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So basically his inspirational talk turned into "I was pulled over to the Google Plus team, but I said never mind and went back to working on developer tools"?

So basically his inspirational talk turned into "I was pulled over to the Google Plus team, but I said never mind and went back to working on developer tools"? Kind of a let down. :(

btrask 15y ago
It shouldn't matter what Steve Yegge decides to work on. You can still start working on big, important problems if you want to.
- bretthoerner 15y ago
  It doesn't, but you can't help but feel his excitement during the talk ... and yet ...
  - jshen 15y ago
    I think tools are very important for society. Improving them is important too.
pnathan 15y ago
Developer tools are kind of a big deal.
- bartonfink 15y ago
  Not really in the sense he was talking about. He literally stood up at a major conference and urged the development community to go learn bioinformatics and work on the cure for cancer. No developer tool will ever come close to the amount of positive impact on the world that a cure for cancer would.
  - paulbaumgart 15y ago
    Good tools can help a lot with successfully managing the complexity of computational models of biological systems-- models that might end up being used in developing cures for all sorts of diseases.
    - mentat 15y ago
      It seems that those who have entered the tech world in the last 10ish years under appreciate how frameworks have changed the way people get work done and the scale of projects they are able to undertake. Even the existence of rich operating systems which provide robust APIs to networking and filesystems is relatively new. The impact of creating new frameworks that enable people to address broader problems more easily cannot be underestimated.
  - jrockway 15y ago
    Biology is being held back by the low-quality code that the biologists are forced to write and maintain. Producing better programming tools means that biologists can start writing better programs. This is already happening. The world of science woke up one day and realized that the C++ and Java their CS friends were talking about weren't helping them solve problems. So they switched to Python and Perl and now we have the human genome. Programming tools are a big fucking deal.
    - kenjackson 15y ago
      This is already happening. The world of science woke up one day and realized that the C++ and Java their CS friends were talking about weren't helping them solve problems. So they switched to Python and Perl and now we have the human genome. Oh, that's how it happened? Weird, I thought they were using lots of C++. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/IEB/ToolBox/CPP_DOC/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/IEB/ToolBox/CPP_DOC/ http://www.seqan.de/ http://www.seqan.de/ I guess I'd better go remind them to cancel their conferences and close up shop.
      - bane 15y ago
        I think he's talking about this http://www.bioperl.org/wiki/How_Perl_saved_human_genome http://www.bioperl.org/wiki/How_Perl_saved_human_genome
        deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
      - jrockway 15y ago
        Don't be such a jackass. I didn't say nobody was using C++ or Java. I was saying that many individual researchers switched from Java for things like "scripts". Infrastructure written by programmers will use different tools than glue code written by scientists.
    - bonch 15y ago
      This is really stupid. You're attributing the human genome to Python and Perl (and that's beside the fact that they still use lots of C++ and Java).
  - Cushman 15y ago
    Unless the cure for cancer relies on some developer tool, in which case the value of the tool is strictly greater. And really, in this day and age— you think coming up with the cure for cancer isn't going to involve software system upon software system?
    - bartonfink 15y ago
      I think the cure for cancer will certainly be aided by software. I do not, however, think that current or even previous generation languages, editors or other development tools are holding the cure for cancer back. I do not believe for one second that the cure for cancer will fundamentally rely on getting software written more quickly. Development tools have a direct impact on one set of the human race: people developing software. A cure for cancer will have direct impact on every human being who ever lives. You simply can't compare the two in any meaningful sense.
      - Cushman 15y ago
        If you don't think the people developing software have a direct impact on the rest of the human race, I just have no idea what human race you're talking about. Sure, cancer researchers don't have any use for the latest Node framework, but that doesn't mean their field doesn't benefit from new technology just like everyone else.
  - RyanMcGreal 15y ago
    He also said he's started learning bioinformatics and so on, so that he'll be ready to tackle more important problems in a couple of years.
- bretthoerner 15y ago
  Did you watch his talk?
- michaelochurch 15y ago
  It depends. I feel like a lot of dev. tools compensate for illnesses in software engineering that should be cured in a way that doesn't depend on one's environment. For example, apparently Java doesn't totally suck if one uses the appropriate tools and environment. But Ocaml and Haskell are great regardless of whether one uses vi, emacs, or whatever else. Ocaml, for example, has this great static analysis tool far more powerful than all but the most premium SA tools for C++ and Java-- the compiler.

