hearted comment than you seem to think it is.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  I don't care what he's quoting and to see this as 'light-hearted' (without any further elaboration on the part of the OP) is extrapolation. FWIW the comment in the movie is also a negative one. > John Hammond: I don't think you're giving us our due credit. Our scientists have done things which nobody's ever done before... > Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should. > John Hammond: Condors. Condors are on the verge of extinction... > Dr. Ian Malcolm: [shaking his head] No... > John Hammond: If I was to create a flock of condors on this island, you wouldn't have anything to say. > Dr. Ian Malcolm: No, hold on. This isn't some species that was obliterated by deforestation, or the building of a dam. Dinosaurs had their shot, and nature selected them for extinction. > John Hammond: I simply don't understand this Luddite attitude, especially from a scientist. I mean, how can we stand in the light of discovery, and not act? > Dr. Ian Malcolm: What's so great about discovery? It's a violent, penetrative act that scars what it explores. What you call discovery, I call the rape of the natural world.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    It can be negative and still light-hearted. The phrase itself has become a meme, usually applied to stuff like KFC's Double Down.
  - rbanffy 10y ago
    One could argue PHP had its shot.
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      You could, but you'd be ignoring the realities on the ground: Wordpress powers a vast chunk of the web[1], whether we like that or not, and frameworks such as Symphony a good bit of the remainder. For the love that Clojure, Rust etc get on HN their over-representation should not lead you to believe that 'PHP has had it's shot', PHP hasn't had it's shot by a long shot... [1] https://managewp.com/statistics-about-wordpress-usage https://managewp.com/statistics-about-wordpress-usage
      - rbanffy 10y ago
        If Java is the COBOL of the 21st century, PHP is its RPG... ;-)
        jacquesm 10y ago
        Mapper? Mimer? The reasonably good news here is that PHP code tends to have a rather short life-span so the bulk of it should die off relatively fast once there is an actual alternative. That's the puzzling bit: even Ruby, python and all the other 'better' languages still don't have the deploy situation worked out to the point that PHP has.
  - jmcdiesel 10y ago
    You are far too serious a person. I actually stand by the sentiment. Wordpress is a virus, and like jQuery, it has negatively impacted the development scene of the language is lives in. PHP, on the cusp of becoming a more respectable language (I freely admit my love for PHP, to this day, even though I primarily work in Java and Python now), was taken over by WP "developers" who flooded the market and sell themselves as engineers when all they can do is copypasta a few wordpress idioms. I don't hate on wordpress itself, its a fine, though early on troubled codebase. The predatory community it has created, the security issues it continues to create, and the low-barrier to entry that floods the market with a ton of really bad code isn't something I would want to bring into another language's world. And here's where the light-hearted part comes in... I know that projects like these would NEVER actually cause that kind of effect on their language because nobody would take it seriously... but the analogy of what COULD happen (you know, fictional, like ridiculous unrealism of the base concept of the movie) was apt. I fail to understand why in a world so caught up in negativity and rigidness, people chose to not allow themselves to enjoy or notice light-hearted humor, and actively defend their stance against it, as if somehow eliminating light hearted jest is a benefit to a world already buried in such negativity...