5 ms·

Previous submission: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3594098 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3594098

by drcube 14y ago

why-el 14y ago
It's interesting because usually HN would detect the link and redirect you to the previous discussion. This escaped the parser simply because the url is appended by "?". I even added another question mark and submitted it fine (Deleted it of course).
- drcube 14y ago
  I think there's some time limit that expires, after which old links can be resubmitted.
  - why-el 14y ago
    I don't think so because I resubmitted the old link (the normal url) and it redirected me to the discussion that took place a year ago. Edit: As mentioned in the comment bellow, it was less than year, in fact less than six months even, so you guys might be right. I just saw a big number and assumed it was a long time ago. My bad.
    - billswift 14y ago
      119 days is a year? What planet do you live on? In fact, I think the expiration is 6 months, though I'm not sure.
DeepDuh 14y ago
Thanks alot for that link, it lead me to this very interesting talk by Brent Victor, as kind of a counter argument to that principle: http://vimeo.com/36579366 http://vimeo.com/36579366. And holy shit does he have a point. Many of today's programmers seem to be trapped in the thinking that the unix and vim principles are the holy grail, forever to be pursued, never to be changed. Isn't it time we stand up and reassess the tools we have? And I'm not just talking about the teleprompt generation tools like unix and vim, but also today's IDEs that have basically evolved as extensions to those tools. I also recommend the following talk about "subtext": http://www.subtextual.org/subtext2.html http://www.subtextual.org/subtext2.html.
- lubutu 14y ago
  I would argue that very few of today's programmers really follow the Unix philosophy, but those I know who do would likely agree that our tools should be reassessed. But you seem to be conflating the idea of reassessing our tools and reassessing our principles. In my opinion the core principles [1] are eternal, however transient the programs themselves. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy
  - DeepDuh 14y ago
    I'd argue that the tools (if they're 'good' in itself) reflect the principles with which they have been designed. And no, I don't think that these principles are eternal. We should look at the context under which these principles have been formulated or evolved, compare it to today's context, pick out the principles that still apply and throw the rest out. As an example, building small programs to do well defined, easily testable tasks and chain them together, is certainly still a good design principle. Strings as the universal interface, however, is not in my opinion, since it just doesn't reflect how most of today's UIs are built on objects - thus we have today's disconnect between the terminal and the GUI.
    - lubutu 14y ago
      You believe that text as a universal interface isn't a good design principle because it doesn't reflect how other UIs, built upon completely different principles, behave? Is it not possible that it remains a good principle that WIMP GUIs simply do not adhere to? (Also related, "everything is a file.")
      - DeepDuh 14y ago
        Unformatted text (as in text that doesn't follow a machine-understandable format like xml or json) is not a good interface today, I absolutely believe that. Imagine if "ls" would return an xml table that you could easily reuse in other programs, including graphical editors. Imagine that the OS could understand what every column represents and give it a name. You could do something like ls | showtable in.modified in.filename --sort:1. Of course you can do this today with sed, but in a very unintuitive way not easily accessible for beginners.

Previous submission: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3594098 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3594098

by drcube 14y ago

Previous submission: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3594098 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3594098

It's interesting because usually HN would detect the link and redirect you to the previous discussion. This escaped the parser simply because the url is appended by "?". I even added another question mark and submitted it fine (Deleted it of course).

drcube 14y ago
I think there's some time limit that expires, after which old links can be resubmitted.
- why-el 14y ago
  I don't think so because I resubmitted the old link (the normal url) and it redirected me to the discussion that took place a year ago. Edit: As mentioned in the comment bellow, it was less than year, in fact less than six months even, so you guys might be right. I just saw a big number and assumed it was a long time ago. My bad.
  - billswift 14y ago
    119 days is a year? What planet do you live on? In fact, I think the expiration is 6 months, though I'm not sure.

DeepDuh 14y ago

Thanks alot for that link, it lead me to this very interesting talk by Brent Victor, as kind of a counter argument to that principle: http://vimeo.com/36579366 http://vimeo.com/36579366. And holy shit does he have a point. Many of today's programmers seem to be trapped in the thinking that the unix and vim principles are the holy grail, forever to be pursued, never to be changed. Isn't it time we stand up and reassess the tools we have? And I'm not just talking about the teleprompt generation tools like unix and vim, but also today's IDEs that have basically evolved as extensions to those tools. I also recommend the following talk about "subtext": http://www.subtextual.org/subtext2.html http://www.subtextual.org/subtext2.html.

lubutu 14y ago
I would argue that very few of today's programmers really follow the Unix philosophy, but those I know who do would likely agree that our tools should be reassessed. But you seem to be conflating the idea of reassessing our tools and reassessing our principles. In my opinion the core principles [1] are eternal, however transient the programs themselves. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy
- DeepDuh 14y ago
  I'd argue that the tools (if they're 'good' in itself) reflect the principles with which they have been designed. And no, I don't think that these principles are eternal. We should look at the context under which these principles have been formulated or evolved, compare it to today's context, pick out the principles that still apply and throw the rest out. As an example, building small programs to do well defined, easily testable tasks and chain them together, is certainly still a good design principle. Strings as the universal interface, however, is not in my opinion, since it just doesn't reflect how most of today's UIs are built on objects - thus we have today's disconnect between the terminal and the GUI.
  - lubutu 14y ago
    You believe that text as a universal interface isn't a good design principle because it doesn't reflect how other UIs, built upon completely different principles, behave? Is it not possible that it remains a good principle that WIMP GUIs simply do not adhere to? (Also related, "everything is a file.")
    - DeepDuh 14y ago
      Unformatted text (as in text that doesn't follow a machine-understandable format like xml or json) is not a good interface today, I absolutely believe that. Imagine if "ls" would return an xml table that you could easily reuse in other programs, including graphical editors. Imagine that the OS could understand what every column represents and give it a name. You could do something like ls | showtable in.modified in.filename --sort:1. Of course you can do this today with sed, but in a very unintuitive way not easily accessible for beginners.