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Just because a tool can be misused is not an argument against it nor its inclusion. I used to believe this, but now I couldn't disagree more. People can and d

by mehwoot 13y ago

Just because a tool can be misused is not an argument against it nor its inclusion. I used to believe this, but now I couldn't disagree more. People can and do misuse things all the bloody time, and the more you enable them to do that, the worse your tool is. How people use what you make is every bit as important, possibly even more important than the technical merits of what you make. I'd rather a builder use a second hand hammer to nail something than try doing it with a jackhammer.

Karunamon 13y ago
>People can and do misuse things all the bloody time, and the more you enable them to do that This is an excuse for educating people, not an excuse for kneecapping the majority due to an ignorant minority. This is the kind of thinking that plagues the GNOME3 devs and gets ridiculed so often around here. The user is an idiot so let's remove features. I don't see many people harshing on Rails for the inclusion of WEBrick.
- Freaky 13y ago
  Ruby, you mean - it's part of the standard library.
TeMPOraL 13y ago
> People can and do misuse things all the bloody time and the more you enable them to do that, the worse your tool is. In terms of avoiding accidents I agree, but in general, I don't like this kind of thinking. One man's misuse is another man's hack. The flipside here is that the more you limit and subdivide a tool, the worse your tool becomes. I'd also rather see builder using something else than a jackhammer to nail stuff, but then I also want him to have access to one if he needs it, and I strongly want people to stop shouting "omg you can't use X to do Y, because X was not meant to do Y". First principle of hacking: tools do not have inherent purpose, they can be used to do whatever we want; they only can be better or worse at a particular task. The world didn't collapse into logical contradiction the last time I cut pizza with a sound card, because of lack of any other sharp tool nearby.
nnq 13y ago
yep. it's amazing when in Python you can end up with "ok", working and maintainable code simply because the languages' severe "handicaps" prevent idiots and "chronic intellectual masturbators" from over-over-over-complecting everything. I guess Java does the same thing for "enterprise idiots & masturbators" and this is why it's still so successful. ...for some people, making them use a tool that purposely handicaps them is the best thing you can do ...until it turns back to byte you because you now have to use it yourself for a job it doesn't fit, simply because you need library xyz and an easy interface to system abc :)
g8oz 13y ago
I don't hear people complaining about Python's builtin webserver. Maybe thats because Python only attracts people who do things correctly right?
- pekk 13y ago
  Python's stdlib webserver is terrible and not to be used. You WILL hear Python people say this I don't see why you decided to pick a fight about Python, though - Python seems to be a sore point for PHP defenders and I really don't know why
- samastur 13y ago
  Python doesn't have a builtin webserver, but there is one in standard library of CPython. I've yet to see an article that would argue that its existence is a proof that you should be using Python now.
  - girvo 13y ago
    Then you missed the point of the article, and also obviously don't use PHP regularly. It's a super handy feature.
- collyw 13y ago
  Nope, Python attracts plenty of idiots as well. It is especially popular among self taught bioinformaticians, who write really bad code.
einhverfr 13y ago
> People can and do misuse things all the bloody time, and the more you enable them to do that, the worse your tool is. By that measure, PostgreSQL is a horrible database. After all look what happens when I do this: CREATE TABLE foo ( id serial not null unique, bar text primary key ); CREATE TABLE foobar ( chunk_id serial not null unique, foos foo[] ); INSERT INTO foobar (foos) values (array[row(1, null)::foo, row(2, '1323')::foo, row(3, '2222')::foo]); select * from foobar; I mean my gods. Such horrible misuse of a relational db!

by mehwoot 13y ago

Karunamon 13y ago

>People can and do misuse things all the bloody time, and the more you enable them to do that This is an excuse for educating people, not an excuse for kneecapping the majority due to an ignorant minority. This is the kind of thinking that plagues the GNOME3 devs and gets ridiculed so often around here. The user is an idiot so let's remove features. I don't see many people harshing on Rails for the inclusion of WEBrick.

Freaky 13y ago
Ruby, you mean - it's part of the standard library.

TeMPOraL 13y ago

> People can and do misuse things all the bloody time and the more you enable them to do that, the worse your tool is. In terms of avoiding accidents I agree, but in general, I don't like this kind of thinking. One man's misuse is another man's hack. The flipside here is that the more you limit and subdivide a tool, the worse your tool becomes. I'd also rather see builder using something else than a jackhammer to nail stuff, but then I also want him to have access to one if he needs it, and I strongly want people to stop shouting "omg you can't use X to do Y, because X was not meant to do Y". First principle of hacking: tools do not have inherent purpose, they can be used to do whatever we want; they only can be better or worse at a particular task. The world didn't collapse into logical contradiction the last time I cut pizza with a sound card, because of lack of any other sharp tool nearby.

nnq 13y ago

yep. it's amazing when in Python you can end up with "ok", working and maintainable code simply because the languages' severe "handicaps" prevent idiots and "chronic intellectual masturbators" from over-over-over-complecting everything. I guess Java does the same thing for "enterprise idiots & masturbators" and this is why it's still so successful. ...for some people, making them use a tool that purposely handicaps them is the best thing you can do ...until it turns back to byte you because you now have to use it yourself for a job it doesn't fit, simply because you need library xyz and an easy interface to system abc :)

g8oz 13y ago

I don't hear people complaining about Python's builtin webserver. Maybe thats because Python only attracts people who do things correctly right?

pekk 13y ago
Python's stdlib webserver is terrible and not to be used. You WILL hear Python people say this I don't see why you decided to pick a fight about Python, though - Python seems to be a sore point for PHP defenders and I really don't know why
samastur 13y ago
Python doesn't have a builtin webserver, but there is one in standard library of CPython. I've yet to see an article that would argue that its existence is a proof that you should be using Python now.
- girvo 13y ago
  Then you missed the point of the article, and also obviously don't use PHP regularly. It's a super handy feature.
collyw 13y ago
Nope, Python attracts plenty of idiots as well. It is especially popular among self taught bioinformaticians, who write really bad code.

einhverfr 13y ago

> People can and do misuse things all the bloody time, and the more you enable them to do that, the worse your tool is. By that measure, PostgreSQL is a horrible database. After all look what happens when I do this: CREATE TABLE foo ( id serial not null unique, bar text primary key ); CREATE TABLE foobar ( chunk_id serial not null unique, foos foo[] ); INSERT INTO foobar (foos) values (array[row(1, null)::foo, row(2, '1323')::foo, row(3, '2222')::foo]); select * from foobar; I mean my gods. Such horrible misuse of a relational db!