Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Andrea D'Amore]

On 2016-09-12 17:09:03 +, danut...@gmail.com said:


Yes, it does:


Operating systems do as well 
.



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Andrea

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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[danutzp0]

Yes, it does:

https://philosoftware.wordpress.com/
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Stormcoder]

He means Lisp macros. Lisp macros are nothing like the crippled C++
macros that people tend to think of.

Roedy Green wrote:
> On 21 May 2006 02:15:31 -0700, "Xah Lee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote,
> quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :
>
>
> Java has lots of macro languages, including C++'s preprocessor. What
> it does not have is a sanctioned one.  It has instead on-the-fly code
> generation. See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/onthefly.html
>
>
> --
> Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
> http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching.

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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Xah Lee]

The Condition of Industrial Programers

Xah Lee, 2006-05

Before i stepped into the computing industry, my first industrial
programing experience is at Wolfram Research Inc as a intern in 1995.
(Wolfram Research is famously known for their highly successful
flagship product Mathematica) I thought, that the programers at Wolfram
are the world's top mathematicians, gathered together to research and
decide and write a extremely advanced technology. But i realized it is
not so. Not at all. In fact, we might say it's just a bunch of Ph Ds
(or equivalent experience). Each person there are not unlike average
white-collar Joes. Each working individually. And, fights and bouts of
arguments between co-workers are not uncommon. Sometimes downright
ugly. Almost nothing is as i naively imagined, as if some world's top
mathematicians are gathered together there, daily to confer and solve
the world's top problems as in some top secret government agency
depicted in movies.

Well, that was my introduction to the industry. The bulk of my surprise
is due to my naiveness and inexperience of the industry, of any
industry, as i was just a intern and this is my first experience seeing
how the real world works.

After Wolfram, after a couple of years i went into the web programing
industry in 1998, using unix, Perl, Apache, Java, database
technologies, in the center of world's technology the Silicon Valley.
My evaluation of industrial programers and how software are written is
a precipitous fall from my observations at Wolfram. In the so-called
Info Tech industry, the vast majority of programers are poorly
qualified. I learned this from my colleagues, and in dealing with
programers from other companies, service providers, data centers, sys
admins, API gateways, and duties of field tutoring. I didn't think i
had very qualified expertise in what i do, but the reality i realized
is that most are far lesser than me, and that is the common situation.
That they have no understanding of basic mathematics such as
trigonometry or calculus. Most have no interest in math whatsoever, and
would be hard pressed for them to explain what is a “algorithm”.

I have always thought, that programing X software of field Y usually
means that the programers are thoroughly fluent in languages,
protocols, tools of X, and also being a top expert in field of Y. But
to my great surprise, the fact is that that is almost never the case.
In fact, most of the time the programers simply just had to learn a
language, protocol, software tool, right at the moment as he is trying
to implement a software for a field he never had experience in. I
myself had to do jobs half of the time i've never done before.
Constantly I'm learning new languages, protocols, systems, tools, APIs,
other rising practices and technologies, reading semi-written or delve
into non-existent docs. It is the norm in the IT industry, that most
products are really produces of learning experiences. Extremely hurried
grasping of new technologies in competition with deadlines. There is in
fact little actual learning going on, as there are immense pressure to
simply “get it to (demonstrably) work” and ship it.

Thinking back, in fact the Wolfram people are the most knowledgeable
and inquisitive people i've met as colleagues, by far.

What prompted me to write this essay is after reading the essay Teach
Yourself Programming in Ten Years by Peter Norvig, 2001, at
http://www.norvig.com/21-days.html (local copy). In which, the Lisp
dignitary Peter Norvig derides the widely popular computing books in
the name of Teaching Yourself X In (Fast) Days. Although i agree with
his general sentiment that a language or technology takes time to
master and use well, that these books is a damaging fad and subtly
generate ignorance, but he fails to address the main point, that is:
the cause of the popularity of such books, and how to remedy the
situation.

