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The problem is not the programs. The problem is not the tools. The problem is that the tradespeople and craftsfolk who make them are, whether intentionally or

The problem is not the programs. The problem is not the tools. The problem is that the tradespeople and craftsfolk who make them are, whether intentionally or not, wage slaves. They do not make for the joy and art of making, but constrained by monetary need. They do not seek to grow as makers and share what it is to make because . . . no one would pay them for that. If we want better tech and better ways of doing tech, we need to start being paid like smart people who can not only do what management can't, but also we insist on doing it in a way that's creative. In a way not managed as a commodity. Here on HN, we see hacker (at best) as commodity. This is not the right community for the message, imo.

sfink 4y ago
It's a persuasive argument, but most of the "dead" tools mentioned in the talk were created in the era where the creators were inspired more by the beauty of their creations than their relevance to some bottom line. C C++ Pascal Python Go .NET ML Docker etc. were all made by people who saw a niche and sculpted something new for the joy of it. (Not just for the joy, but still.) The current "...but does it monetize?" culture is a recent thing. For most of the history of computing, nearly everything was done by starry-eyed idealists and outcasts who were in love with exploring the new conceptual frontiers opened up by technology. Sure, even then there were Larry Ellisons out to skin the selkies and sell their pelts to the highest bidder, but they weren't driving the field. The vast majority of developments came from people on BBSes or MUDs or just in their private basement rooms, who delighted in coming up with working demonstrations of crazy new ideas and showing them off. Silicon Valley was the Kingdom of the Geek, before the Geek had been tempted to crawl into the gilt cage and be locked inside by the army of MBAs and VCs. But we did it to ourselves—where once we might show off a live coding hack or a self-modifying set of scenes in a MUSH, now we show off our new Tesla or whatever the latest variant of a giant cell phone on wheels is. (I don't disagree with what we should be moving towards.)

sfink 4y ago

It's a persuasive argument, but most of the "dead" tools mentioned in the talk were created in the era where the creators were inspired more by the beauty of their creations than their relevance to some bottom line. C C++ Pascal Python Go .NET ML Docker etc. were all made by people who saw a niche and sculpted something new for the joy of it. (Not just for the joy, but still.) The current "...but does it monetize?" culture is a recent thing. For most of the history of computing, nearly everything was done by starry-eyed idealists and outcasts who were in love with exploring the new conceptual frontiers opened up by technology. Sure, even then there were Larry Ellisons out to skin the selkies and sell their pelts to the highest bidder, but they weren't driving the field. The vast majority of developments came from people on BBSes or MUDs or just in their private basement rooms, who delighted in coming up with working demonstrations of crazy new ideas and showing them off. Silicon Valley was the Kingdom of the Geek, before the Geek had been tempted to crawl into the gilt cage and be locked inside by the army of MBAs and VCs. But we did it to ourselves—where once we might show off a live coding hack or a self-modifying set of scenes in a MUSH, now we show off our new Tesla or whatever the latest variant of a giant cell phone on wheels is. (I don't disagree with what we should be moving towards.)