5 ms·

The first six minutes alone are worth a listen if you're in a rabble-rousing mood.

by noelwelsh 12y ago

leorocky 12y ago
I definitely wouldn't mind watching more of his presentations. He's pretty good.
- selimthegrim 12y ago
  There's a classic one where he spends 20 minutes mocking the Gang of Four for not realizing that Iterators and Iterables should have a dual. I'll try and find the link.
  - auxon0 12y ago
    The GoF wrote, "favor composition over inheritance". That much was right. Unfortunately, they missed the mathematical composition possible that was hidden inside these patterns all along, much simpler and fundamental than the design patterns themselves.
haberman 12y ago
Wow, I listened to the first six minutes on your recommendation and was pretty put off. The speaker mocks his audience of Microsoft engineers (like not in fun, he is really saying their culture sucks). He is dismissive of "reactive programming" as nonsense from architecture astronauts, without giving a remotely fair description of what it actually is. His straw-man of "var x = 10; println(x); x = 42; println(x)" is not reactive, because "x" is not a function of other mutable state in the model. I've never heard of reactive programming until five minutes ago, but I can tell this just by reading the Wikipedia excerpts from his own slides (and a little follow-up reading confirms this). I'm all for rabble-rousing, but if you're throwing punches you should know what you're talking about. At 17:30 he makes a joke about a Steve Jobs function that says "iPhone", "iPad", "iCloud", and then "terminates naturally". Holy bad taste. EDIT: others have pointed out that with extra context this is more obviously a self-deprecating and good-natured shtick.
- glassx 12y ago
  When you say that he's mocking Microsoft engineers, is that because of the Visual Basic comments? Because Erik actually enjoys VB and was responsible for adding some features to it. He's a former employee, so there's context... And I don't think he's being dismissive of reactive programming, he's dismissive of that definition, which is too broad. He was one of the main proponents of Reactive programming inside Microsoft.
  - haberman 12y ago
    > When you say that he's mocking Microsoft engineers, is that because of the Visual Basic comments? "In Redmond, like a lot of people talk about code but don't write it, so I think Microsoft can only come back if, you know, they start writing more code." > And I don't think he's being dismissive of reactive programming, he's dismissive of that definition, which is too broad. The definition seems pretty reasonable to me. It immediately resonated with me; it described a principle I had been trying to achieve in some code I was writing recently. The idea of having changes automatically propagate through your model as a data-flow network is a pretty noticeable contrast to other ways of programming. > He was one of the main proponents of Reactive programming inside Microsoft. Yeah I guess I don't have this context. But without it, the talk just rubbed me wrong.
    - yarou 12y ago
      >"In Redmond, like a lot of people talk about code but don't write it, so I think Microsoft can only come back if, you know, they start writing more code." It's like you've never worked at a tech shop with a sales team. Also keep in mind that it wasn't meant to be taken seriously or literally. If his audience wasn't terribly offended by it, why are you?
    - auxon0 12y ago
      Erik was fired which is unbelievable; it's like firing Feynman. He obviously wasn't happy with Ballmer or the culture, and frankly neither were most of the MS employees in that audience. Ballmer's gone and suddenly everything MS does is becoming open sourced, for example. "A miracle". And just because quantum might sound cool, naming a razor blade after it doesn't make it quantum physics.

The first six minutes alone are worth a listen if you're in a rabble-rousing mood.

leorocky 12y ago

I definitely wouldn't mind watching more of his presentations. He's pretty good.

selimthegrim 12y ago
There's a classic one where he spends 20 minutes mocking the Gang of Four for not realizing that Iterators and Iterables should have a dual. I'll try and find the link.
- auxon0 12y ago
  The GoF wrote, "favor composition over inheritance". That much was right. Unfortunately, they missed the mathematical composition possible that was hidden inside these patterns all along, much simpler and fundamental than the design patterns themselves.

haberman 12y ago

Wow, I listened to the first six minutes on your recommendation and was pretty put off. The speaker mocks his audience of Microsoft engineers (like not in fun, he is really saying their culture sucks). He is dismissive of "reactive programming" as nonsense from architecture astronauts, without giving a remotely fair description of what it actually is. His straw-man of "var x = 10; println(x); x = 42; println(x)" is not reactive, because "x" is not a function of other mutable state in the model. I've never heard of reactive programming until five minutes ago, but I can tell this just by reading the Wikipedia excerpts from his own slides (and a little follow-up reading confirms this). I'm all for rabble-rousing, but if you're throwing punches you should know what you're talking about. At 17:30 he makes a joke about a Steve Jobs function that says "iPhone", "iPad", "iCloud", and then "terminates naturally". Holy bad taste. EDIT: others have pointed out that with extra context this is more obviously a self-deprecating and good-natured shtick.

glassx 12y ago
When you say that he's mocking Microsoft engineers, is that because of the Visual Basic comments? Because Erik actually enjoys VB and was responsible for adding some features to it. He's a former employee, so there's context... And I don't think he's being dismissive of reactive programming, he's dismissive of that definition, which is too broad. He was one of the main proponents of Reactive programming inside Microsoft.
- haberman 12y ago
  > When you say that he's mocking Microsoft engineers, is that because of the Visual Basic comments? "In Redmond, like a lot of people talk about code but don't write it, so I think Microsoft can only come back if, you know, they start writing more code." > And I don't think he's being dismissive of reactive programming, he's dismissive of that definition, which is too broad. The definition seems pretty reasonable to me. It immediately resonated with me; it described a principle I had been trying to achieve in some code I was writing recently. The idea of having changes automatically propagate through your model as a data-flow network is a pretty noticeable contrast to other ways of programming. > He was one of the main proponents of Reactive programming inside Microsoft. Yeah I guess I don't have this context. But without it, the talk just rubbed me wrong.
  - yarou 12y ago
    >"In Redmond, like a lot of people talk about code but don't write it, so I think Microsoft can only come back if, you know, they start writing more code." It's like you've never worked at a tech shop with a sales team. Also keep in mind that it wasn't meant to be taken seriously or literally. If his audience wasn't terribly offended by it, why are you?
  - auxon0 12y ago
    Erik was fired which is unbelievable; it's like firing Feynman. He obviously wasn't happy with Ballmer or the culture, and frankly neither were most of the MS employees in that audience. Ballmer's gone and suddenly everything MS does is becoming open sourced, for example. "A miracle". And just because quantum might sound cool, naming a razor blade after it doesn't make it quantum physics.