These books are the bedrock of the industry. It is not because people
are impatient, or that they wish to hurry, but rather, it is the
condition of the IT industry, in the same way modern society drives
people to live certain live styles. No amount of patience or
proselytization can right this, except that we change the industry's
practice of quickly churning out bug-ridden software products to beat
competitors. Companies do that due to market forces, and the market
forces is a result of how people and organizations actually choose to
purchase software. In my opinion, a solution to this is by installing
the concept of responsible licenses, as i've detailed in the essay
Responsible Software Licensing, at
 http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/responsible_license.html .

This post is archived at:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/it_programers.html

   Xah
   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 ∑ http://xahlee.org/

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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

Paul Rubin a écrit :
> John D Salt  writes:
> 
>>What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
>>cannot be traced back to 1986 or earlier?
> 
> 
> Automated spamming tools?  ;-)
keyboard !
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

John A. Bailo a écrit :
> John D Salt wrote:
> 
>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
>>
>> [Snips]
>>
>>> Wrong. We live in a paradise of ideas and possibilities well beyond the
>>> wildest dreams of only 20 years ago.
>>
>>
>>
>> What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
>> cannot be traced back to 1986 or earlier?
> 
> 
> What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
> cannot be traced back to Doug Engbart's 1968 presentation at Xerox Parc?
> 
Those that can be traced back to 1958 when someone invented Lisp ?-)
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

John D Salt a écrit :
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
> 
> [Snips]
> 
>>Wrong. We live in a paradise of ideas and possibilities well beyond the
>>wildest dreams of only 20 years ago.
> 
> 
> What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
> cannot be traced back to 1986 or earlier?
>
Make it 1958 FWIW. Yes, the year Lisp was born...

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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Roedy Green]

On 21 May 2006 02:15:31 -0700, "Xah Lee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote,
quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :

>FACT: Java has no first-class functions and no macros. This results in
>warped code that hacks around the problem, and as the code base grows,
>it takes on a definite, ugly shape, one that's utterly unique to Java.

You need to back up a sweeping statement like that with an least an
example code showing how it could much better be handled with macros.

Java has lots of macro languages, including C++'s preprocessor. What
it does not have is a sanctioned one.  It has instead on-the-fly code
generation. See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/onthefly.html


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http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching.
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[John D Salt]

Eli Gottlieb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]: 

[Snips]
> I correct: We live in a paradise where we finally have to processing 
> power to realize all those ideas that were too inefficient 20 years
> ago. 

That sounds more reasonable.

In my more jaundiced moments, I think that progress in software will not 
resume until we stop the annual doubling of resources for bloatware to 
consume.

All the best,

John.
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[John D Salt]

"John A. Bailo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]: 

[Snips]
> What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
> cannot be traced back to Doug Engbart's 1968 presentation at Xerox
> Parc? 

The only two I would think worth mentioning are Nygaard et al's ideas on 
patterns as embodied in Mjolner Beta, and Colmerauer's on logic programming 
as embodied in Prolog.  And maybe pi calculus, if only for sticking the 
formal foundation in where it was missing from under O-O.

But Prolog and pi calculus are regarded as marginal activities, and most 
software people have stil contrived never to have heard of Nygaard, despite 
his being the inventor (with Ole-Johan Dahl) of O-O in 1967.

All the best,

John.
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Emmanuel Florac]

Le Tue, 23 May 2006 08:58:12 -0500, John D Salt a écrit :

> 
> What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
> cannot be traced back to 1986 or earlier?

Actually it looks like the latest breakthru was invention of LISP circa
1957. Well, Perhaps OO paradigm and Smalltalk, circa 1973, too.

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vous intéresser.
Prévert,"les enfants du Paradis".

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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Paul Rubin]

John D Salt  writes:
> What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
> cannot be traced back to 1986 or earlier?

Automated spamming tools?  ;-)
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Pascal Bourguignon]

John D Salt  writes:

> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
>
> [Snips]
>> Wrong. We live in a paradise of ideas and possibilities well beyond the
>> wildest dreams of only 20 years ago.
>
> What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
> cannot be traced back to 1986 or earlier?

Well, I would have thought of Genetic Programming but it dates back at
least 1980:

The first experiments with GP were reported by Stephen F. Smith
(1980) and Nichael L. Cramer (1985), as described in the famous
book Genetic Programming: On the Programming of Computers by Means
of Natural Selection by John Koza (1992).

