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> That you are developing software for web browsers and are still able to maintain the notion that your innovations exist in a vacuum is flabbergasting. Who in

> That you are developing software for web browsers and are still able to maintain the notion that your innovations exist in a vacuum is flabbergasting. Who invented the software language you use or designed the earliest forms of hardware you use or discovered the electron? The fact that you type on a keyboard and yet consider your imagination innovative is flabbergasting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

boomlinde 9y ago
The difference is that I don't type on the keyboard under the pretense that I am somehow particularly innovative in doing so. It's not even a question about the "earliest forms of hardware" or discoveries, it's about software that you directly use to make your work possible. From your post I gather: - You built a web application with some client side logic - You didn't use any external dependencies (except, say, the web browser and its API specifically designed for this purpose) - You taught yourself language parsing (a widely understood and documented problem) - You architected some solution to couple data to a user interface, (like every other web developer before what, 2006?) I'm not saying that this isn't impressive or interesting, and I'm not questioning your ingenuity in the absence of communication, but with respect to the argument that you innovated in a vacuum, where's the innovation and what's the vacuum? My point is that if you had been able to communicate and collaborate with other developers and had a good idea of what problems were already solved and what problems needed to be solved, you might have turned that ingenuity into useful innovation rather than new wheels.
- austincheney 9y ago
  > My point is that if you had been able to communicate and collaborate with other developers and had a good idea of what problems were already solved and what problems needed to be solved, you might have turned that ingenuity into useful innovation rather than new wheels. My point is that if you ask nearly any web or JavaScript developer everything new is always "a reinvented wheel". I do mean always. Most of these guys need a popular framework just to turn on their monitors and even when you take the framework away they generally consider any code written still some kind of a framework. This isn't a technology problem it is a social problem of bad developers striving for normalcy when everything they see is "invented here" syndrome. The fastest way to solve for that problem is to separate yourself from trends and socially acceptable approaches. You have to keep those opinions to yourself though, because it shines a spotlight on peoples' insecurities. I have spent nearly the entirety of my career learning this the hard way. Most developers don't want to be expert rockstars. They want to be employable. Urban centers are where you go to increase your chances of employment. You can innovate from anywhere.
  - boomlinde 9y ago
    > My point is that if you ask nearly any web or JavaScript developer everything new is always "a reinvented wheel". I do mean always. Most of these guys need a popular framework just to turn on their monitors and even when you take the framework away they generally consider any code written still some kind of a framework. So this is about web or Javascript developers, not about the ideal conditions for innovation? It seems we're heading off topic. > This isn't a technology problem it is a social problem of bad developers striving for normalcy when everything they see is "invented here" syndrome. The fastest way to solve for that problem is to separate yourself from trends and socially acceptable approaches. How do you go about deliberately separating yourself from trends and socially acceptable approaches without knowing the current trends and socially acceptable approaches? The only other way I can think of is to stumble around re-inventing obvious things until you accidentally invent something new. > You have to keep those opinions to yourself though, because it shines a spotlight on peoples' insecurities. Maybe look for a different job? Perhaps one that isn't basically just about creating GUI-to-API bindings, a problem that has been solved so many times it isn't even funny? > I have spent nearly the entirety of my career learning this the hard way. Most developers don't want to be expert rockstars. They want to be employable. Urban centers are where you go to increase your chances of employment. You can innovate from anywhere. I don't doubt that you can innovate from anywhere. The question is whether innovation is at least partly a social process. You use yourself as an example to the contrary but IMO the example fails to prove your point. I have explained why I think so but you haven't really responded with a convincing argument as to why you are a good example of this.
    - austincheney 9y ago
      > So this is about web or Javascript developers That is merely my experience perspective. The ideal conditions for innovation are the problems you are willing to solve for. > How do you go about deliberately separating yourself from trends and socially acceptable approaches... You solve for valid problems that you encounter (or are brought to you) opposed to dreaming up imaginary problems to solve for. This is the kind of madness that YCombinator says to never do: invent a business problem merely to start a business. Trends are not problems you encounter. They are reactionary marketplace hysteria. > Maybe look for a different job? I enjoy writing software. I am not going to give this up because there are a lot of insecure developers who frequently whine and cry, as frustrating as that is. > The question is whether innovation is at least partly a social process. The question was whether movement to cities is important because innovation is a social process. I am merely suggesting that innovation is better when not dictated by social processes therefore the whole conversation about cities is completely orthogonal. People move to cities for employment, not for innovation.
tluyben2 9y ago
> Who invented the software language you use or designed the earliest forms of hardware you use ... Some of us here actually worked on badly made/failing hardware and computers without (dev) software ; let alone internet and mostly not even books or mags to check out. I for one had no modem, no places to get literature/mags and no friends who had computers; whatever I needed as tools, I had to write myself (sprite editor, assembler, etc) based on 1 book that a colleague of my father got from Japan. I learned about the hardware because computers where freakishly expensive but luckily had 74series (and before logic made up out of transistors) inside and when you would buy a computer, it would then often contain all the circuit diagrams so you could figure out what was happening and expand memory, make extensions etc. Now, I'm not a very smart person and this is not a pissing contest, but what you are saying is just not accurate. You have a wealth of information and tooling at your fingertips that was out of reach for almost everyone but big companies in the 70s/begin 80s. Many people worked 'from first principles' with no help and continuously crashing systems without being about to ask anything. And yet we made interfaces, programs, ultimately everything you have now is based on the people who figured all this out back then. A browser is the furthest from the hardware I can imagine; it is a (badly done imho) abstraction over the sheer bizarre power you have in front of you. You might be brilliant at what you do, but let's be real about it.
- austincheney 9y ago
  > You might be brilliant at what you do, but let's be real about it. Educational resources aren't a social reference group. They don't provide feedback. That's as real as I can make it.

