I see quite a difference between "doing things right" and "doing the right things" ! :-) Am 27.01.2012 22:50 schrieb "Eliot Miranda" <[email protected]>:
> > > On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 11:51 AM, Guido Stepken > <[email protected]>wrote: > >> Hi Elliot! >> >> When I rethink, why new programming languages came up from zero to a >> significant market share, like PERL, PHP, Python, Ruby, JAVA, C# (.net) >> Visual Basic, Visual C++ and others died out, like Delphi, >> TurboBasic/Pascal/C I could name different reasons: >> >> - Free license vs. expensive >> - Wrong payment model (per developer, per runtime, both) >> - Good, free support on websites vs. "Bronze/silver/gold" >> paystupid-support >> - Attractiveness of one "killer app" that made programmers change to >> another language >> - Portability of code onto other platforms >> - Mightyness of libraries >> - Missing standards, protocols, support of hardware >> - Good vs. bad marketing, deciders not convinced that product will >> survive/missing timeline, visions, lack of money in background >> - Subcritical mass of programmers using product, lack of professionals >> >> That was in former times. >> >> Today, new criterias play a far more relevant role, hat haven't really >> existed just 3 years ago: >> >> - Has it (the OS,the programming language and GUI framework) an >> appstore/plugin concept to let free, creative brains being able to >> participate, earn money with? >> - Barrier - free payment model included (mobile payment, card, bank >> account)? >> - Free use with sponsoring by ads possible (programmers payed from >> multiple resources, not user alone) >> - Cryptographic prevention of missuse included? >> - Free and matured SDK available? >> - Connections to social software like facebook/twitter/Google+/Groupon >> included (API access, programming language and all protocols supported) >> - GUI designed for desktop as well usable for touch and self adapting to >> different screen/touch sizes? >> - Touch gestures possible and lib avail? >> - Microsofts Kinect hardware/video recognition of faces, hand/face mimic >> gestures possible and supported in libs? >> - Voice recognition supported? >> - Mobile ready? (touch, GPS, compass, barometer, gyro, hardware OpenGL) >> - Rockstable? >> - Fast, running in low power devices? Joule per clock cycle ratio??? >> - Critical mass of users already reached, increasing? >> - Critical number of apps there to raise interest? >> ... >> >> So, the Pharo developers might now decide, what to invest their >> brainpower into! :-) >> >> Just my 2ct. >> > > OK, that looks like a great list. But don't you agree that criticism (in > the sense of something that leads to quality software engineering) > underlies several of these, such as Rockstable, Fast, running on low-power > devices, etc? To me, being critical doesn't mean being uncreative or > conservative; it means thinking about what you're doing, and doing a good > job. > >> Guido Stepken >> Am 27.01.2012 19:46 schrieb "Eliot Miranda" <[email protected]>: >> >> >>> >>> On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 5:33 AM, Marcus Denker >>> <[email protected]>wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> On Jan 27, 2012, at 6:13 AM, dimitris chloupis wrote: >>>> >>>> > This article is really encapsulates the attitude and what is wrong >>>> with programming in general. The attitude of superiority and intelligence >>>> that seems to plague coders and being the biggest obstacle to progress. >>>> >>>> Yes! The "Everyone is dumb but me" phenomenon... >>>> >>>> What those "intelligent" people don't get is that complexity is >>>> inherently exponential. So even if you are >>>> 10 times more intelligent than me (very well possible), it is >>>> *completely* irrelevant considering that complexity >>>> grows non-linearly. >>>> >>>> If you combine this with the notion of Evolution: that it is impossible >>>> to creat "the perfect" out of nothing, yet >>>> entropy grows when you incrementally improve things... than this has >>>> some very serious consequences. >>>> >>>> > For me the main problem with is the whole aura of "elitism" , what >>>> better example than Lisp, where beginners are attacked and be excluded. >>>> >>>> We had the same effect in Squeak at the end. No progress, every >>>> improvement was actively fighted against, if needed with the nice argument >>>> that >>>> one can do it even better, and only "the best" is worth for Squeak. >>>> >>>> Another thing that "intelligent" people don't get is that critizising >>>> is trivial: You can *always* do better, there is no perfection. It's an >>>> endless process. >>>> This implies that one has to accept and embrace imperfection if one >>>> wants to have a future. Else you end up never finishing anything, the death >>>> of any >>>> incremental progress. >>>> >>> >>> But criticism is essential. How does one identify a mistake if not by >>> criticising? There's a huge difference between constructive criticism >>> (analysis, testing, comparison, evaluation, measurement) and negativity >>> (denial, fear, slander). How can one engineer without measurement, without >>> thought? Being agile doesn't imply being random. Evolution measures, and >>> most harshly; the weaker don't survive. >>> >>> >>>> Pharo was started with the explicit goal to do as many mistakes as >>>> possible, as fast as possible. >>>> >>>> Marcus >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Marcus Denker -- http://marcusdenker.de >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> best, >>> Eliot >>> >>> > > > -- > best, > Eliot > >
