4 ms·
Most of us will never use TempleOS, few will appreciate the skill shown here and fewer will understand Davis' religious goals. But you could also look at Templ
by pekk 12y ago
Most of us will never use TempleOS, few will appreciate the skill shown here and fewer will understand Davis' religious goals.
But you could also look at TempleOS as a research prototype, roughly the kind of thing which once might have been produced at Xerox PARC, and see that TempleOS implements some startlingly interesting ideas.
For example, in this demo, the way that graphics are treated inline with source text and text in the terminal, and the way that definitions are updated everywhere they're used might seem arbitrary or crazy if you don't think about it. Is this thing just for games? Once you look past the religious stuff and realize the similarity to MATLAB and IPython notebook, but in the shell, you might start to realize it's a powerful idea with serious applications.
I'll stop there, but there are many more examples to be gleaned. Davis' ideas are like that. They don't advertise very well, this is the opposite end of the universe from the HN marketing ethos. But if you stop trying to tear down disadvantaged people for using improper words in an idiosyncratic way, and pay attention to what's actually going on, maybe you'll be rewarded by seeing something interesting. Assuming you aren't another money-grubbing, egoistic blowhard or hanger-on to the startup scene with no real interest in computers.
TempleOS is like a window onto an alternate history of personal computing, full of things which could have been done for years but which nobody got around to doing, or which didn't even occur to anyone. I'm really glad that someone is exploring these unique ideas.
- hnriot 12y agocomparing this to IPython Notebook is a big stretch and an insult to MATLAB and IPython notebook. There's no way this would have ever come out of PARC, you're exaggerating Davis's work. Also, it's impossible to "look past the religious stuff" - it's part of, all of TempleOS. To me this is just a crazy guy who's been tinkering with 80s technology while the rest of the world has moved on. I feel bad for him , but I just don't buy the "powerful idea with serious applications"
- pizza 12y agoIf you don't mind my engaging you: What 'insult' (imho insult is in the mind of the beholder, but that's for another day)? Do you see the religious stuff, in being un-overlookable, also as some kind of insult? But more important to me is your critique of his experiment; do you really feel "bad for him" for exploring ideas of his own labor? C'mon, isn't that what a hacker is? Surely it matters more to be true to your self than to align with the world's reputations. Thank you for your time.
- dubfan 12y agoI don't think anyone here is trying to tear Davis down. It's just that his writings can reflect poorly on our community as a whole to those who aren't familiar with his circumstances. In the current climate of hit-piece, shoot-first-ask-questions-never outrage journalism, for which the straw man of the out-of-touch privileged techie is a favorite punching bag, you can't be too careful.
- cloakandswagger 12y agoI'd say we've pretty much gone full circle. Suffocating levels of political correctness alongside a self-obsessed victim culture have made a lot of people sympathetic to the trope of the outrageous, out of touch savant.
- throwaway3343 12y agoI admit it's hard to balance the approaches behind "He's just a troubled person," "He's a raving nut," "He's a raving nut, but so what?" and so on.
- drivingmenuts 12y ago> I admit it's hard to balance the approaches behind "He's just a troubled person," "He's a raving nut," "He's a raving nut, but so what?" and so on. Do you mean Davis or Torvalds? Frankly, I'd avoid both of them.
- gonzo 12y agoOr Theo DeRaat
- throwaway3343 12y agoAs someone stridently critical of this community, the way people like you approach Davis reflects more poorly on the community than the presence of an individual with religious mania--especially if you contrast religious mania and greedy mania. Reputation, reputation, reputation--often that's all this place seems to think about. Obviously I'm broadly generalizing from what you might have intended to be a considerate comment. But the masses of homeless in San Francisco are mostly ignored by the tech community, perhaps because it's easier on the mind to squelch with a hellban.