> I'd like to believe that there are some, but I can't think of any at the 
> moment.

I think we're just in a Matrix loop...

-- 
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COMPONENT EQUIVALENCY NOTICE: The subatomic particles (electrons,
protons, etc.) comprising this product are exactly the same in every
measurable respect as those used in the products of other
manufacturers, and no claim to the contrary may legitimately be
expressed or implied.
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[SamFeltus]

Good question on new ideas vs old ideas.  Seems to me the computer
industry needs some young brains, raised around the internet, to
generate some major new theoretical ideas for computers.  Seems to me
it must already be occuring below the radar.  When it happens, it
shouldn't be too hard to spot.  It will make cool new things possible,
and won't make sense to most people over 25.

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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[John A. Bailo]

John D Salt wrote:
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
> 
> [Snips]
> 
>>Wrong. We live in a paradise of ideas and possibilities well beyond the
>>wildest dreams of only 20 years ago.
> 
> 
> What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
> cannot be traced back to 1986 or earlier?

What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
cannot be traced back to Doug Engbart's 1968 presentation at Xerox Parc?

> 
> I'd like to believe that there are some, but I can't think of any at the 
> moment.
> 
> All the best,
> 
> John.
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[John Thingstad]

On Tue, 23 May 2006 15:58:12 +0200, John D Salt   
wrote:

> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
>
> [Snips]
>> Wrong. We live in a paradise of ideas and possibilities well beyond the
>> wildest dreams of only 20 years ago.
>
> What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and
> cannot be traced back to 1986 or earlier?
>
> I'd like to believe that there are some, but I can't think of any at the
> moment.
>
> All the best,
>
> John.

Well most have to do with wireless nets and connectivity.
One is that all compoters will be connected to the net all of the time.
When you go out you will not bring a mobile phone you will bring a PDA  
(Personal data assistant).
You can call people, listent to music, wach videoes. You can connect to
the web cans at home and see that the children are ok or turn the oven on
while on the way back from work, etc.
As you move from sector to another the PDA aquites the closest transmitter
and hooks on to it. Most use wireless networks to
connect aplliances in their homes.
Instead of tv stations you order movies and TV series from online
servers. etc..

Also the AI part. AI will not consist of cumputers trying to pretend to
be people. The will take vocal commands. The will remember your  
preferences.
It will know when you are on vacation. Turn the alarm on, lower the house  
theperature
and turn on lights periodically to make it look inhabited.
It will know what movies and shows you like to watch and order them  
accordingly.
It will know who you know and order incoming messages accordingly by  
priority,
also block out those you do not what contact with.

There is now a clear idea of how windows systems should behave.
Windows interfaces have evolved accordingly. It is now far less
tedious to connect systems to the net or make a windows interface..

etc, etc..

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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Eli Gottlieb]

John D Salt wrote:
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
> 
> [Snips]
> 
>>Wrong. We live in a paradise of ideas and possibilities well beyond the
>>wildest dreams of only 20 years ago.
> 
> 
> What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
> cannot be traced back to 1986 or earlier?
> 
> I'd like to believe that there are some, but I can't think of any at the 
> moment.
> 
> All the best,
> 
> John.
I correct: We live in a paradise where we finally have to processing 
power to realize all those ideas that were too inefficient 20 years ago.

-- 
The science of economics is the cleverest proof of free will yet 
constructed.
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[John D Salt]

<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:

[Snips]
> Wrong. We live in a paradise of ideas and possibilities well beyond the
> wildest dreams of only 20 years ago.

What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
cannot be traced back to 1986 or earlier?

I'd like to believe that there are some, but I can't think of any at the 
moment.

All the best,

John.
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Dan Mercer]

"nikie" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
: Xah Lee wrote:
:
:
: I wonder where you get your historical "facts" form? (Monty Python
: movies?) Let's just add a few fun facts: Yes, philosophy did flourish
: in ancient greece, but liberty certainly didn't. Yes, Athens was (at
: least most of the time) a democracy - which by the way, most
: philosophers thought was a very bad thing. But still, about 90% of the
: population of Athens were slaves at that time. Not just "mentally
: enslaved", no, real, physical slaves.

