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If we had followed this more seriously in the past, we would have still stuck on to writing C for enterprise applications and had way too many memory bugs. Aren

If we had followed this more seriously in the past, we would have still stuck on to writing C for enterprise applications and had way too many memory bugs. Aren’t we glad there was a demographic who said no to C and brought the revolutionary idea to use Java instead? Couldn’t a Lindy enthusiast have gone “umm but isn’t Java too new and shouldn’t we just stick to C which is well trodden and understood??” It’s easy to write sloganeering articles. But it doesn’t tell me anything specific. Invoking Lindy is just bias to status quo. I prefer bias to progress but respecting chestertons fence.

mansa10 3mo ago
I think the Lindy effect is less about making strong arguments about which tool to use in debates, and more about calling out and explaining a real life phenomenon. I've invoked it in my job mostly to explain to younger developers why learning vim keybindings+terminal git usage while they have the most plasticity is most likely going to be a good bet for the remainder of their career, as editors, operating systems and associated keybindings & UI will change around them much more often than those fundamentals. It's not a guarantee, and i wouldn't bet my entire business on the Lindy effect, but it is worth reflecting on it as an explanation of something that is paradoxical or not obvious.
- simianwords 3mo ago
  I agree and the article uses Lindy not in descriptive but prescriptive level. For prescriptive, I would use Chesterton's Fence https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/ https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/
- orf 3mo ago
  > I've invoked it in my job mostly to explain to younger developers why learning vim keybindings+terminal git usage Interesting - I see it as the opposite: learning the git CLI is pointless. It’s slow, clunky and it doesn’t teach you any of the very interesting inner-workings of Git. There are much better things to spend time learning, especially if your editor has a native git integration.
  - mansa10 3mo ago
    You should learn internals as well, it's not mutually exclusive :) But at some point you have to teach your fingers some movements that will ideally make you fast on as many machines, as many operating systems, as many editors and as many keyboards for as many years of your career as possible.
- thunderbong 3mo ago
  This article from yesterday - Good Tools Are Invisible https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48858121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48858121 In my opinion, software tools are different from software libraries. Knowing RDBMS concepts and SQL is one thing, vim and git are something else altogether.
devnonymous 3mo ago
> Couldn’t a Lindy enthusiast have gone “umm but isn’t Java too new and shouldn’t we just stick to C which is well trodden and understood??” I think people often misrepresent history because they view it with the benefit of hindsight. People who chose to use Java didn't do it to embrace a revolutionary idea, they were embracing an evolutionary one. It seemed like a natural optimization step, rather than a clean slate. Most Jave devs were proficient C devs who found the idea of a platform independent C quite appealing. That's the Lindy effect. C (the essence of it) survives in Java and right up to JS/python/go. In contrast consider Pascal, Fotran, Perl, COBOL, (and dare I say ... Lisp ?)
- t0mpr1c3 3mo ago
  Clojure is Lisp, Guile is Lisp, Racket is Lisp, R and Julia have Lisp under the hood; but the spirit of Lisp also lives on in Javascript, Ruby, Rust, and every functional programming language ever, plus all the languages that incorporated functional features including Python, Perl, and Go, and languages that didn't until they did, like C++ and Java. And Emacs.
thunderbong 3mo ago
A lot of the article is extremely useful for people creating software libraries, IMHO. Under the section - "Applying the Lindy effect to software engineering" The suggestions are - - Prudent Adoption - Stick to Proven Foundation - Plan for Longevity - Embrace Evolution, Not Revolution
- simianwords 3mo ago
  This is just conservatism from first principles. Why doesn’t it apply to sociology? LGBTQ, equality rights and so on? Lot more at stake.
legulere 3mo ago
I really like the concept of novelty budget: keep most parts boring and use new stuff only where you can gain an advantage from it.

mansa10 3mo ago

I think the Lindy effect is less about making strong arguments about which tool to use in debates, and more about calling out and explaining a real life phenomenon. I've invoked it in my job mostly to explain to younger developers why learning vim keybindings+terminal git usage while they have the most plasticity is most likely going to be a good bet for the remainder of their career, as editors, operating systems and associated keybindings & UI will change around them much more often than those fundamentals. It's not a guarantee, and i wouldn't bet my entire business on the Lindy effect, but it is worth reflecting on it as an explanation of something that is paradoxical or not obvious.

simianwords 3mo ago
I agree and the article uses Lindy not in descriptive but prescriptive level. For prescriptive, I would use Chesterton's Fence https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/ https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/
orf 3mo ago
> I've invoked it in my job mostly to explain to younger developers why learning vim keybindings+terminal git usage Interesting - I see it as the opposite: learning the git CLI is pointless. It’s slow, clunky and it doesn’t teach you any of the very interesting inner-workings of Git. There are much better things to spend time learning, especially if your editor has a native git integration.
- mansa10 3mo ago
  You should learn internals as well, it's not mutually exclusive :) But at some point you have to teach your fingers some movements that will ideally make you fast on as many machines, as many operating systems, as many editors and as many keyboards for as many years of your career as possible.
thunderbong 3mo ago
This article from yesterday - Good Tools Are Invisible https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48858121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48858121 In my opinion, software tools are different from software libraries. Knowing RDBMS concepts and SQL is one thing, vim and git are something else altogether.

devnonymous 3mo ago

> Couldn’t a Lindy enthusiast have gone “umm but isn’t Java too new and shouldn’t we just stick to C which is well trodden and understood??” I think people often misrepresent history because they view it with the benefit of hindsight. People who chose to use Java didn't do it to embrace a revolutionary idea, they were embracing an evolutionary one. It seemed like a natural optimization step, rather than a clean slate. Most Jave devs were proficient C devs who found the idea of a platform independent C quite appealing. That's the Lindy effect. C (the essence of it) survives in Java and right up to JS/python/go. In contrast consider Pascal, Fotran, Perl, COBOL, (and dare I say ... Lisp ?)

t0mpr1c3 3mo ago
Clojure is Lisp, Guile is Lisp, Racket is Lisp, R and Julia have Lisp under the hood; but the spirit of Lisp also lives on in Javascript, Ruby, Rust, and every functional programming language ever, plus all the languages that incorporated functional features including Python, Perl, and Go, and languages that didn't until they did, like C++ and Java. And Emacs.

thunderbong 3mo ago

A lot of the article is extremely useful for people creating software libraries, IMHO. Under the section - "Applying the Lindy effect to software engineering" The suggestions are - - Prudent Adoption - Stick to Proven Foundation - Plan for Longevity - Embrace Evolution, Not Revolution

simianwords 3mo ago
This is just conservatism from first principles. Why doesn’t it apply to sociology? LGBTQ, equality rights and so on? Lot more at stake.

legulere 3mo ago

I really like the concept of novelty budget: keep most parts boring and use new stuff only where you can gain an advantage from it.