3 ms·

The decimal system is already based on the human body, most people are just not great at bending their toes one by one and find it convenient to have them cover

The decimal system is already based on the human body, most people are just not great at bending their toes one by one and find it convenient to have them covered by footwear. If you want a special symbol for one full hand, just use Roman numerals. This reminds me of retro computing. Amiga or BeOS had some amazing concepts for the time, and quite possibly Wintel dominance was achieved by predatory tactics. It can be interesting to study old platforms and some enjoy creating new software up to this day. But if you limit yourself to these, don't expect modern living. At best you can hook up an old computer to a modern one as a thin client and fool yourself into thinking that harpooning a whale from a motor boat is traditional living. For whatever reason the world have move on and it's not possible for could have been possibilities to ever catch up with limited number of participants, since the rest of the world will also not stand still.

magic_hamster 3y ago
As a retro computing aficionado, this is where I disagree. Learning about old computers has always taught me something useful about modern systems. Going back to the first IBMs and Apple architectures has a lot of merit. It's like reading a book from the beginning, instead of jumping in the middle and trying to make sense of everything. You can probably continue reading, but you won't know why some things are the way they are. Obviously, developing software for obsolete systems is not a great income stream, but as an exercise, this too has merit. You learn a lot about constraints and limitations, which today are rarely considered, but could still teach you how to optimize code. You learn how to produce software which can run surprisingly fast on machines from 30 or 40 years ago, and that is transferrable to modern coding. You learn a lot about memory, how to use it efficiently and what can be achieved with just 640K, which as we all know, "is all the memory anyone should ever need". You learn that by introducing limitations a sort of game happens in which you need to be more creative to implement things which have since become obvious. And this makes you a better problem solver. There is a lot to learn from old computers, and while some people will always disagree, I think it makes you a better software engineer.
anthk 3y ago
Both Aros and Haiku support open standards.

magic_hamster 3y ago

As a retro computing aficionado, this is where I disagree. Learning about old computers has always taught me something useful about modern systems. Going back to the first IBMs and Apple architectures has a lot of merit. It's like reading a book from the beginning, instead of jumping in the middle and trying to make sense of everything. You can probably continue reading, but you won't know why some things are the way they are. Obviously, developing software for obsolete systems is not a great income stream, but as an exercise, this too has merit. You learn a lot about constraints and limitations, which today are rarely considered, but could still teach you how to optimize code. You learn how to produce software which can run surprisingly fast on machines from 30 or 40 years ago, and that is transferrable to modern coding. You learn a lot about memory, how to use it efficiently and what can be achieved with just 640K, which as we all know, "is all the memory anyone should ever need". You learn that by introducing limitations a sort of game happens in which you need to be more creative to implement things which have since become obvious. And this makes you a better problem solver. There is a lot to learn from old computers, and while some people will always disagree, I think it makes you a better software engineer.

anthk 3y ago

Both Aros and Haiku support open standards.