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Assuming you're talking about the "collapse of civilization" talk, I think the primary appeal is that he's confirming the feeling many of us have that software,

Assuming you're talking about the "collapse of civilization" talk, I think the primary appeal is that he's confirming the feeling many of us have that software, particularly user-facing software on personal computers, is going downhill. And I use that metaphor deliberately, because it reminds us that things get worse by default, unless we put in the work to counteract the relevant natural forces and make things better. Whether he has any real solutions to the decay of modern software is, of course, another question. It makes intuitive sense that, since previous generations were able to develop efficient and pleasant-to-use software for much more constrained computers than the ones we now have, we can gain something by looking back to the past. But those previous generations of software also lacked things that we're no longer willing to give up -- security, accessibility, internationalization, etc. That doesn't mean we have to settle for the excesses of Electron, React, etc. But it does mean that, at least for software that needs qualities like the ones I listed above, we can't just go back to the ways software used to be developed for older computers. So, I think you're right about the danger of nostalgia.

Karrot_Kream 4y ago
> But those previous generations of software also lacked things that we're no longer willing to give up -- security, accessibility, internationalization, etc. That doesn't mean we have to settle for the excesses of Electron, React, etc. But it does mean that, at least for software that needs qualities like the ones I listed above, we can't just go back to the ways software used to be developed for older computers. So, I think you're right about the danger of nostalgia. I think that's precisely the danger. It's the danger of using nostalgia to feed into a purity spiral. We can simultaneously acknowledge that there's problem where we create bad software that wastefully uses resources on a user's computer while understanding that part of modern development has made computing much safer and more accessible than it used to be. Instead of looking _backward_, we can look _forward_ to a future where we can continue to be safe and accessible while not being as wasteful with a user's resources.
- int_19h 4y ago
  We need to look both backward and forward, because the past still has so many useful lessons to teach (which is a far better way to learn them than making the mistake that prompted them in the first place!). The problem is blindly repeating the past, not looking into it.

Karrot_Kream 4y ago

> But those previous generations of software also lacked things that we're no longer willing to give up -- security, accessibility, internationalization, etc. That doesn't mean we have to settle for the excesses of Electron, React, etc. But it does mean that, at least for software that needs qualities like the ones I listed above, we can't just go back to the ways software used to be developed for older computers. So, I think you're right about the danger of nostalgia. I think that's precisely the danger. It's the danger of using nostalgia to feed into a purity spiral. We can simultaneously acknowledge that there's problem where we create bad software that wastefully uses resources on a user's computer while understanding that part of modern development has made computing much safer and more accessible than it used to be. Instead of looking _backward_, we can look _forward_ to a future where we can continue to be safe and accessible while not being as wasteful with a user's resources.

int_19h 4y ago
We need to look both backward and forward, because the past still has so many useful lessons to teach (which is a far better way to learn them than making the mistake that prompted them in the first place!). The problem is blindly repeating the past, not looking into it.