12 ms·

I think it's kind of strange that we've appropriated eastern philosophy to teach programming. Having read the Tao Te Ching and The Analects (two very conflictin

by austinl 13y ago

I think it's kind of strange that we've appropriated eastern philosophy to teach programming. Having read the Tao Te Ching and The Analects (two very conflicting works, philosophically), books like the Tao of Programming and The Codeless Code just seem to mask random programming knowledge in a foreign writing style to make it more entertaining. Not saying that what's taught in those books is incorrect or not valuable, but it can sometimes be uncomfortable for people that respect the philosophy.

coldtea 13y ago
Well, anything bringing the Tao (which is about societal norms shaping) into a western lifestyle (which is all about individualism) is already conflicting in itself. Add computer scientists who half-understand it in the first place wanting to make a totally unrelated point regarding Unix or whatever, and the congitive dissonace can blow a Marshall stack.
chris_mahan 13y ago
I think you're looking at the finger instead of the moon.
- jaiball 13y ago
  and you are mistaking the finger for the moon
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
amagumori 13y ago
seriously. appropriating buddhism / zen (or any culture) just to look cool and wise is so condemnable to me. i really dislike the fetishized, orientalist view of eastern religions i often see in the hacker community. ESR is full of himself to begin with, but for him to be writing koans is so arrogant. these have nothing to do with actual zen koans anyway, they're just programming lessons obfuscated by self-indulgent "i'm so wise" writing with a "and then the student was enlightened" at the end. bleh
- mikeash 13y ago
  What's so terrible about it? Why should buddhism or zen be exempt from the sort of emulation, attempts at understanding, fun-making, and mixes of all three that we apply to essentially everything else? I mean, these particular writings are terrible, but that's because of how they're written, not what they're attempting to do.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >What's so terrible about it? Why should buddhism or zen be exempt from the sort of emulation, attempts at understanding, fun-making, and mixes of all three that we apply to essentially everything Because those belong to a culture (with the sociological sense), whereas the second kind of use you describe is what's called syncretism, and is a quite vulgar disregard for subtetly, context, fitness and it's subject matter in general.
    - mikeash 13y ago
      Unless "belong to a culture" is supposed to be the answer, this appears to just say "it is because it should be" and not really an answer to my question at all.
      - coldtea 13y ago
        There are no answers to questions outside of a framework like a culture (that is, outside of desired goals and accepted means to get to them). Historically, most civilizations, including western thought, have found that syncretism is bad. It results in a shallow understanding of what it is dealing with and a hodgepodge of incompatible ideas. Budhism (and lots of other things) was evolved and developed to be seen as a whole and in a few specific contexts. Not for mixing and matching random parts. You might get something out of it, but it won't be budhism anymore -- and, judged by budhist standards, it would be BS. I guess it would be the equivalent of copy/pasting code, instead of properly thinking about your program's architecture.
        13y ago
arbsn 13y ago
I don't know about those books, but in the case of these koans, it's intended to be entertaining. It's a joke. I think it's also intended to be irreverent.
nabla9 13y ago
"Misuse" of koans has long history. After Zen master Yuanwu's Blue Cliff Records - collection of 100 classical koans with his commentary verses - started to spread around, his successor Dahui noticed how monks and laypeople treated the collection as intellectual and artistic work (Yuanwu Keqin wrote and spoke very beautifully, so they do have artistic value) and burned all copies he could find. The original use of koan is to be meditation aid (huatou-method, koan practice) not subject of philosophical inquiry. ps. The original MIT AI lab koans are more clever than these ESR ones. http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/dae/notes/ai-koans http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/dae/notes/ai-koans
- pmr_ 13y ago
  Funnily, esr also maintains/mirrors those koans as part of the Jargon Files. http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/koans.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/koans.html
- mturmon 13y ago
  I still think of this one whenever some lab apparatus starts working after an expert walks in and fiddles with some wires or power-cycles it -- A novice was trying to fix a broken lisp machine by turning the power off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly - "You can not fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off and on. The machine worked.
samatman 13y ago
You may find it strange, but Dr. Ting does not[0]. eForth and Zen is written by a native Chinese speaker who is able to read the source texts in the original Ancient Chinese. http://www.ultratechnology.com/efzen.htm http://www.ultratechnology.com/efzen.htm

