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What do you care what other programmers do with their time? The ideas in Hurd are particularly interesting enough to those who work on it. That alone justifies

by p9idf 15y ago

What do you care what other programmers do with their time? The ideas in Hurd are particularly interesting enough to those who work on it. That alone justifies its continued development.

onan_barbarian 15y ago
This is disingenuous. Under this logic there's no such thing as a project that's more or less objectively interesting. If 999 programmers decide to work on 999 basically identical Soduku solvers, and 1 programmer decides to hack up a novel object recognition system with OpenCV, and all 1000 guys are equally keen on their own projects, we'll just have to all agree that all thousand projects are equally interesting and call it a day. I care because it's wasted effort that would be better spent elsewhere.
- p9idf 15y ago
  The logic here is that your opinion on the value of the Hurd isn't objective and that there's no accounting for taste. The Hurd authors know the fruits of their labor far better than you do. If they don't consider their effort wasted and are happy with their results, what are you upset about? If programmers like working on things you don't like, that's their own business.
  - onan_barbarian 15y ago
    This isn't really about the Hurd, is it?
    - burgerbrain 15y ago
      This is about people sitting on their asses disparaging the work done by others in their freetime as "a waste of time". If we started saying that you were wasting your time with your hobby, you would be right in telling us to fuck off. "I care because it's wasted effort that would be better spent elsewhere." This idea that programmers must somehow "donate their free-time to the betterment of society" or whatever the hell you are suggesting is frankly quite offensive.
      - derleth 15y ago
        > This is about people sitting on their asses OK, who here programs standing up? It's certainly possible at this point.
      - onan_barbarian 15y ago
        Getting pissy about it doesn't change the fact that the Hurd serves no useful purpose and doesn't have an interesting idea animating it, just a series of shop-worn ideas from 2 decades ago. If I spent my off-hours building, say, a slightly different clone of Java that I'd started in 1996, you'd be entitled to tell me that I was wasting my time. In fact, this would be doing me a service. If I couldn't turn around and say, "well, Onanva is different from Java because of interesting features X, Y and Z" or "Onanva is about to take over from Java because I've got 100K users in beta and they're screaming for a commercial version" or whatever, then I'd have some serious introspection to do. What I wouldn't do is go into a screaming frenzy that someone who is "sitting on their ass" (whatever that means) is disparaging my precious, precious work and start running around with my dress over my head. I can't tell from your profiles whether you or Mr P9 have ever been in an environment where you get asked tough questions, but any decent CS school will make you run the "why is this interesting/useful" gauntlet repeatedly, especially if you want to get a PhD or something silly like that. The bulk of the cruel, cruel people who ask you these terrible questions will do so from a seated position, and it will be imperative on you to harden up and supply answers. Not every hobbyist has to deal with this sort of thing, but not everyone outside industry or academic research is incapable of doing so; see also Young Torvalds vs. Tanenbaum for a less pathetic approach to criticism. Programmers are free to do whatever they want; I doubt that a better OS will have much to do with the "betterment of society" in any case (you're not sure what I'm suggesting, but you're sure it's "quite offensive"). IMO they should work on projects that are objectively interesting. It's ok to disagree on what that might be, but no-one has been able to furnish a reason why building a UNIX clone on top of Mach (again, after cycling through several other underlying microkernels) is in fact interesting in 2011.
        burgerbrain 15y ago
        Most people watch TV or play video games in their free time. These people choose to work on the Hurd. What you are doing is simply being an asshole. "IMO they should work on projects that are objectively interesting." I rest my case. If you have a better idea of what they should be doing, pay them to do it. Don't tell anyone what they should or should not do otherwise. Furthermore, my background, p9idf's background, and the PhD process all have fuck all to do with what other people do with their own free time.
- rbanffy 15y ago
  > I care because it's wasted effort that would be better spent elsewhere. Too bad it's not your effort that's being used. If you want things you find interesting (and seemingly no one else do) you've got to be prepared to do them yourself.

