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I have 2000s web nostalgia, but I think the modern dot com and onward software SV was, frankly, mostly up to stupid shit. Not something to romanticize Good thi

I have 2000s web nostalgia, but I think the modern dot com and onward software SV was, frankly, mostly up to stupid shit. Not something to romanticize Good things to look forward to are: - Lean and mathlib revolutionizing math - Typst replacing latex and maybe some adobe prosuc - Fuschia/Redox/wasi replacing Unix - non-professional-programmers finally learning programming en mass I think the latter is maybe the most profound. Tech may not grow at a break-neck pace, but erasing the programmer vs computer illiterate dichotomy will mean software can way the world in much less Kafkaesque ways.

Pamar 1y ago
I think that what erased "programmer vs computer illiterate" dichotomy was BASIC in the 80s. I've met lots of "digital natives" and they seem to use technology as a black box and click/touch stuff at random until it sorta works but they do not very good at creating at mental model of why something is behaving in a way which is not what was expected and verify their own hypothesis (i.e. "debugging").
- maegul 1y ago
  Agreed. And I feel it fair to argue that this is the intended interface between proprietary software and its users, categorically. And more so with AI software/tools, and IMO frighteningly so. I don’t know where the open models people are up to, but as a response to this I’d wager they’ll end up playing the Linux desktop game all over again. All of which strikes at one of the essential AI questions for me: do you want humans to understand the world we live in or not? Doesn’t have to be individually, as groups of people can be good at understanding something beyond an individual. But a productivity gain isn’t on it’s a sufficient response to this question. Interestingly, it really wasn’t long ago that “understanding the full computing stack” was a topic around here (IIRC). It’d be interesting to see if some “based” “vinyl player programming” movement evolved in response to AI in which using and developing tech stacks designed to be comprehensively comprehensible is the core motivation. I’d be down.
righthand 1y ago
> non-professional-programmers finally learning programming en mass I don’t think this is what you think it is. It’s more like non-professional-programmers hacking together all the applications they wanted to hack together before. The Llm is just the glue. IMO, they are NOT learning programming.
- MiiMe19 1y ago
  this exactly. No one is getting smarter or learning anything, the bar to make something just no longer requires you to be competent.
- Ericson2314 1y ago
  I wasn't really talking about LLMs, actually. I was just talking about more people learning python and what-not, which has been going on decade or more.
  - righthand 1y ago
    What has been going on for a decade or more? People have been learning/teaching themselves python or other languages for much longer than a decade. Python is 34 years old and that’s a young language.
safety1st 1y ago
It's always about what you choose to focus on. I'm a guy who came of age in the middle of the PC revolution and has been daily driving Linux for over a decade. In the last few years we've seen first Valve with SteamOS, and now 37signals with Omarchy, release Linux distros which are absolutely great for their target audience and function as a general purpose operating system just fine. Once might just be a fluke... Twice is a pattern starting to emerge. Are we witnessing the beginning of a new operating system ecosystem where you only have to be a billion dollar company to produce a viable operating system instead of a trillion dollar one? How many of our assumptions about computing are based on the fact that for 30+ years, only Microsoft, Apple and Google got to do a consumer OS? And a preponderance of the little components that make up this "new" OS ecosystem were developed by some of the most radical software freedom fighters we've got. Is this a long shot I'm thinking about, you bet. But the last time I was this excited about the future I was a teenager and most homes still didn't have a PC.
trenchpilgrim 1y ago
Isn't Fuchsia a dead project?

Pamar 1y ago

I think that what erased "programmer vs computer illiterate" dichotomy was BASIC in the 80s. I've met lots of "digital natives" and they seem to use technology as a black box and click/touch stuff at random until it sorta works but they do not very good at creating at mental model of why something is behaving in a way which is not what was expected and verify their own hypothesis (i.e. "debugging").

maegul 1y ago
Agreed. And I feel it fair to argue that this is the intended interface between proprietary software and its users, categorically. And more so with AI software/tools, and IMO frighteningly so. I don’t know where the open models people are up to, but as a response to this I’d wager they’ll end up playing the Linux desktop game all over again. All of which strikes at one of the essential AI questions for me: do you want humans to understand the world we live in or not? Doesn’t have to be individually, as groups of people can be good at understanding something beyond an individual. But a productivity gain isn’t on it’s a sufficient response to this question. Interestingly, it really wasn’t long ago that “understanding the full computing stack” was a topic around here (IIRC). It’d be interesting to see if some “based” “vinyl player programming” movement evolved in response to AI in which using and developing tech stacks designed to be comprehensively comprehensible is the core motivation. I’d be down.

righthand 1y ago

> non-professional-programmers finally learning programming en mass I don’t think this is what you think it is. It’s more like non-professional-programmers hacking together all the applications they wanted to hack together before. The Llm is just the glue. IMO, they are NOT learning programming.

MiiMe19 1y ago
this exactly. No one is getting smarter or learning anything, the bar to make something just no longer requires you to be competent.
Ericson2314 1y ago
I wasn't really talking about LLMs, actually. I was just talking about more people learning python and what-not, which has been going on decade or more.
- righthand 1y ago
  What has been going on for a decade or more? People have been learning/teaching themselves python or other languages for much longer than a decade. Python is 34 years old and that’s a young language.

safety1st 1y ago

It's always about what you choose to focus on. I'm a guy who came of age in the middle of the PC revolution and has been daily driving Linux for over a decade. In the last few years we've seen first Valve with SteamOS, and now 37signals with Omarchy, release Linux distros which are absolutely great for their target audience and function as a general purpose operating system just fine. Once might just be a fluke... Twice is a pattern starting to emerge. Are we witnessing the beginning of a new operating system ecosystem where you only have to be a billion dollar company to produce a viable operating system instead of a trillion dollar one? How many of our assumptions about computing are based on the fact that for 30+ years, only Microsoft, Apple and Google got to do a consumer OS? And a preponderance of the little components that make up this "new" OS ecosystem were developed by some of the most radical software freedom fighters we've got. Is this a long shot I'm thinking about, you bet. But the last time I was this excited about the future I was a teenager and most homes still didn't have a PC.

trenchpilgrim 1y ago

Isn't Fuchsia a dead project?