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It sucks how temporary software is, especially Web software. If you don’t pay the hosting bill it’s gone. If you don’t upgrade to 64 but it’s useless. Essential

It sucks how temporary software is, especially Web software. If you don’t pay the hosting bill it’s gone. If you don’t upgrade to 64 but it’s useless. Essentially it’s a plate spinning on a stick and it needs constant attention to survive. Contrast that to a fine piece of furniture which barring fire or flood can just sit abandoned in a warehouse for 300 years and then be even more valuable than it was initially.

nicoburns 5y ago
Thw flip side being that once built you can potentially reach thousands if not millions of people with your project.
- geoduck14 5y ago
  Are you describing a toilet seat at the airport?
fossuser 5y ago
This is some of the appeal of urbit to me: https://moronlab.blogspot.com/2010/01/urbit-functional-programming-from.html https://moronlab.blogspot.com/2010/01/urbit-functional-progr... That blog post is old, urbit does exist now.
- hytdstd 5y ago
  This article is extremely long-winded. Do you mind providing a summary of what exactly appeals to you? Also: Is "C. Guy Yarvin" Curtis Yarvin?
  - Matticus_Rex 5y ago
    > Also: Is "C. Guy Yarvin" Curtis Yarvin? Yeah, Urbit was Yarvin's project until 2019 when he left the company.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - fossuser 5y ago
    Core idea is how can you design a software system that avoids the pitfalls of spinning plate on a stick that requires constant maintenance as the world shifts around it, 'the big ball of mud'. One way to do this is to design a system where all events of the system can be replayed from start to finish in an immutable/repeatable way. Taking the advantages of state guarantees from functional language design and applying something similar to an entire OS. You can design something that abstracts this general design away from specific implementations of pieces that interact with the underlying system today (*nix). This podcast doesn't a decent job of introducing some of the concepts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/understanding-urbit/id1504188804 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/understanding-urbit/id... It's a little hard to summarize in a really short comment because there's a lot of new/first principles thinking that doesn't analogize super cleanly to the existing software stack people are familiar with (which is why it's interesting). Yeah that's Curtis Yarvin, I think his neo-reactionary politics are wrong [0], but the design and ideas behind urbit are good (and he's no longer directly involved in the project). [0]: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/10/20/the-anti-reactionary-faq/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/10/20/the-anti-reactionary-f...
jacquesm 5y ago
Imagine your whole life has been spent flipping bits. Highly frustrating, I'm really happy that I also have some real world skills and I'm always wondering whether the buildings that I put up will outlive me.
samstave 5y ago
I'm 46. I have been working in SV since ~1996 I have had several existential crisis wondering *"what the fuck am I doing this for, we produce nothing."* --- This happened to me at FB, SF, Lucas, Brocade... I was like "yeah, im doing well professionally, making money - but at the end of the day, it was just "we produce nothing of intrinsic value" I find it ironic that NFTs are now the version of creating something of digital content, but it has non-fungible (intrinsic value) and they are attempting to make a money laundering network out of NFTs (if you may not be aware, the art market is the largest money laundering scheme ever devised up until where we are at present. I am currently going through a mid-life, as I can't stand tech at all - but its all I know, so I am attempting to just get into gardening and maybe work at a nursery...
- armchairhacker 5y ago
  > we produce nothing of intrinsic value Idk about that. You could say the same about a farmer or a banker or a teacher etc. Even the guys who build the Empire State building - there were probably hundreds of them, each only building a small part - and someday that will get lost in time also. “Intrinsic value” is whatever you define it to be. I guess if you’re working for some ad-sales-management company making software for other big companies, then you probably don’t think you’re making much intrinsic value. But my philosophy is, just try to make the world a slightly better place to live in when you leave. And even a small library or project may help others working on bigger projects, which influence bigger projects, which cause real change.
  - samstave 5y ago
    >>“Intrinsic value” is whatever you define it to be. The guy who produces one tomato is worth more than the entire team who produces, say a mobile DLC/Gambling/betting game. CMV
    - matkoniecz 5y ago
      Gambling game is of negative value so it is easy to beat that :)
  - 5y ago
tdumitrescu 5y ago
I dunno, as someone with a lot of antique furnishings in a 19th-century house, I'd say that there's quite a bit of ongoing maintenance to prevent the march of time and usual wear and tear from grinding everything to dust!
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  I don't collect antique furniture, but I do cook with and maintain 100-year old cast iron and a very nice German chef's knife. I think the biggest difference between software maintenance and maintenance of most physical objects is that physical maintenance is calming, tactile and pleasant. Routine software maintenance, on the other hand, is hacky, frustrating and stressful. I would much rather sharpen my knife on a whetstone than fix a dependency on a CI server or wrap my head around Apple's latest code signing bullshit.
  - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
    > I think the biggest difference between software maintenance and maintenance of most physical objects is that physical maintenance is calming, tactile and pleasant. A lot of folks don't think this way. I do, but I know many who don't so it's important to remember that, especially when trying to make systemic judgements on fields of industry.
    - AussieWog93 5y ago
      Fair point. I've not met many people who are actually excited by this stuff, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. I may be a little bit biased in this area as I had to spend a lot of time dealing with a build system that my company had rolled themselves, with one maintainer that spent his entire week just putting out fires, all while under high pressure from deadlines and also external pressure from home eviction, wedding, side businesses). I just cannot relax or have fun when dealing with WiX or qmake failures or dependencies disappearing.
      - cik 5y ago

nicoburns 5y ago

Thw flip side being that once built you can potentially reach thousands if not millions of people with your project.

