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I always love the moment in blog posts like this, where the writer with their esoteric knowledge of the project will say something like "I almost considered ref
by Nition 10mo ago
I always love the moment in blog posts like this, where the writer with their esoteric knowledge of the project will say something like "I almost considered reflaboring the exahenge, but of course it would be a ridiculous prospect for a project of this type". And then always, inevitably, there is the followup edit; "I reflabored the exahenge."
Too rarely in life are things made better than practical consideration would dictate, just because of dedication to the craft.
- chantepierre 10mo agoYour comment brings me back to my first mirror making adventure, I was absolutely overwhelmed by the jargon and acronyms used by the mirror making community... a few years later I internalized it and use it as if it was common knowledge. I should put little explanations or details in my posts.
- awesome_dude 10mo agoA friend of mine once told me - learning a new field is all about learning the language of that field
- eru 10mo agoThat's a big part of it, but far from everything.
- awesome_dude 10mo agoI'm not really sure - I deliberately stopped there because the concepts related to that field are a part of the language learnings.
- eru 10mo agoIf you are a really big fan of something, you'll get familiar with the lingo, but that doesn't mean you can play StarCraft well or weld or shred your guitar. That's actually part of why FizzBuzz was so notorious: there were (apparently) plenty of people who could talk the talk about programming and software engineering, but couldn't do FizzBuzz.
- awesome_dude 10mo agoYou're right, people write code all day long and have no idea what pattern it is that they've just applied. Having said that, they cannot communicate that that's what they want done, nor can they receive instructions to do something that way. They really are hand in hand.
- eru 10mo ago> You're right, people write code all day long and have no idea what pattern it is that they've just applied. Thanks for agreeing with me, I guess. I was actually making the opposite point: People who can talk about creating software, but who can't actually create any software.
- awesome_dude 10mo agoYes... and I was pointing out that people who think that they can write software... cannot talk about it, making them...? You're completely missing the point that doing and talking are necessary in a world where developers aren't the only ones working on a project. What use is someone that can write a priority queue, but not be able to be asked to write one, or to tell anyone to write one? The same as someone who can ask for those things, but cannot do it themselves... right?
- jiggawatts 10mo agoWhat they hear: "Exorcise the lattice hoard to siphon the new incarnation." What we said: "Purge the web cache to download the new version."
- lukan 10mo agoThat metaphor would here be pretty accurate, though.
- BobaFloutist 10mo agoI think that's probably not an accident.
- macintux 10mo agoA friend of mine asked me why we have such precise terminology in IT; I asked her why English has so many different words for "chair".
- Nition 10mo agoThere was enough there for me to get the basic idea, which is fine I think. Can't really expect every niche post to have all the details necessary for a general audience and it's fun to get a glimpse into these worlds anyway. Thanks for sharing the post!
- aa-jv 10mo agoI just love the fluent use of terms, and the whole ontology of the subject itself just seems so appealing to me. For a moment, I felt like others feel when listening to me and my colleagues discuss kernel build issues or other software challenges - befuddled, bemused, enchanted. I guess, if/when I retire to that remote mountain hideaway, I might just get into this hobby. The idea of grinding my own mirrors to look at dew on the spiderwebs of the neighborhood is just so appealing.
- dekhn 10mo agoHistory is made by people who reflabor the exahenge. I build microscopes instead of telescopes (as a hobby). I can't tell you how many times I've taken a mostly working system and stripped it down to make some important change that affects most of the design to get only a tiny incremental improvement. Sometimes that improvement makes all the difference (for example, being smart when 3d printing a piece that carries something heavy so it doesn't deflect) and sometimes it's just an itch I need to scratch. Eventually, I learned to make two: a microscope that gets built and used, and then a microscope that is a prototype. Then I'm not tempted to take the daily driver and pull the engine.
- taneq 10mo agoWell yes, but are you wiggling the giblet or are you flensing the grobbulus? Because the latter requires specialised equipment and a flensing trampoline, whereas the former requires a 1mm Allen key and possibly a hard whack on a nearby surface while nobody’s looking.
- cadr 10mo agoOoh! Tell us about microscope making as a hobby!
- dekhn 10mo ago