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This is a great idea that would change computing for the better. That said, one angle I sense here is blaming. It's easy to dream and blame, it's harder to bui

This is a great idea that would change computing for the better. That said, one angle I sense here is blaming. It's easy to dream and blame, it's harder to build and lead by example. It'd be great if this post was a "why XXX" page in the documentation for a new platform which implements the said ideas.

adwn 6y ago
> It's easy to dream and blame, it's harder to build and lead by example. It'd be great if this post was a "why XXX" page in the documentation for a new platform which implements the said ideas. That's because these grandiose visions are just that – dreams. It's one thing to imagine a user's utopia of infinite possibilities and write a blog post, and a completely different thing to go and implement it. It typically falls apart when confronted with the messy reality of the real world and actual code. That's why you see a lot of those posts, and never anything that goes significantly beyond some toy examples, if at all. Compare the author's misconception that there's little inherent complexity in summing a range of cells in a spreadsheet [1], an idea that won't be entertained for long if you actually implement a general-purpose spreadsheet application. @djrobstep: Sorry for the harsh words. I've heard too many of those visionary ideas (including my own), and have never seen them amount to anything (see also Alan Kay's vision of software inspired by biological cells and systems – lots of talk, no non-trivial proofs of concept). I would be delighted to be proven wrong, so please don't let this post bring you down. Start building! If you succeed, feel free to rub it under my nose :-) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25020363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25020363
- artem247 6y ago
  > (see also Alan Kay's vision of software inspired by biological cells and systems – lots of talk, no non-trivial proofs of concept). I just wanted to say that actually Kay's vision was implemented in something very non-trivial, both on the hardware side - Alto, and the Smalltalk operating system. They were used by real people and exhibited lots of traits that this article talks about. And some of their ideas were hugely influential in mainstream computing. I love the demo of one of the Smalltalk programs in this talk by Alan Kay [0], starts at around 40:30 [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2LZLYcu_JY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2LZLYcu_JY
  - adwn 6y ago
    In what way does Smalltalk embody the concepts underlying biological cells and systems? Note that objects sending messages to other objects has very little to do with that – it would look more like lots of identical objects emitting lots of identical messages into a shared medium, and lots of objects receiving none, some, or many of those messages (a stochastical process) and reacting in a more or less deterministic manner. Such a system would be hell to develop, debug, and maintain. Which is why we don't design systems that way. Which is exactly my point.

adwn 6y ago

> It's easy to dream and blame, it's harder to build and lead by example. It'd be great if this post was a "why XXX" page in the documentation for a new platform which implements the said ideas. That's because these grandiose visions are just that – dreams. It's one thing to imagine a user's utopia of infinite possibilities and write a blog post, and a completely different thing to go and implement it. It typically falls apart when confronted with the messy reality of the real world and actual code. That's why you see a lot of those posts, and never anything that goes significantly beyond some toy examples, if at all. Compare the author's misconception that there's little inherent complexity in summing a range of cells in a spreadsheet [1], an idea that won't be entertained for long if you actually implement a general-purpose spreadsheet application. @djrobstep: Sorry for the harsh words. I've heard too many of those visionary ideas (including my own), and have never seen them amount to anything (see also Alan Kay's vision of software inspired by biological cells and systems – lots of talk, no non-trivial proofs of concept). I would be delighted to be proven wrong, so please don't let this post bring you down. Start building! If you succeed, feel free to rub it under my nose :-) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25020363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25020363

artem247 6y ago
> (see also Alan Kay's vision of software inspired by biological cells and systems – lots of talk, no non-trivial proofs of concept). I just wanted to say that actually Kay's vision was implemented in something very non-trivial, both on the hardware side - Alto, and the Smalltalk operating system. They were used by real people and exhibited lots of traits that this article talks about. And some of their ideas were hugely influential in mainstream computing. I love the demo of one of the Smalltalk programs in this talk by Alan Kay [0], starts at around 40:30 [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2LZLYcu_JY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2LZLYcu_JY
- adwn 6y ago
  In what way does Smalltalk embody the concepts underlying biological cells and systems? Note that objects sending messages to other objects has very little to do with that – it would look more like lots of identical objects emitting lots of identical messages into a shared medium, and lots of objects receiving none, some, or many of those messages (a stochastical process) and reacting in a more or less deterministic manner. Such a system would be hell to develop, debug, and maintain. Which is why we don't design systems that way. Which is exactly my point.