geoduck14 5y ago
Are you describing a toilet seat at the airport?

fossuser 5y ago

This is some of the appeal of urbit to me: https://moronlab.blogspot.com/2010/01/urbit-functional-programming-from.html https://moronlab.blogspot.com/2010/01/urbit-functional-progr... That blog post is old, urbit does exist now.

hytdstd 5y ago
This article is extremely long-winded. Do you mind providing a summary of what exactly appeals to you? Also: Is "C. Guy Yarvin" Curtis Yarvin?
- Matticus_Rex 5y ago
  > Also: Is "C. Guy Yarvin" Curtis Yarvin? Yeah, Urbit was Yarvin's project until 2019 when he left the company.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- fossuser 5y ago
  Core idea is how can you design a software system that avoids the pitfalls of spinning plate on a stick that requires constant maintenance as the world shifts around it, 'the big ball of mud'. One way to do this is to design a system where all events of the system can be replayed from start to finish in an immutable/repeatable way. Taking the advantages of state guarantees from functional language design and applying something similar to an entire OS. You can design something that abstracts this general design away from specific implementations of pieces that interact with the underlying system today (*nix). This podcast doesn't a decent job of introducing some of the concepts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/understanding-urbit/id1504188804 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/understanding-urbit/id... It's a little hard to summarize in a really short comment because there's a lot of new/first principles thinking that doesn't analogize super cleanly to the existing software stack people are familiar with (which is why it's interesting). Yeah that's Curtis Yarvin, I think his neo-reactionary politics are wrong [0], but the design and ideas behind urbit are good (and he's no longer directly involved in the project). [0]: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/10/20/the-anti-reactionary-faq/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/10/20/the-anti-reactionary-f...

jacquesm 5y ago

Imagine your whole life has been spent flipping bits. Highly frustrating, I'm really happy that I also have some real world skills and I'm always wondering whether the buildings that I put up will outlive me.

samstave 5y ago

I'm 46. I have been working in SV since ~1996 I have had several existential crisis wondering *"what the fuck am I doing this for, we produce nothing."* --- This happened to me at FB, SF, Lucas, Brocade... I was like "yeah, im doing well professionally, making money - but at the end of the day, it was just "we produce nothing of intrinsic value" I find it ironic that NFTs are now the version of creating something of digital content, but it has non-fungible (intrinsic value) and they are attempting to make a money laundering network out of NFTs (if you may not be aware, the art market is the largest money laundering scheme ever devised up until where we are at present. I am currently going through a mid-life, as I can't stand tech at all - but its all I know, so I am attempting to just get into gardening and maybe work at a nursery...

armchairhacker 5y ago
> we produce nothing of intrinsic value Idk about that. You could say the same about a farmer or a banker or a teacher etc. Even the guys who build the Empire State building - there were probably hundreds of them, each only building a small part - and someday that will get lost in time also. “Intrinsic value” is whatever you define it to be. I guess if you’re working for some ad-sales-management company making software for other big companies, then you probably don’t think you’re making much intrinsic value. But my philosophy is, just try to make the world a slightly better place to live in when you leave. And even a small library or project may help others working on bigger projects, which influence bigger projects, which cause real change.
- samstave 5y ago
  >>“Intrinsic value” is whatever you define it to be. The guy who produces one tomato is worth more than the entire team who produces, say a mobile DLC/Gambling/betting game. CMV
  - matkoniecz 5y ago
    Gambling game is of negative value so it is easy to beat that :)
- 5y ago

tdumitrescu 5y ago

I dunno, as someone with a lot of antique furnishings in a 19th-century house, I'd say that there's quite a bit of ongoing maintenance to prevent the march of time and usual wear and tear from grinding everything to dust!

AussieWog93 5y ago
I don't collect antique furniture, but I do cook with and maintain 100-year old cast iron and a very nice German chef's knife. I think the biggest difference between software maintenance and maintenance of most physical objects is that physical maintenance is calming, tactile and pleasant. Routine software maintenance, on the other hand, is hacky, frustrating and stressful. I would much rather sharpen my knife on a whetstone than fix a dependency on a CI server or wrap my head around Apple's latest code signing bullshit.
- Karrot_Kream 5y ago
  > I think the biggest difference between software maintenance and maintenance of most physical objects is that physical maintenance is calming, tactile and pleasant. A lot of folks don't think this way. I do, but I know many who don't so it's important to remember that, especially when trying to make systemic judgements on fields of industry.
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    Fair point. I've not met many people who are actually excited by this stuff, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. I may be a little bit biased in this area as I had to spend a lot of time dealing with a build system that my company had rolled themselves, with one maintainer that spent his entire week just putting out fires, all while under high pressure from deadlines and also external pressure from home eviction, wedding, side businesses). I just cannot relax or have fun when dealing with WiX or qmake failures or dependencies disappearing.
    - cik 5y ago