boomlinde 9y ago

The difference is that I don't type on the keyboard under the pretense that I am somehow particularly innovative in doing so. It's not even a question about the "earliest forms of hardware" or discoveries, it's about software that you directly use to make your work possible. From your post I gather: - You built a web application with some client side logic - You didn't use any external dependencies (except, say, the web browser and its API specifically designed for this purpose) - You taught yourself language parsing (a widely understood and documented problem) - You architected some solution to couple data to a user interface, (like every other web developer before what, 2006?) I'm not saying that this isn't impressive or interesting, and I'm not questioning your ingenuity in the absence of communication, but with respect to the argument that you innovated in a vacuum, where's the innovation and what's the vacuum? My point is that if you had been able to communicate and collaborate with other developers and had a good idea of what problems were already solved and what problems needed to be solved, you might have turned that ingenuity into useful innovation rather than new wheels.

austincheney 9y ago
> My point is that if you had been able to communicate and collaborate with other developers and had a good idea of what problems were already solved and what problems needed to be solved, you might have turned that ingenuity into useful innovation rather than new wheels. My point is that if you ask nearly any web or JavaScript developer everything new is always "a reinvented wheel". I do mean always. Most of these guys need a popular framework just to turn on their monitors and even when you take the framework away they generally consider any code written still some kind of a framework. This isn't a technology problem it is a social problem of bad developers striving for normalcy when everything they see is "invented here" syndrome. The fastest way to solve for that problem is to separate yourself from trends and socially acceptable approaches. You have to keep those opinions to yourself though, because it shines a spotlight on peoples' insecurities. I have spent nearly the entirety of my career learning this the hard way. Most developers don't want to be expert rockstars. They want to be employable. Urban centers are where you go to increase your chances of employment. You can innovate from anywhere.
- boomlinde 9y ago
  > My point is that if you ask nearly any web or JavaScript developer everything new is always "a reinvented wheel". I do mean always. Most of these guys need a popular framework just to turn on their monitors and even when you take the framework away they generally consider any code written still some kind of a framework. So this is about web or Javascript developers, not about the ideal conditions for innovation? It seems we're heading off topic. > This isn't a technology problem it is a social problem of bad developers striving for normalcy when everything they see is "invented here" syndrome. The fastest way to solve for that problem is to separate yourself from trends and socially acceptable approaches. How do you go about deliberately separating yourself from trends and socially acceptable approaches without knowing the current trends and socially acceptable approaches? The only other way I can think of is to stumble around re-inventing obvious things until you accidentally invent something new. > You have to keep those opinions to yourself though, because it shines a spotlight on peoples' insecurities. Maybe look for a different job? Perhaps one that isn't basically just about creating GUI-to-API bindings, a problem that has been solved so many times it isn't even funny? > I have spent nearly the entirety of my career learning this the hard way. Most developers don't want to be expert rockstars. They want to be employable. Urban centers are where you go to increase your chances of employment. You can innovate from anywhere. I don't doubt that you can innovate from anywhere. The question is whether innovation is at least partly a social process. You use yourself as an example to the contrary but IMO the example fails to prove your point. I have explained why I think so but you haven't really responded with a convincing argument as to why you are a good example of this.
  - austincheney 9y ago
    > So this is about web or Javascript developers That is merely my experience perspective. The ideal conditions for innovation are the problems you are willing to solve for. > How do you go about deliberately separating yourself from trends and socially acceptable approaches... You solve for valid problems that you encounter (or are brought to you) opposed to dreaming up imaginary problems to solve for. This is the kind of madness that YCombinator says to never do: invent a business problem merely to start a business. Trends are not problems you encounter. They are reactionary marketplace hysteria. > Maybe look for a different job? I enjoy writing software. I am not going to give this up because there are a lot of insecure developers who frequently whine and cry, as frustrating as that is. > The question is whether innovation is at least partly a social process. The question was whether movement to cities is important because innovation is a social process. I am merely suggesting that innovation is better when not dictated by social processes therefore the whole conversation about cities is completely orthogonal. People move to cities for employment, not for innovation.

tluyben2 9y ago

> Who invented the software language you use or designed the earliest forms of hardware you use ... Some of us here actually worked on badly made/failing hardware and computers without (dev) software ; let alone internet and mostly not even books or mags to check out. I for one had no modem, no places to get literature/mags and no friends who had computers; whatever I needed as tools, I had to write myself (sprite editor, assembler, etc) based on 1 book that a colleague of my father got from Japan. I learned about the hardware because computers where freakishly expensive but luckily had 74series (and before logic made up out of transistors) inside and when you would buy a computer, it would then often contain all the circuit diagrams so you could figure out what was happening and expand memory, make extensions etc. Now, I'm not a very smart person and this is not a pissing contest, but what you are saying is just not accurate. You have a wealth of information and tooling at your fingertips that was out of reach for almost everyone but big companies in the 70s/begin 80s. Many people worked 'from first principles' with no help and continuously crashing systems without being about to ask anything. And yet we made interfaces, programs, ultimately everything you have now is based on the people who figured all this out back then. A browser is the furthest from the hardware I can imagine; it is a (badly done imho) abstraction over the sheer bizarre power you have in front of you. You might be brilliant at what you do, but let's be real about it.

austincheney 9y ago
> You might be brilliant at what you do, but let's be real about it. Educational resources aren't a social reference group. They don't provide feedback. That's as real as I can make it.