4 ms·

I'm an old-timer, and I can totally see where Jacques was trying to go with this essay, but in the end it pretty much missed the mark. Personally, I think it's

by cubano 12y ago

I'm an old-timer, and I can totally see where Jacques was trying to go with this essay, but in the end it pretty much missed the mark. Personally, I think it's wonderful that the future I (we?) foresaw 25-30 years ago has come alive, albeit with many odd and sometimes disconcerting twists and nooks. Remember the effort us lifers put into making tools that allowed "the masses" access to programming, like BASIC, Visual Basic, Turbo Pascal and all of that? How can we now, with any credibility, bemoan the very future so many of us tried to build? It’s a craft and an art, as much as people have been trying to make it into an industry, without creativity you can’t make good software. I'm a semi-professional musician, and I've been telling non-technical friends for a lifetime that programming hits of the same creative notes that playing guitar and writing music does, although they can never really feel what I'm saying.

copsarebastards 12y ago
> Remember the effort us lifers put into making tools that allowed "the masses" access to programming, like BASIC, Visual Basic, Turbo Pascal and all of that? How can we now, with any credibility, bemoan the very future so many of us tried to build? I think the problem I see is that the future we tried to build hasn't come to fruition. The future I was trying to build around the turn of the millennium was one in which people had information to make educated decisions and to achieve their goals. The actuality that has come about is that more than ever people are falling for hype and being sidetracked from their goals. It used to be that if you wanted to become a more educated voter, going online would result in you landing on a few political-science related resources and you'd end up reading some pretty hardcore theory: Bob Black, Michel Foucault, Karl Marx. Maybe it was a bit extremist but you would actually have a theoretical understanding of the issues. Now it's more likely you'll come across carefully-crafted "grassroots" political blogs that hype one side or the other without actually encouraging you to make an educated decision. It used to be that if you wanted to bike across the country, Sheldon Brown's webpage[1] would help you figure out how to do it. Now it's more likely that you'll get distracted by Reddit and Facebook while your bike rusts. I, for one, didn't work for this future. I don't give a fuck about cat pictures and I'm actively against the advertising, astroturfing, and distraction that social media results in. I think that while the internet allows us to potentially make our lives better, the majority of people aren't using it that way, and the future we have built makes most people's lives worse. [1] http://sheldonbrown.com/tires.html http://sheldonbrown.com/tires.html
- Thriptic 12y ago
  At the risk of being cynical, perhaps the problem lies more with the people themselves. Perhaps most people aren't that driven; perhaps they aren't that skeptical; perhaps they don't really care about doing deep dives on topics. People have been provided with access to one of the greatest multipurpose tools of all time. How they choose to use that tool is up to them. The fact that most people choose to use it to look up cat videos and share pics on instagram is revealing.
  - copsarebastards 12y ago
    > At the risk of being cynical, perhaps the problem lies more with the people themselves. Perhaps most people aren't that driven; perhaps they aren't that skeptical; perhaps they don't really care about doing deep dives on topics. It is partially the fault of the average person, but from a stoic perspective, that's not something we can do much about, so we shouldn't waste time thinking about it. What we can do is refuse to write socially irresponsible software. The internet is what mindless people make it, but it's also what software developers make it. EDIT: Also, I'm not really down on cat pictures, I just don't care about them. If the worst people did online was view cat pictures, I'd be less frustrated by the current state of the internet. My frustration comes from the fact that the internet has become a better tool for predatory corporations and authoritarian governments than it has become for the average person.
- vitd 12y ago
  This reminds me of how people feel when they remember high school. Like many technical people, I was picked on and had a lot of social problems. When I think about those things, I feel like my life was horrible in high school. But I also had really close friends who had similar experiences and when I remember spending time with them, I think life was awesome in high school! I had a band, and we threw parties for our nerd friends, and we played technical pranks on each other. It was great! These days, we have video available instantly on demand without advertisements. But we also have crappy websites that try to throw up an interstitial ad before you can even read the content. I find the tools make it really easy for me to ignore ads and get at content that is as in-depth as I want in just about any direction (for better or worse). I'm a very cynical person overall, but I love where we are. I have a supercomputer in my pocket that can get just about any piece of data I want instantly. (I was video chatting with a friend while walking my dog the other day! And it was no big deal!) I can also play scrabble with someone I've never met in a country I'll never visit 10,000 miles away. If other people want to keep track of which celebrity slept with whom, so be it. But I'm enjoying life like never before, and it seems like most of what I can do is accessible to most people (at least here in the US).
CodeMage 12y ago
> Remember the effort us lifers put into making tools that allowed "the masses" access to programming, like BASIC, Visual Basic, Turbo Pascal and all of that? How can we now, with any credibility, bemoan the very future so many of us tried to build? I don't think the current situation is the result of that. From where I stand, the history seems pretty clear: 1) Nerdy people like me get into a field because something about it tickles their fancy. 2) They happen to invent stuff that solves important problems or improves life in some way. 3) Eventually, non-nerdy or semi-nerdy people notice this, get into the mix and get rich as a result. 4) People at large start noticing this. The field becomes more and more lucrative and popular, until it turns into an industry. 5) The industry now attracts not only talented, passionate people, but all sorts of other people too: people who want to get rich quick, people who want to get famous, people who are in it because it was a popular choice when they had to pick a career, etc. You'll notice that the inflection point in this story was #3, when some people got rich. The "culprit", therefore, is not making tools that allowed "the masses" access to programming; it's capitalism.
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  > You'll notice that the inflection point in this story was #3, when some people got rich. The "culprit", therefore, is not making tools that allowed "the masses" access to programming; it's capitalism. It's both.
TheCraiggers 12y ago
>Remember the effort us lifers put into making tools that allowed "the masses" access to programming, like BASIC, Visual Basic, Turbo Pascal and all of that? How can we now, with any credibility, bemoan the very future so many of us tried to build? First of all, you should keep in mind that while the hacker culture may have been tightly knit, we have never been a hivemind. (One only needs to look at the various holy wars as proof of that.) While I'm sure there were plenty of people working to make programming easier to learn for newbies (BASIC is a good, perhaps misguided example of this), not all fit into this category. Case in point, Turbo Pascal. Perhaps you know something I don't, but that was created as a commercial venture. It was sold to companies to make a profit. Its relative ease of use was just something marketing said to managers to get them to buy licenses. Yes, both were created to be easier to learn, but I feel the reasons matter here. One was created to spread the joy of learning, to get more people hooked on programming. The other was created to lower the barrier of entry to programming so that companies could hopefully hire dumber, less motivated people to do the same work. Personally, the article resonated with me. It reminded me of the first time I turned God Mode on in DoomII, only to discover it completely ruined the fun of the game. Yes, everything is easier these days, and I can prototype an application far easier than I could 20 years ago. But it's not as fun. I used to think it was just me, that I was running out of motivation or ideas, but now I'm wondering if it's actually something else.
- ZenoArrow 12y ago
  > But it's not as fun. I used to think it was just me, that I was running out of motivation or ideas, but now I'm wondering if it's actually something else. I don't know your background, so I'd like to ask you; aside from programming, what motivates you? Corporate programming is easy to become disenchanted with as it's very repetitive and the end result is often safe but underwhelming. There are tons of programmers who could build CRUD apps or eCommerce websites in their sleep, but do they find the work stimulating? I can't tell you what you'd find more stimulating than cookie cutter corporate work, but it's clear there's a great deal of barely explored ways for computer programming to make a positive difference in our world. The way I like to think about it sometimes is I want to work for the world, any other employer is just a means to that end. Having that goal in mind helps me decide what's worth doing in the here and now. Perhaps it could help you find what you want too?

