3 ms·

Sometimes when pondering a question I stop to think: "why is this important?" And if I cannot answer I just stop pondering the question altogether.

MrJohz 3y ago
I think the difference can be useful in terms of addressing different software/DX needs. For example, scripts and programs tend to have very different maintenance, dependency management, packaging, publishing, etc needs. You see this a lot in the Python ecosystem, where Python is used extensively for simple scripts that just need to calculate one thing and then tend not to get maintained, but also for larger software projects that will be continually updated and maintained over time. Currently, Python packaging is in a pretty poor shape, and it doesn't work well for a lot of people in different ways, but if we look at software on a kind of script/program continuum, we can group people's needs into two rough camps. That sort of grouping and categorisation helps make it easier to find solutions: rather than solving the problems of ever single Python developer ever, we can now reduce the situation down to two problems: that of the script developer and that of the program developer. This is of course just an example - in practice, there might be more categories that are worth making here, and those categories may well have sub categories that are worth exploring. But I think these sorts of divisions can often be useful. That said, I've heard the advice before that categories are only useful if they're being used additively - that is, a category is useful if we're more interested in what we can put into the category than what we can exclude from it. So with the Python example, this is useful if we're trying to build categories of code types that tell us something about how our tools are being used. But if we're only interested in marking code as being "script" in order to exclude them from our more 'advanced' category of "program", then we may as well give up.
jonnycomputer 3y ago
That's very practical. I strongly suspect however, for people who are not primarily concerned with practical things perhaps, unrestrained pondering is a big driver of new discovery.

MrJohz 3y ago

I think the difference can be useful in terms of addressing different software/DX needs. For example, scripts and programs tend to have very different maintenance, dependency management, packaging, publishing, etc needs. You see this a lot in the Python ecosystem, where Python is used extensively for simple scripts that just need to calculate one thing and then tend not to get maintained, but also for larger software projects that will be continually updated and maintained over time. Currently, Python packaging is in a pretty poor shape, and it doesn't work well for a lot of people in different ways, but if we look at software on a kind of script/program continuum, we can group people's needs into two rough camps. That sort of grouping and categorisation helps make it easier to find solutions: rather than solving the problems of ever single Python developer ever, we can now reduce the situation down to two problems: that of the script developer and that of the program developer. This is of course just an example - in practice, there might be more categories that are worth making here, and those categories may well have sub categories that are worth exploring. But I think these sorts of divisions can often be useful. That said, I've heard the advice before that categories are only useful if they're being used additively - that is, a category is useful if we're more interested in what we can put into the category than what we can exclude from it. So with the Python example, this is useful if we're trying to build categories of code types that tell us something about how our tools are being used. But if we're only interested in marking code as being "script" in order to exclude them from our more 'advanced' category of "program", then we may as well give up.

jonnycomputer 3y ago

That's very practical. I strongly suspect however, for people who are not primarily concerned with practical things perhaps, unrestrained pondering is a big driver of new discovery.