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As the time horizon increases, planning for the future is necessary, then prudent, then sensible, then optimistic, then aspirational, then foolish, then sheer a
by jerf 1y ago
As the time horizon increases, planning for the future is necessary, then prudent, then sensible, then optimistic, then aspirational, then foolish, then sheer arrogance. Claiming 25 years of support for something like SQLite is already on the farther end of the good set of those adjectives as it is. And I don't mean that as disrespect for that project; that's actually a statement of respect because for the vast majority of projects out there I'd put 25 years of support as already being at "sheer arrogance", so putting them down somewhere around "optimistic" is already high praise. Claiming they've got a 50 or 100 year plan might sound good but it wouldn't mean anything real.
What they can do is renew the promise going forward; if in 2030 they again commit to 25 years of support, that would mean something to me. Claiming they can promise to be supporting it in 2075 or something right now is just not a sensible thing to do.
- azemetre 1y agoHaving a plan for several hundred years is possible and we've seen such things happen in other facets of life. We as humans are clearly capable of building robust durable social organizations, religion and civics both being testaments. I'm curious how these plans would look and work in the context of software development. That was more what my question is about (also only being familiar with sqlite taking this seriously). We've seen what lawyers can accomplish with their BAR associations and those were created over 200 years ago in the US! Lawyers also work with one of the clunkiest DSLs ever (legalese). Imagine what they could accomplished if they used an actual language. :D
- clickety_clack 1y agoI’d be interested to know what you would classify as having been planned to last hundreds of years. Most of the long term institutions I can think of are the results of inertia and evolution, having been set up initially as an expediency in their time, rather than conforming to a plan set out hundreds of years ago.
- azemetre 1y agoThe Philadelphia BAR Association was established in ~1800. I doubt the profession of law is going to disappear anytime soon, and lawyers have done a good job building their profession all things considered. Imagine if the only way you could legally sell software was through partnerships with other developers? Do you think such a thing would have helped or hurt our industry? I honestly think help.
- clickety_clack 1y agoWhat I mean is that the bar was set up for the lawyers themselves at that time. They didn’t create a 250 year plan for a Philadelphia bar that has played out in all that time and gotten us to today. It’s stayed in existence because it happened to stay useful for the lawyers that followed after them. Law itself is a collection of decisions made by judges and juries in trials, not decisions that are calibrated to have an impact over hundreds of years. Institutions are more like organisms that evolve, trying to adapt to the environment they find themselves in. The ones that work are able to stick around, and the ones that don’t die off.
- azemetre 1y agoYou don't see an institution that established useful norms persisting for lifetimes as one worth preserving and emulating? I do. Medieval guilds are another equivalent but they could not deal with the industrial revolution or colonialism, so they don't seem like something worth studying (outside of their failures) if it can't deal with societal change.
- clickety_clack 1y agoYou’re missing what I’m saying. I’m not commenting at all on their usefulness. I’m saying that the motivating factors that build and grow institutions are short term. Institutions last because people happen to find them useful over successive short time horizons, or they’re able to change them to suit the needs of the time. There’s no super long term planning in it, some happened to have the right combination of elements and some didn’t.