by austinl 13y ago

coldtea 13y ago

Well, anything bringing the Tao (which is about societal norms shaping) into a western lifestyle (which is all about individualism) is already conflicting in itself. Add computer scientists who half-understand it in the first place wanting to make a totally unrelated point regarding Unix or whatever, and the congitive dissonace can blow a Marshall stack.

chris_mahan 13y ago

I think you're looking at the finger instead of the moon.

jaiball 13y ago
and you are mistaking the finger for the moon
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

amagumori 13y ago

seriously. appropriating buddhism / zen (or any culture) just to look cool and wise is so condemnable to me. i really dislike the fetishized, orientalist view of eastern religions i often see in the hacker community. ESR is full of himself to begin with, but for him to be writing koans is so arrogant. these have nothing to do with actual zen koans anyway, they're just programming lessons obfuscated by self-indulgent "i'm so wise" writing with a "and then the student was enlightened" at the end. bleh

mikeash 13y ago
What's so terrible about it? Why should buddhism or zen be exempt from the sort of emulation, attempts at understanding, fun-making, and mixes of all three that we apply to essentially everything else? I mean, these particular writings are terrible, but that's because of how they're written, not what they're attempting to do.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >What's so terrible about it? Why should buddhism or zen be exempt from the sort of emulation, attempts at understanding, fun-making, and mixes of all three that we apply to essentially everything Because those belong to a culture (with the sociological sense), whereas the second kind of use you describe is what's called syncretism, and is a quite vulgar disregard for subtetly, context, fitness and it's subject matter in general.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    Unless "belong to a culture" is supposed to be the answer, this appears to just say "it is because it should be" and not really an answer to my question at all.
    - coldtea 13y ago
      There are no answers to questions outside of a framework like a culture (that is, outside of desired goals and accepted means to get to them). Historically, most civilizations, including western thought, have found that syncretism is bad. It results in a shallow understanding of what it is dealing with and a hodgepodge of incompatible ideas. Budhism (and lots of other things) was evolved and developed to be seen as a whole and in a few specific contexts. Not for mixing and matching random parts. You might get something out of it, but it won't be budhism anymore -- and, judged by budhist standards, it would be BS. I guess it would be the equivalent of copy/pasting code, instead of properly thinking about your program's architecture.
      - 13y ago

arbsn 13y ago

I don't know about those books, but in the case of these koans, it's intended to be entertaining. It's a joke. I think it's also intended to be irreverent.

nabla9 13y ago

"Misuse" of koans has long history. After Zen master Yuanwu's Blue Cliff Records - collection of 100 classical koans with his commentary verses - started to spread around, his successor Dahui noticed how monks and laypeople treated the collection as intellectual and artistic work (Yuanwu Keqin wrote and spoke very beautifully, so they do have artistic value) and burned all copies he could find. The original use of koan is to be meditation aid (huatou-method, koan practice) not subject of philosophical inquiry. ps. The original MIT AI lab koans are more clever than these ESR ones. http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/dae/notes/ai-koans http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/dae/notes/ai-koans

pmr_ 13y ago
Funnily, esr also maintains/mirrors those koans as part of the Jargon Files. http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/koans.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/koans.html
mturmon 13y ago
I still think of this one whenever some lab apparatus starts working after an expert walks in and fiddles with some wires or power-cycles it -- A novice was trying to fix a broken lisp machine by turning the power off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly - "You can not fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off and on. The machine worked.

samatman 13y ago

You may find it strange, but Dr. Ting does not[0]. eForth and Zen is written by a native Chinese speaker who is able to read the source texts in the original Ancient Chinese. http://www.ultratechnology.com/efzen.htm http://www.ultratechnology.com/efzen.htm