by p9idf 15y ago

What do you care what other programmers do with their time? The ideas in Hurd are particularly interesting enough to those who work on it. That alone justifies its continued development.

onan_barbarian 15y ago

This is disingenuous. Under this logic there's no such thing as a project that's more or less objectively interesting. If 999 programmers decide to work on 999 basically identical Soduku solvers, and 1 programmer decides to hack up a novel object recognition system with OpenCV, and all 1000 guys are equally keen on their own projects, we'll just have to all agree that all thousand projects are equally interesting and call it a day. I care because it's wasted effort that would be better spent elsewhere.

p9idf 15y ago
The logic here is that your opinion on the value of the Hurd isn't objective and that there's no accounting for taste. The Hurd authors know the fruits of their labor far better than you do. If they don't consider their effort wasted and are happy with their results, what are you upset about? If programmers like working on things you don't like, that's their own business.
- onan_barbarian 15y ago
  This isn't really about the Hurd, is it?
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    This is about people sitting on their asses disparaging the work done by others in their freetime as "a waste of time". If we started saying that you were wasting your time with your hobby, you would be right in telling us to fuck off. "I care because it's wasted effort that would be better spent elsewhere." This idea that programmers must somehow "donate their free-time to the betterment of society" or whatever the hell you are suggesting is frankly quite offensive.
    - derleth 15y ago
      > This is about people sitting on their asses OK, who here programs standing up? It's certainly possible at this point.
    - onan_barbarian 15y ago
      Getting pissy about it doesn't change the fact that the Hurd serves no useful purpose and doesn't have an interesting idea animating it, just a series of shop-worn ideas from 2 decades ago. If I spent my off-hours building, say, a slightly different clone of Java that I'd started in 1996, you'd be entitled to tell me that I was wasting my time. In fact, this would be doing me a service. If I couldn't turn around and say, "well, Onanva is different from Java because of interesting features X, Y and Z" or "Onanva is about to take over from Java because I've got 100K users in beta and they're screaming for a commercial version" or whatever, then I'd have some serious introspection to do. What I wouldn't do is go into a screaming frenzy that someone who is "sitting on their ass" (whatever that means) is disparaging my precious, precious work and start running around with my dress over my head. I can't tell from your profiles whether you or Mr P9 have ever been in an environment where you get asked tough questions, but any decent CS school will make you run the "why is this interesting/useful" gauntlet repeatedly, especially if you want to get a PhD or something silly like that. The bulk of the cruel, cruel people who ask you these terrible questions will do so from a seated position, and it will be imperative on you to harden up and supply answers. Not every hobbyist has to deal with this sort of thing, but not everyone outside industry or academic research is incapable of doing so; see also Young Torvalds vs. Tanenbaum for a less pathetic approach to criticism. Programmers are free to do whatever they want; I doubt that a better OS will have much to do with the "betterment of society" in any case (you're not sure what I'm suggesting, but you're sure it's "quite offensive"). IMO they should work on projects that are objectively interesting. It's ok to disagree on what that might be, but no-one has been able to furnish a reason why building a UNIX clone on top of Mach (again, after cycling through several other underlying microkernels) is in fact interesting in 2011.
      - burgerbrain 15y ago
        Most people watch TV or play video games in their free time. These people choose to work on the Hurd. What you are doing is simply being an asshole. "IMO they should work on projects that are objectively interesting." I rest my case. If you have a better idea of what they should be doing, pay them to do it. Don't tell anyone what they should or should not do otherwise. Furthermore, my background, p9idf's background, and the PhD process all have fuck all to do with what other people do with their own free time.
rbanffy 15y ago
> I care because it's wasted effort that would be better spent elsewhere. Too bad it's not your effort that's being used. If you want things you find interesting (and seemingly no one else do) you've got to be prepared to do them yourself.