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Author here. > Physical objects decay to the fundamental forces of nature, but that is a flaw, not something we should emulate. That is explicitly called out
by the_mitsuhiko 2y ago
Author here.
> Physical objects decay to the fundamental forces of nature, but that is a flaw, not something we should emulate.
That is explicitly called out in the article and I do not agree with you. Useful information is replicated, less useful information tends to die out. That we threw away that concept entirely in the digital world without a good replacement has some pretty strong downsides from my experience.
And if you read what I wrote in more detail you can see that I'm very open to the idea of soft deletes and intentional information hiding.
- CyberDildonics 2y ago[flagged]
- the_mitsuhiko 2y agoI don't see how the headline is "inflammatory". You might disagree with the headline and the content and that is fine, however both headline and content reflects what I believe a core capability of (at least a significant number) of software products should be.
- CyberDildonics 2y agoYou think a core capability of software should be that it loses your data? That's like saying a core capability of shoes should be tacks under the sole. Of course you don't really think that. What software do you use that loses your data. Don't say something that cycles data out of a cache or lets you delete data, because that wouldn't be losing it.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- seo-speedwagon 2y agoNo one forced them to write a comment without reading the article. And it’s not a small point that the author corrected them on; multiple paragraphs addressed thoughts like archiving to make searching old things intentional, and soft deletes. Also I didn’t read a scolding tone in the author’s response. And calling it an “inflammatory headline” is quite a stretch: this is a post tagged “thoughts” in someone’s personal blog, not a headline in the New York Times.
- erik_seaberg 2y agoInformation that is known to be useful is sometimes replicated. The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone#Rediscovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone#Rediscovery was abused and damaged; only four incomplete copies were gradually found by luck after two millennia. There are entire academic fields trying to learn things about our history by digging up stuff that was thrown away or abandoned.