by cubano 12y ago

copsarebastards 12y ago

> Remember the effort us lifers put into making tools that allowed "the masses" access to programming, like BASIC, Visual Basic, Turbo Pascal and all of that? How can we now, with any credibility, bemoan the very future so many of us tried to build? I think the problem I see is that the future we tried to build hasn't come to fruition. The future I was trying to build around the turn of the millennium was one in which people had information to make educated decisions and to achieve their goals. The actuality that has come about is that more than ever people are falling for hype and being sidetracked from their goals. It used to be that if you wanted to become a more educated voter, going online would result in you landing on a few political-science related resources and you'd end up reading some pretty hardcore theory: Bob Black, Michel Foucault, Karl Marx. Maybe it was a bit extremist but you would actually have a theoretical understanding of the issues. Now it's more likely you'll come across carefully-crafted "grassroots" political blogs that hype one side or the other without actually encouraging you to make an educated decision. It used to be that if you wanted to bike across the country, Sheldon Brown's webpage[1] would help you figure out how to do it. Now it's more likely that you'll get distracted by Reddit and Facebook while your bike rusts. I, for one, didn't work for this future. I don't give a fuck about cat pictures and I'm actively against the advertising, astroturfing, and distraction that social media results in. I think that while the internet allows us to potentially make our lives better, the majority of people aren't using it that way, and the future we have built makes most people's lives worse. [1] http://sheldonbrown.com/tires.html http://sheldonbrown.com/tires.html

