4 ms·
A related notion is the Blub Paradox: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?BlubParadox http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?BlubParadox "As long as our hypothetical Blub programmer is loo
by habosa 13y ago
A related notion is the Blub Paradox:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?BlubParadox http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?BlubParadox
"As long as our hypothetical Blub programmer is looking down the power continuum, he knows he's looking down. Languages less powerful than Blub are obviously less powerful, because they're missing some feature he's used to. But when our hypothetical Blub programmer looks in the other direction, up the power continuum, he doesn't realize he's looking up. What he sees are merely weird languages. He probably considers them about equivalent in power to Blub, but with all this other hairy stuff thrown in as well. Blub is good enough for him, because he thinks in Blub."
I, personally, am very slow to adopt new languages or frameworks for serious projects. Still haven't found anything I can't do with Java and/or Ruby on Rails. I do try to keep up with the news so I'm not totally caught off guard, and I make a point of building toy projects in other languages like Python, Haskell, Scala, Clojure, etc. It's important not to be a Magpie, but also not to get caught up as a Blubber and end up looking for a COBOL to Objective-C cross compiler so you can make an iPhone app.
- Domenic_S 13y agoThe old MMORPG adage fits here well: Anyone worse than you is a noob, and anyone better than you is a no-life neckbeard.
- mturmon 13y agoAlso, the neighborhood politics dichotomy: Anyone who has been in the neighborhood longer than you is a NIMBY bent on obstructing progress, and anyone who arrived more recently is a heartless gentrifier.
- g8oz 13y agoThere is one for religion too: anyone less observant than you is a heathen, anyone more observant than you is a fanatic.
- alxndr 13y agoWe're gonna leave out the sex one? "Anyone kinkier than you is a pervert, and anyone not as kinky as you is a prude." Suppose this works for any topic which can include relative descriptions...
- JDShu 13y agoI always thought this was from George Carlin on driving? 'Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?'
- yohanatan 13y agoRuby is closer to Blub than Java. I'm not sure why you would even mention them both in the same breathe. You know that for Paul Graham (and anyone else who is informed) Blub essentially means LISP yea?
- TheZenPsycho 13y agoUh, what? if "Blub" meant any specific language, or any specific kind of language, why anonymise it? Are we suddenly afraid of embarrassing java or ruby programmers for getting stuck on terrible languages? Isn't it more likely that "Blub" simply means whatever language it is you happen to be using ?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- yohanatan 13y agoHe doesn't anonymize it at all. Read: 'Revenge of the Nerds'. He specifically mentions Java as the language the pointy hard boss prefers. Also, the post I responded to (and my subsequent post) was a bit confused about what it referred to as Blub. Blub is in the middle and LISP is on the top of the power continuum.
- habosa 13y agoYou clearly don't understand the Blub paradox. Blub is whatever language you are using.
- yohanatan 13y agoNo, I understand it very well. Blub is whatever language you are using that isn't on the top of the power continuum. As of this point in human history, LISP sits at that end of the spectrum (all of this is directly from PG-- if you have issue with it, please read more of his essays). I've already mentioned 2 essays but he has written books on it as well. In short, PG makes it clear in his writings that LISP is the most powerful language we have as of yet and he even puts forward the idea that it might theoretically be the most powerful language possible (due primarily to its syntax being a human-readable [and morphable] representation of an AST).