3 ms·

Right but there's a difference between hype and experimentation with new tools and methodologies. Cargo-culting is never a good idea. But to say that new and

Right but there's a difference between hype and experimentation with new tools and methodologies. Cargo-culting is never a good idea. But to say that new and better techniques have not come out of (or been popularized by) new movements in software and business is simply false. The stodginess and perhaps arrogance of academic and deeper research posts are just as obnoxious and hobbling as novelty-chasing unprincipled startup entrepreneur. We should pick technologies because they're the right choice for the tasks we're trying to accomplish. Sometimes that requires reaching for tried and true technologies (POSIX ftw after all), but sometimes new technologies really do change the world, and we should do our best to encourage that. Lastly, it's really just not true that all press is good press. You can gloss over occasional bad press with a much larger weight of good press, or converting a lot of bad press into good press with a small group of people (Palin's "Lamestream Media"), but bad press is just bad press. Being known for starting flamewars w/o additional contributions to the community pretty quickly marks you as a troll.

stcredzero 15y ago
Cargo-culting is never a good idea. If it leads you to discover the underlying principles, then it is. This happens often in music.
- knowtheory 15y ago
  No, cargo-culting is a bad idea if you don't know why you would pick a piece of technology. I'm okay with technology being a crutch, and helping to carry you over terrain you do not yet understand. But that is different from using technology you do not understand for reasons you do not understand. Just using a NoSQL store, because it's a NoSQL store is a bad idea, and can lead to all sorts of dangerous consequences.
rch 15y ago
My concern, one that I believe I share with the author, is that the zero-sum tenor of tech-community discourse is overshadowing the more fundamental advances (and setbacks) that we could be focused on. And the attitudes of what seems to be a generation of edit-line/update-browser developers is only making it that much more difficult to drag those advances into established industries. I am genuinely disappointed with the present state of affairs, and therefore more willing to wade through an ocean of arrogance to find some intellectual merit. There's so much to do...
- knowtheory 15y ago
  This sounds like redirection to me. I've just said that i believe that we should be using technology based on its merits. I think that is a separate issue from either whether new technology is always good/better than existing technologies, or whether we need to continue to support and encourage the development of new technologies (meh to the former, a definite yes to the latter). Established industries on the other hand, need to get over themselves and actually track how new technologies can change and improve their businesses or fields, and I think that, yes, there's a danger of them getting snookered by glad-handing shysters just looking to sell them the hot new thing, but again, this is why it's so critical to have a solid understanding of technological change. you don't have to wade through an ocean of crap technologies, if you have more finely honed crap detection skills. For example, Coffeescript is a solid and well thought out technology built on top of existing javascript semantics. I can tell almost immediately that it's a sensible and minimalist technology, developed with solid principles, and robust community support. Technologies like Objective-J/Cappuccino on the other hand, do not give me that sense. Sproutcore, up until recently, also seemed like a bloated technology, with a good core idea, but which had become overgrown and lost in it's subsequent iterations. I am not a long-time Javascript developer, but, i have tastes and aesthetics about what i think is important in a development platform, and the sorts of qualities good ones should have. And the further I develop my javascript chops, the more confident i feel in my assessment.
  - rch 15y ago
    It's more of an antecedent-consequent relationship than redirection, in my opinion. Anyway, while your examples are instructive (I hadn't even heard of the latter three), they get right to the heart of my complaint: I simply don't worry about how to write individual web applications (though I wish some people would think about it a bit more... cough - quora - cough). My immediate response to something like coffeescript, though, is to wonder what about how the grammar is defined. Could they do the same thing with antlr or xtext? are they already? how about python-lepl? and, finally, what are the core heuristics that all developers can take from a discussion of the above? I'm not at all interested in thinking about their 'square' function example - I'm sure it's plenty useful in some context. Worry about what cognitively-tiny (that's not a pejorative - mk is powerful because it's tiny) framework to adopt, and reinforcement of one's choice through pervasive 'messaging' within the developer community, seem to go hand-in-hand. Conversely, since I don't worry about the former, I don't generally take part in the latter. ... By the way - all this has started to sound overly stern to me - I'm really just sitting on my porch, doing a little good natured ranting about things I can't control. Cheers :)

stcredzero 15y ago

Cargo-culting is never a good idea. If it leads you to discover the underlying principles, then it is. This happens often in music.

knowtheory 15y ago
No, cargo-culting is a bad idea if you don't know why you would pick a piece of technology. I'm okay with technology being a crutch, and helping to carry you over terrain you do not yet understand. But that is different from using technology you do not understand for reasons you do not understand. Just using a NoSQL store, because it's a NoSQL store is a bad idea, and can lead to all sorts of dangerous consequences.

rch 15y ago

My concern, one that I believe I share with the author, is that the zero-sum tenor of tech-community discourse is overshadowing the more fundamental advances (and setbacks) that we could be focused on. And the attitudes of what seems to be a generation of edit-line/update-browser developers is only making it that much more difficult to drag those advances into established industries. I am genuinely disappointed with the present state of affairs, and therefore more willing to wade through an ocean of arrogance to find some intellectual merit. There's so much to do...

knowtheory 15y ago
This sounds like redirection to me. I've just said that i believe that we should be using technology based on its merits. I think that is a separate issue from either whether new technology is always good/better than existing technologies, or whether we need to continue to support and encourage the development of new technologies (meh to the former, a definite yes to the latter). Established industries on the other hand, need to get over themselves and actually track how new technologies can change and improve their businesses or fields, and I think that, yes, there's a danger of them getting snookered by glad-handing shysters just looking to sell them the hot new thing, but again, this is why it's so critical to have a solid understanding of technological change. you don't have to wade through an ocean of crap technologies, if you have more finely honed crap detection skills. For example, Coffeescript is a solid and well thought out technology built on top of existing javascript semantics. I can tell almost immediately that it's a sensible and minimalist technology, developed with solid principles, and robust community support. Technologies like Objective-J/Cappuccino on the other hand, do not give me that sense. Sproutcore, up until recently, also seemed like a bloated technology, with a good core idea, but which had become overgrown and lost in it's subsequent iterations. I am not a long-time Javascript developer, but, i have tastes and aesthetics about what i think is important in a development platform, and the sorts of qualities good ones should have. And the further I develop my javascript chops, the more confident i feel in my assessment.
- rch 15y ago
  It's more of an antecedent-consequent relationship than redirection, in my opinion. Anyway, while your examples are instructive (I hadn't even heard of the latter three), they get right to the heart of my complaint: I simply don't worry about how to write individual web applications (though I wish some people would think about it a bit more... cough - quora - cough). My immediate response to something like coffeescript, though, is to wonder what about how the grammar is defined. Could they do the same thing with antlr or xtext? are they already? how about python-lepl? and, finally, what are the core heuristics that all developers can take from a discussion of the above? I'm not at all interested in thinking about their 'square' function example - I'm sure it's plenty useful in some context. Worry about what cognitively-tiny (that's not a pejorative - mk is powerful because it's tiny) framework to adopt, and reinforcement of one's choice through pervasive 'messaging' within the developer community, seem to go hand-in-hand. Conversely, since I don't worry about the former, I don't generally take part in the latter. ... By the way - all this has started to sound overly stern to me - I'm really just sitting on my porch, doing a little good natured ranting about things I can't control. Cheers :)