Thriptic 12y ago
At the risk of being cynical, perhaps the problem lies more with the people themselves. Perhaps most people aren't that driven; perhaps they aren't that skeptical; perhaps they don't really care about doing deep dives on topics. People have been provided with access to one of the greatest multipurpose tools of all time. How they choose to use that tool is up to them. The fact that most people choose to use it to look up cat videos and share pics on instagram is revealing.
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  > At the risk of being cynical, perhaps the problem lies more with the people themselves. Perhaps most people aren't that driven; perhaps they aren't that skeptical; perhaps they don't really care about doing deep dives on topics. It is partially the fault of the average person, but from a stoic perspective, that's not something we can do much about, so we shouldn't waste time thinking about it. What we can do is refuse to write socially irresponsible software. The internet is what mindless people make it, but it's also what software developers make it. EDIT: Also, I'm not really down on cat pictures, I just don't care about them. If the worst people did online was view cat pictures, I'd be less frustrated by the current state of the internet. My frustration comes from the fact that the internet has become a better tool for predatory corporations and authoritarian governments than it has become for the average person.
vitd 12y ago
This reminds me of how people feel when they remember high school. Like many technical people, I was picked on and had a lot of social problems. When I think about those things, I feel like my life was horrible in high school. But I also had really close friends who had similar experiences and when I remember spending time with them, I think life was awesome in high school! I had a band, and we threw parties for our nerd friends, and we played technical pranks on each other. It was great! These days, we have video available instantly on demand without advertisements. But we also have crappy websites that try to throw up an interstitial ad before you can even read the content. I find the tools make it really easy for me to ignore ads and get at content that is as in-depth as I want in just about any direction (for better or worse). I'm a very cynical person overall, but I love where we are. I have a supercomputer in my pocket that can get just about any piece of data I want instantly. (I was video chatting with a friend while walking my dog the other day! And it was no big deal!) I can also play scrabble with someone I've never met in a country I'll never visit 10,000 miles away. If other people want to keep track of which celebrity slept with whom, so be it. But I'm enjoying life like never before, and it seems like most of what I can do is accessible to most people (at least here in the US).

CodeMage 12y ago

copsarebastards 12y ago
> You'll notice that the inflection point in this story was #3, when some people got rich. The "culprit", therefore, is not making tools that allowed "the masses" access to programming; it's capitalism. It's both.

TheCraiggers 12y ago

>Remember the effort us lifers put into making tools that allowed "the masses" access to programming, like BASIC, Visual Basic, Turbo Pascal and all of that? How can we now, with any credibility, bemoan the very future so many of us tried to build? First of all, you should keep in mind that while the hacker culture may have been tightly knit, we have never been a hivemind. (One only needs to look at the various holy wars as proof of that.) While I'm sure there were plenty of people working to make programming easier to learn for newbies (BASIC is a good, perhaps misguided example of this), not all fit into this category. Case in point, Turbo Pascal. Perhaps you know something I don't, but that was created as a commercial venture. It was sold to companies to make a profit. Its relative ease of use was just something marketing said to managers to get them to buy licenses. Yes, both were created to be easier to learn, but I feel the reasons matter here. One was created to spread the joy of learning, to get more people hooked on programming. The other was created to lower the barrier of entry to programming so that companies could hopefully hire dumber, less motivated people to do the same work. Personally, the article resonated with me. It reminded me of the first time I turned God Mode on in DoomII, only to discover it completely ruined the fun of the game. Yes, everything is easier these days, and I can prototype an application far easier than I could 20 years ago. But it's not as fun. I used to think it was just me, that I was running out of motivation or ideas, but now I'm wondering if it's actually something else.

ZenoArrow 12y ago
> But it's not as fun. I used to think it was just me, that I was running out of motivation or ideas, but now I'm wondering if it's actually something else. I don't know your background, so I'd like to ask you; aside from programming, what motivates you? Corporate programming is easy to become disenchanted with as it's very repetitive and the end result is often safe but underwhelming. There are tons of programmers who could build CRUD apps or eCommerce websites in their sleep, but do they find the work stimulating? I can't tell you what you'd find more stimulating than cookie cutter corporate work, but it's clear there's a great deal of barely explored ways for computer programming to make a positive difference in our world. The way I like to think about it sometimes is I want to work for the world, any other employer is just a means to that end. Having that goal in mind helps me decide what's worth doing in the here and now. Perhaps it could help you find what you want too?