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He's absolutely got some good points, no doubt about that. And yet, something irks me... * An industry that can't produce robust software has produced several

He's absolutely got some good points, no doubt about that. And yet, something irks me... * An industry that can't produce robust software has produced several server operating systems capable of uptimes that far exceed the expected life time of the hardware they run on. [0] Writing this, I checked in on a random server I've got access to. The uptime is 350 days. * I reboot my personal Linux laptop only when I myself want to install the latest kernel update. The current uptime is 46 days and I use that machine for programming, watching movies, surfing and whatever else I feel like doing. * I'm willing to bet a few bucks that there are more C and assembly language programmers around now than there has been at any previous point in time. * I'm pretty sure Blow couldn't have made his presentation slides, recorded his talk, uploaded it to a web site and then watched it in a web browser using Ken Thompson's three week Unix, even if it was running on modern hardware. * It's true that the OS in both abstract and concrete ways removes capabilities from the CPU, but it also adds a lot of capabilities such as multitasking. * Pretty much all of the things listed on his "You Can't Just..." are perfectly doable in E.G. Linux. It's not the OS that removes this capability, it's the work of companies trying to protect their revenue (through DRM, IP laws, patent enforcement etc.). I can (and still do) write software in a simple editor without a language server in sight, etc. Meanwhile, my old Amigas - which I love to bits - crash fatally all the time. Just a few weeks ago, one of them pulled a hard drive partition along with the crash and I actually had to reformat it because re-validation failed (luckily I had nothing of importance on it). [0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/03/epic-uptime-achievement-can-you-beat-16-years/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/03/epic-...

ziaddotcom 6y ago
In the example of your Amiga, your hard drive failed, but it probably would still boot right into any game from any floppy that didn't require workbench to have been booted from floppy or HD. The game could very well have been written in workbench booted from workbench/assembler from floppy. The same game, replicated in Unity, requires a several gigabyte download just for the developer to light up a white pixel on a black background in Unity. Is the juice of Unity worth the squeeze? It depends on the game I think. Using Unity to get a Super Meat Boy clone on a Nintendo switch starts to ride the line of absurdity (i.e. using a massively complex and capable game engine to make a knock off of a beefed up version of a flash game that was paying homage to games written in 6502 assembly and booted instantly and never crashed).
- arexxbifs 6y ago
  > In the example of your Amiga, your hard drive failed The crucial part here is that software caused the hard drive to fail. That was my point - I think it's easy to forget how fragile most home computer OS:es were 25-30 years ago compared to today.
  - ziaddotcom 6y ago
    Bad software and bad UI corrupts usb drives all day long in 2021.
    - arexxbifs 6y ago
      Yes, bad things can still happen. What I'm trying to say is bad things used to happen, too, quite frequently and on very simple systems, and that his points about gradually diminishing robustness and productivity are easy to refute. I'm of the opinion that computers today - despite layers of abstraction and growing complexity - are more robust and lets us be more productive than ever. Abstraction fosters ignorance and complexity is fragile, I agree with him on those points. But I also think he makes very sweeping, erroneous statements about software and development.
- meheleventyone 6y ago
  That's not really a like for like comparison though. You could for example light up a white pixel on a black background in the browser, which almost everyone has installed by default, or using the basic OS APIs or by downloading PICO-8 which is pretty small IIRC. There are tradeoffs being made in all three choices and each will suit a different context.
  - ziaddotcom 6y ago
    Does anyone seriously write games for the browser anymore? Can Jonathan target the browser to make Braid, and seriously expect any commercial success? Maybe you'll think "What about Celeste?" at which point you'll have only proven both of our points equally at best.
cblconfederate 6y ago
> An industry that can't produce robust software Was it linux? Not exactly a product of industry.

ziaddotcom 6y ago

In the example of your Amiga, your hard drive failed, but it probably would still boot right into any game from any floppy that didn't require workbench to have been booted from floppy or HD. The game could very well have been written in workbench booted from workbench/assembler from floppy. The same game, replicated in Unity, requires a several gigabyte download just for the developer to light up a white pixel on a black background in Unity. Is the juice of Unity worth the squeeze? It depends on the game I think. Using Unity to get a Super Meat Boy clone on a Nintendo switch starts to ride the line of absurdity (i.e. using a massively complex and capable game engine to make a knock off of a beefed up version of a flash game that was paying homage to games written in 6502 assembly and booted instantly and never crashed).

arexxbifs 6y ago
> In the example of your Amiga, your hard drive failed The crucial part here is that software caused the hard drive to fail. That was my point - I think it's easy to forget how fragile most home computer OS:es were 25-30 years ago compared to today.
- ziaddotcom 6y ago
  Bad software and bad UI corrupts usb drives all day long in 2021.
  - arexxbifs 6y ago
    Yes, bad things can still happen. What I'm trying to say is bad things used to happen, too, quite frequently and on very simple systems, and that his points about gradually diminishing robustness and productivity are easy to refute. I'm of the opinion that computers today - despite layers of abstraction and growing complexity - are more robust and lets us be more productive than ever. Abstraction fosters ignorance and complexity is fragile, I agree with him on those points. But I also think he makes very sweeping, erroneous statements about software and development.
meheleventyone 6y ago
That's not really a like for like comparison though. You could for example light up a white pixel on a black background in the browser, which almost everyone has installed by default, or using the basic OS APIs or by downloading PICO-8 which is pretty small IIRC. There are tradeoffs being made in all three choices and each will suit a different context.
- ziaddotcom 6y ago
  Does anyone seriously write games for the browser anymore? Can Jonathan target the browser to make Braid, and seriously expect any commercial success? Maybe you'll think "What about Celeste?" at which point you'll have only proven both of our points equally at best.

cblconfederate 6y ago

> An industry that can't produce robust software Was it linux? Not exactly a product of industry.