5 ms·

Any Linus rant about how Objective-C sucks? :-)

by faragon 12y ago

melling 12y ago
Brad Cox had a huge impact on the world because he helped author a computer language used by millions. Most of us here haven't come close. We should have a test before we can post to the internet. Here's the first thing you need to understand. http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html
- JeremyMorgan 12y ago
  Wow, never seen this quote. It applies to certain folks on HN for sure, and definitely folks on Reddit. You'll see lots of criticism, but very little work they've done. Link bookmarked!
  - ej8jed298 12y ago
    > You'll see lots of criticism, but very little work they've done. And there's nothing wrong with that, provided their arguments are sound. One needn't have been a recording artist to criticize a song, nor a published author to criticize a book, nor a president to criticize whoever's in office. One reason it isn't a well-known quote may be because it embraces a logical fallacy[0]; [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
    - coldtea 12y ago
      >One needn't have been a recording artist to criticize a song, nor a published author to criticize a book, nor a president to criticize whoever's in office. It might not "need to be" one, but it will help his criticism be more informed. A person can have any kind of wild off-base ideas about what artists, authors or presidents do. At least those that have done it have some experience and basis in reality.
- dethstar 12y ago
  This analogy doesn't work on a lot of cases. Lets say you're served a plate full of something you find disgusting. How could you critic it? You're not the cook. Now, you could say this case is not similar since it is "used by millions", but a lot of systems that are universally agreed to be bad are used by millions. Hence why a lot of people in HN are trying to "disrupt" said space (or market). TL;DR Using what you're given to work with and being content with what you're using are two different things and should not measure the quality of said thing. PS.- This is not to say I believe Brad Cox is bad or Objective C is bad, I haven't used it ever. Is just the "if you can't do it don't criticize it" mentality I'm not for.
  - sitharus 12y ago
    That's true, but "Lol that sucks" helps nobody. Most people are fine with constructive or subjective criticism, like "I don't like Objective-C because I really like pushing the shift key for my braces". From there you can suggest alternatives, or figure out a way to improve the system. If you can't put enough effort in to a comment to express your opinions you'd be better off using that time elsewhere.
  - melling 12y ago
    " but a lot of systems that are universally agreed to be bad are used by millions. Hence why a lot of people in HN are trying to "disrupt" said space (or market)." So, these people don't like the systems and are jumping into the arena? That's great. Someone is adding value. They're no longer just a critic.
  - mwfunk 12y ago
    I don't interpret the quote as meaning "if you can't do it don't criticize it". It's just saying that it's much more noble to attempt to do hard things and fail, than it is to do nothing but take cheap shots at those who are trying. In this context I think it was more a reflection on the cheapness of the shot and what it says about the people making the cheap shots. There's a big difference between honest criticism and "your thing sucks, haha!"
- ams6110 12y ago
  What's also interesting is that Objective-C and tools like InterfaceBuilder existed for 10+ years in near anonymity. NEXTSTEP was going nowhere, but fundamentally it was MacOS X, and it existed in 1990. The language and tools and actually a lot of really cool applications were all there for years before Apple hit the right combination of platform and marketing that the market wanted. Just proves that a language's technical innovations don't mean much on its own.
  - philwelch 12y ago
    It did enable the hundreds-of-millions $ decision to buy NeXT for its system technologies.
    - pjmlp 12y ago
      Not even close. NeXT was bought, because Steve Jobs was still there. I very seriously doubt Apple would care one second about NeXT if that wasn't the case.
      - philwelch 12y ago
        Steve Jobs was an interesting bonus, but Amelio didn't plan to step down and let him take over. Jobs kind of forced his way in. The immediate reason Apple bought Next was for Nextstep. Apple had no next-generation OS and desperately needed one. The two viable options were Be and Next, and Next was considerably more mature.
        pjmlp 12y ago
        I remember very well the Copland fiasco, and the only reasons NeXT and Be came as options was that both owner companies were run by former Apple employees. The way enterprise does business, I doubt they would even be in the list if that wasn't the case.
        philwelch 12y ago
        Be that as it may, Steve Jobs' track record as of 1997 wasn't very promising. OK he founded Apple, but he alienated a lot of people along the way, was forcibly removed from upper management for being impossible to deal with, and was behind one massive flop in the Lisa and another admittedly brilliant product, the Mac, which fell short of expectations and had to be changed in ways Jobs would have never approved of to succeed (hard drives, cooling fans, expansion slots). After that, there was Next, which was a massive commercial flop in many incarnations until eventually becoming a vendor of an enterprise web application framework in the form of WebObjects. His biggest success was Pixar, where he essentially did little more than provide money and handle business stuff while John Lasseter ran the actual studio. Furthermore, the guy making the decisions was Gil Amelio, who probably wasn't looking to hire his successor as CEO. Amelio wasn't some interim appointment while they searched for someone to replace him, he was supposed to be the real CEO. Getting Steve Jobs back was a nice gesture for Apple fans and a nice story for the press but not the driving factor. The driving factor was that the Mac was dead without a new OS. Options other than Be and Next were considered, including Solaris and Windows NT, but Next was the preferred option and there were both business and technical reasons for that.

