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If a blog post says "wonderful, amazing, fun, life-affirming," we can always respond with "oh? what about..." My thought is that there's no need for a post sayi

If a blog post says "wonderful, amazing, fun, life-affirming," we can always respond with "oh? what about..." My thought is that there's no need for a post saying "You're gonna die if you try to build a social bookmarking site in Lisp" regardless of how much fun other people are having doing it. What have people got against enthusiasm, any ways? There's some kind of weird puritanical thing going around programming culture that seems to view youthful exuberance as some kind of a sin, like wearing buttons on a frock coat. Yeah, some twenty-somthing year-old has discovered something way-cool really neat amazing thing while hacking on a macbook in the café. Isn't that exactly the attitude you're supposed to have in your twenties? How would anything ever change if people didn't get super-excited beyond all rational limit? Can you imagine Wozniak and Jobs trying to blog about microcomputers these days? They'd get flamed as hippies fiddling with toys :-)

edw519 17y ago
"Isn't that exactly the attitude you're supposed to have in your twenties?" Why stop? It's a great attitude to have forever.
- raganwald 17y ago
  Does my writing read like I'm telling kids to get off my lawn? If so, please tell me, I own a funhouse mirror. When I look into it, I see a guy that still loves programming and thinking about for its own sake...
menloparkbum 17y ago
What have people got against enthusiasm, any ways? The ruby and rails fervor never read like genuine enthusiasm. The pro-rails bits were always framed with negative comments about how php and java sucked, or how stupid business people are. Even DHH has a lot of this in his blog posts and talks. I thought it read more like an abuse victim or recovering addict who found a religious support group. It was always a bit manic sounding. I'm a bit cynical but I think a critical mindset is the bane of the engineer, or really any maker. If people are zealously gushing about their framework, something dark is lurking underneath...

edw519 17y ago

"Isn't that exactly the attitude you're supposed to have in your twenties?" Why stop? It's a great attitude to have forever.

raganwald 17y ago
Does my writing read like I'm telling kids to get off my lawn? If so, please tell me, I own a funhouse mirror. When I look into it, I see a guy that still loves programming and thinking about for its own sake...

menloparkbum 17y ago

What have people got against enthusiasm, any ways? The ruby and rails fervor never read like genuine enthusiasm. The pro-rails bits were always framed with negative comments about how php and java sucked, or how stupid business people are. Even DHH has a lot of this in his blog posts and talks. I thought it read more like an abuse victim or recovering addict who found a religious support group. It was always a bit manic sounding. I'm a bit cynical but I think a critical mindset is the bane of the engineer, or really any maker. If people are zealously gushing about their framework, something dark is lurking underneath...