So basically his inspirational talk turned into "I was pulled over to the Google Plus team, but I said never mind and went back to working on developer tools"? Kind of a let down. :(

btrask 15y ago

It shouldn't matter what Steve Yegge decides to work on. You can still start working on big, important problems if you want to.

bretthoerner 15y ago
It doesn't, but you can't help but feel his excitement during the talk ... and yet ...
- jshen 15y ago
  I think tools are very important for society. Improving them is important too.

pnathan 15y ago

Developer tools are kind of a big deal.

bartonfink 15y ago
Not really in the sense he was talking about. He literally stood up at a major conference and urged the development community to go learn bioinformatics and work on the cure for cancer. No developer tool will ever come close to the amount of positive impact on the world that a cure for cancer would.
- paulbaumgart 15y ago
  Good tools can help a lot with successfully managing the complexity of computational models of biological systems-- models that might end up being used in developing cures for all sorts of diseases.
  - mentat 15y ago
    It seems that those who have entered the tech world in the last 10ish years under appreciate how frameworks have changed the way people get work done and the scale of projects they are able to undertake. Even the existence of rich operating systems which provide robust APIs to networking and filesystems is relatively new. The impact of creating new frameworks that enable people to address broader problems more easily cannot be underestimated.
- jrockway 15y ago
  Biology is being held back by the low-quality code that the biologists are forced to write and maintain. Producing better programming tools means that biologists can start writing better programs. This is already happening. The world of science woke up one day and realized that the C++ and Java their CS friends were talking about weren't helping them solve problems. So they switched to Python and Perl and now we have the human genome. Programming tools are a big fucking deal.
  - kenjackson 15y ago
    This is already happening. The world of science woke up one day and realized that the C++ and Java their CS friends were talking about weren't helping them solve problems. So they switched to Python and Perl and now we have the human genome. Oh, that's how it happened? Weird, I thought they were using lots of C++. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/IEB/ToolBox/CPP_DOC/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/IEB/ToolBox/CPP_DOC/ http://www.seqan.de/ http://www.seqan.de/ I guess I'd better go remind them to cancel their conferences and close up shop.
    - bane 15y ago
      I think he's talking about this http://www.bioperl.org/wiki/How_Perl_saved_human_genome http://www.bioperl.org/wiki/How_Perl_saved_human_genome
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
    - jrockway 15y ago
      Don't be such a jackass. I didn't say nobody was using C++ or Java. I was saying that many individual researchers switched from Java for things like "scripts". Infrastructure written by programmers will use different tools than glue code written by scientists.
  - bonch 15y ago
    This is really stupid. You're attributing the human genome to Python and Perl (and that's beside the fact that they still use lots of C++ and Java).
- Cushman 15y ago
  Unless the cure for cancer relies on some developer tool, in which case the value of the tool is strictly greater. And really, in this day and age— you think coming up with the cure for cancer isn't going to involve software system upon software system?
  - bartonfink 15y ago
    I think the cure for cancer will certainly be aided by software. I do not, however, think that current or even previous generation languages, editors or other development tools are holding the cure for cancer back. I do not believe for one second that the cure for cancer will fundamentally rely on getting software written more quickly. Development tools have a direct impact on one set of the human race: people developing software. A cure for cancer will have direct impact on every human being who ever lives. You simply can't compare the two in any meaningful sense.
    - Cushman 15y ago
      If you don't think the people developing software have a direct impact on the rest of the human race, I just have no idea what human race you're talking about. Sure, cancer researchers don't have any use for the latest Node framework, but that doesn't mean their field doesn't benefit from new technology just like everyone else.
- RyanMcGreal 15y ago
  He also said he's started learning bioinformatics and so on, so that he'll be ready to tackle more important problems in a couple of years.
bretthoerner 15y ago
Did you watch his talk?
michaelochurch 15y ago
It depends. I feel like a lot of dev. tools compensate for illnesses in software engineering that should be cured in a way that doesn't depend on one's environment. For example, apparently Java doesn't totally suck if one uses the appropriate tools and environment. But Ocaml and Haskell are great regardless of whether one uses vi, emacs, or whatever else. Ocaml, for example, has this great static analysis tool far more powerful than all but the most premium SA tools for C++ and Java-- the compiler.