Any Linus rant about how Objective-C sucks? :-)

by faragon 12y ago

Any Linus rant about how Objective-C sucks? :-)

Brad Cox had a huge impact on the world because he helped author a computer language used by millions. Most of us here haven't come close. We should have a test before we can post to the internet. Here's the first thing you need to understand. http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html

JeremyMorgan 12y ago
Wow, never seen this quote. It applies to certain folks on HN for sure, and definitely folks on Reddit. You'll see lots of criticism, but very little work they've done. Link bookmarked!
- ej8jed298 12y ago
  > You'll see lots of criticism, but very little work they've done. And there's nothing wrong with that, provided their arguments are sound. One needn't have been a recording artist to criticize a song, nor a published author to criticize a book, nor a president to criticize whoever's in office. One reason it isn't a well-known quote may be because it embraces a logical fallacy[0]; [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
  - coldtea 12y ago
    >One needn't have been a recording artist to criticize a song, nor a published author to criticize a book, nor a president to criticize whoever's in office. It might not "need to be" one, but it will help his criticism be more informed. A person can have any kind of wild off-base ideas about what artists, authors or presidents do. At least those that have done it have some experience and basis in reality.
dethstar 12y ago
This analogy doesn't work on a lot of cases. Lets say you're served a plate full of something you find disgusting. How could you critic it? You're not the cook. Now, you could say this case is not similar since it is "used by millions", but a lot of systems that are universally agreed to be bad are used by millions. Hence why a lot of people in HN are trying to "disrupt" said space (or market). TL;DR Using what you're given to work with and being content with what you're using are two different things and should not measure the quality of said thing. PS.- This is not to say I believe Brad Cox is bad or Objective C is bad, I haven't used it ever. Is just the "if you can't do it don't criticize it" mentality I'm not for.
- sitharus 12y ago
  That's true, but "Lol that sucks" helps nobody. Most people are fine with constructive or subjective criticism, like "I don't like Objective-C because I really like pushing the shift key for my braces". From there you can suggest alternatives, or figure out a way to improve the system. If you can't put enough effort in to a comment to express your opinions you'd be better off using that time elsewhere.
- melling 12y ago
  " but a lot of systems that are universally agreed to be bad are used by millions. Hence why a lot of people in HN are trying to "disrupt" said space (or market)." So, these people don't like the systems and are jumping into the arena? That's great. Someone is adding value. They're no longer just a critic.
- mwfunk 12y ago
  I don't interpret the quote as meaning "if you can't do it don't criticize it". It's just saying that it's much more noble to attempt to do hard things and fail, than it is to do nothing but take cheap shots at those who are trying. In this context I think it was more a reflection on the cheapness of the shot and what it says about the people making the cheap shots. There's a big difference between honest criticism and "your thing sucks, haha!"
ams6110 12y ago
What's also interesting is that Objective-C and tools like InterfaceBuilder existed for 10+ years in near anonymity. NEXTSTEP was going nowhere, but fundamentally it was MacOS X, and it existed in 1990. The language and tools and actually a lot of really cool applications were all there for years before Apple hit the right combination of platform and marketing that the market wanted. Just proves that a language's technical innovations don't mean much on its own.
- philwelch 12y ago
  It did enable the hundreds-of-millions $ decision to buy NeXT for its system technologies.
  - pjmlp 12y ago
    Not even close. NeXT was bought, because Steve Jobs was still there. I very seriously doubt Apple would care one second about NeXT if that wasn't the case.
    - philwelch 12y ago
      Steve Jobs was an interesting bonus, but Amelio didn't plan to step down and let him take over. Jobs kind of forced his way in. The immediate reason Apple bought Next was for Nextstep. Apple had no next-generation OS and desperately needed one. The two viable options were Be and Next, and Next was considerably more mature.
      - pjmlp 12y ago
        I remember very well the Copland fiasco, and the only reasons NeXT and Be came as options was that both owner companies were run by former Apple employees. The way enterprise does business, I doubt they would even be in the list if that wasn't the case.
        philwelch 12y ago
        Be that as it may, Steve Jobs' track record as of 1997 wasn't very promising. OK he founded Apple, but he alienated a lot of people along the way, was forcibly removed from upper management for being impossible to deal with, and was behind one massive flop in the Lisa and another admittedly brilliant product, the Mac, which fell short of expectations and had to be changed in ways Jobs would have never approved of to succeed (hard drives, cooling fans, expansion slots). After that, there was Next, which was a massive commercial flop in many incarnations until eventually becoming a vendor of an enterprise web application framework in the form of WebObjects. His biggest success was Pixar, where he essentially did little more than provide money and handle business stuff while John Lasseter ran the actual studio. Furthermore, the guy making the decisions was Gil Amelio, who probably wasn't looking to hire his successor as CEO. Amelio wasn't some interim appointment while they searched for someone to replace him, he was supposed to be the real CEO. Getting Steve Jobs back was a nice gesture for Apple fans and a nice story for the press but not the driving factor. The driving factor was that the Mac was dead without a new OS. Options other than Be and Next were considered, including Solaris and Windows NT, but Next was the preferred option and there were both business and technical reasons for that.