davesims

26 ms·

121.
by davesims 14y ago
Yes, I think you've gotten through to me. You're willing to hold strong opinions regarding the core discipline of the Western Tradition in a state of abject ignorance, on the grounds that actually educating yourself on the topic before form
122.
by davesims 14y ago
Well said. I fear your humility may be more like that of Socrates, and I'm about to be hoisted on the petard of my own unexposed ignorance. I have to run at the moment but I'll come back to this tomorrow and hopefully have something useful
123.
by davesims 14y ago
Sure -- Descartes mathematics in the abstract are surely not dependent on his foundationlism/rationalism. As such they are merely tautological. But the science that deploys that math in pursuit of practical knowledge is. Agreed that 'certai
124.
by davesims 14y ago
Oh, come on. This is beneath you surely. Where are these "philosophers," this monolithic horde of abstraction-loving pinheads stuck in the 15th century, too benighted to see the Real Truth right under their noses, too stuck in debates over
125.
by davesims 14y ago
This is a great statement, because it points to the fundamental problem with Descartes' legacy: "His philosophical results are now largely a historical marker on a road to nowhere. His formalisms are still used by every human practitioner o
126.
by davesims 14y ago
Where to begin with this? This is naive scientific triumphalism of the first order, utterly illiterate with regards to the philosophical foundations of science, the rigorous and multi-layered debates over the status of scientific statements
127.
by davesims 14y ago
This is a huge reason for philosophy's ongoing journey into irrelevance. Both scientists and philosophers have become over-specialized and tend to presume competency in one gives competency in another. They are not only different subjects,
128.
by davesims 14y ago
Awesome. With your interests and obvious clarity of expression, I'd suggest you pop the Discourse near the top of the queue! What's needful at this point in history, imo, is as many inquisitive, acute minds as possible re-engaging these deb
129.
by davesims 14y ago
Science, as the broad quest for knowledge, scientia , is not dogmatic, or at least ideally it is not. But modern science certainly has dogmas, and gladly admits them. Methodological Naturalism is the biggie. It is useful as a kind of pro
130.
by davesims 14y ago
This is unfortunately true of many species of philosophers, and in many ways they are responsible for their own growing public irrelevance. Growing, if not fully accomplished! So, I agree with your post to the extent that it applies to much
131.
by davesims 14y ago
"I was led to believe that Descartes argued his new method should be added to existing ones rather than replace them entirely – am I wrong in thinking this way?" Actually I think you are, but it is of course complicated. My read of the Disc
132.
by davesims 14y ago
What a fantastic response! I'm so heartened to see this as the top comment. The article is completely absurd, of course, but unfortunately represents a bizarre sort of anti-intellectualism that is running rampant through academic communitie
133.
by davesims 14y ago
Really well put. But to me, you bailed out, or at least contradicted yourself with the phrase, "instead of contributing to humanity." You set up a nice concise statement of Sartrean pointlessness, and then you appear to invalidate it comple
134.
by davesims 14y ago
Man, my anecdotal evidence is completely opposite, and I've been comparing notes with (some good) recruiters and other contacts around town for the last couple of years. Rails hit an inflection point in that period where even enterprises ar
135.
by davesims 14y ago
> I tried to ask what they would do next but they said it would be an internal legal investigation. "By who?" "Top. Men."
136.
by davesims 14y ago
"Completely disgusting" is taking it a bit far, but it's certainly puzzling, as is the irrational potshot at HN -- a hub of potential customers! "Disgusting"? No. "Bizarre", especially for the man behind A Smart Bear?? Yes.
137.
by davesims 14y ago
"From a customer service perspective, this comment leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. You guys say right on your home page that you're "infinitely scalable." [...] The (strong) implication being that any WordPress configuration will per
138.
by davesims 14y ago
I did say "apparent" contradictions. And anyway isn't the idea of a "special case" another way of saying, "at certain scales/speeds the rules of the former don't apply in the context of the latter"? But we digress...
139.
by davesims 14y ago
Great comment. I appreciate the principle you're working towards, and largely agree with it. But I wonder if the analogy with Physics works well as a broad metaphor for "intelligence." The gaps between Newtonian, Quantum and Relativity mode
140.
by davesims 14y ago
He does, but it's indirect. In the article he says: "There is a remedy which was championed by Douglas Crockford: Augment Object with a create method that accomplishes what the constructor invocation pattern tries to do." That sentence cont
141.
by davesims 14y ago
"So is Evanston regulating food trucks to protect the public's health or are they not?" Yes, they are. They also arbitrarily prevent anyone other than brick-and-mortar restaurant owners from operating a food truck. That was the whole point
142.
by davesims 14y ago
Great comment, basically a restatement of Christopher Alexander's philosophy of architecture, as applied to software. This to me is where top-down thinking like Design Patterns sometimes go wrong; The GOF and related literature never really
143.
by davesims 14y ago
By way of being pedantic -- reductio ad absurdum is not a fallacy. Showing extreme consequences by taking assumptions to their conclusions is perfectly valid. That's the whole point of reductio.
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by davesims 14y ago
This. Use ORMs for what they do well, and move into straight SQL when it makes sense.
145.
by davesims 14y ago
> In my admittedly anecdotal experience, I have found that ORMs are the most useful for the most trivial queries. True, but 'trivial queries' generally cover the majority of use cases within your average CRUD application, and that's exa
146.
by davesims 14y ago
> MS tried to produce a Java with native extensions: Not exactly. MS replaced Java's existing native extension functionality (JNI) with Windows-only native hooks called JDirect. Interestingly, it did so with these @com (EDIT: sorry, I
147.
by davesims 14y ago
Saying that a company has every right to execute whatever policy they deem necessary to defend their bottom-line interests is not the same as saying that the community they do business in cannot call them out when those same policies are ex
148.
by davesims 14y ago
It's crappy human behavior, which is not to say 'bad business practice', to pretend to work with someone and support their efforts for 2 months, and then summarily shut down their business simply because LinkedIn made an 'informed decision'
149.
by davesims 14y ago
I agree, and Pealk definitely admitted as much, that for a startup, relying on an API is incredibly risky. I'd never be on board with a startup that did, no matter how cool the idea. But LinkedIn doesn't come off looking great either, and I
150.
by davesims 14y ago
Thanks for the response! I appreciate the effort you went to here, this was no small task you set yourself to. I appreciate the clarification. I think now I see better where your emphasis was: the purpose of the paper was to refute an argum

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