Small quibble - while only 10% of the population were citizens,
by no means were the rest all slaves.  The other 90% were children,
women,  metoikoi (a commercial class of free men of foreign birth
who paid for the right to live in Athens) and house slaves.
Most Athenian slaves lived in the country.
: Also, it was dangerous to have oppinions that authorities didn't like
: (Socrates for example was sentenced to death because of impiety,
: Anaxagoras and Aristoteles had to flee because of similar charges,
: Hipposus, who _proved_ a flaw in Pythagoras' number theory was
: drowned).

Which should act as a warning to all who employ the Socratic Method.  Sadly,
it doesn't.

Dan Mercer


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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[John Bokma]

fupto: poster

Dra¾en Gemiæ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Timo Stamm wrote:
>> Dra¾en Gemiæ schrieb:
>> 
>>> Xah Lee wrote:
>>>
>>>> Software Needs Philosophers
>>>>
>>>
>>> Welcome to my junk filters 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Thanks for informing each and every reader of the newsgroups 
>> comp.lang.perl.misc, comp.lang.python, comp.lang.java.programmer, 
>> comp.lang.lisp, comp.lang.function about your junk filters.
> 
> Anytime..

Instead of adding Xah to your junk filter, you might want to complain with 
his ISP: abuse at sbcglobal dot net

Hosting provider has already taken steps

Google Groups might not care, but its worth a try. The more people 
complain, the faster Xah has to hop ISPs and providers, and maybe one day 
he understand that shitting in your garden costs money.

-- 
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&
Experienced Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Dražen Gemić]

Timo Stamm wrote:
> Dražen Gemić schrieb:
> 
>> Xah Lee wrote:
>>
>>> Software Needs Philosophers
>>>
>>
>> Welcome to my junk filters 
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks for informing each and every reader of the newsgroups 
> comp.lang.perl.misc, comp.lang.python, comp.lang.java.programmer, 
> comp.lang.lisp, comp.lang.function about your junk filters.

Anytime..

DG
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Timo Stamm]

Dražen Gemić schrieb:
> Xah Lee wrote:
>> Software Needs Philosophers
>>
> 
> Welcome to my junk filters 


Thanks for informing each and every reader of the newsgroups 
comp.lang.perl.misc, comp.lang.python, comp.lang.java.programmer, 
comp.lang.lisp, comp.lang.function about your junk filters.


Timo
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Tim Churches]

Xah Lee wrote:
> Software Needs Philosophers
> 
> by Steve Yegge, 2006-04-15.
> 
> Software needs philosophers.
> 
> People don't put much stock in philosophers these days. The popular
> impression of philosophy is that it's just rhetoric, just frivolous
> debating about stuff that can never properly be answered. “Spare me
> the philosophy; let's stick to the facts!”
> 
> The funny thing is, it's philosophers who gave us the ability to think
> rationally, to stick to the facts. If it weren't for the work of
> countless philosophers, facts would still be getting people tortured
> and killed for discovering and sharing them.

Paging Dr Mertz... (http://www.gnosis.cx)

Tim C
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Carl J. Van Arsdall]

vjg wrote:
> nikie wrote:
>   
>> (BTW: Have you ever considered the possibility that philosophers might
>> not be interested in tab-versus-spaces-debates in the first place?
>> Maybe they have more interesting matters to discuss. Just like the rest
>> of us.)
>> 
>
> Debate? There's no valid dabate. Tabs bad. Spaces good.
>
>   
Hrmms, I think we should debate about the debate now, I mean we've 
already beaten the actual topic to DEATH.

.c



-- 

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[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Build and Release
MontaVista Software

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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[vjg]

nikie wrote:
>
> (BTW: Have you ever considered the possibility that philosophers might
> not be interested in tab-versus-spaces-debates in the first place?
> Maybe they have more interesting matters to discuss. Just like the rest
> of us.)

Debate? There's no valid dabate. Tabs bad. Spaces good.

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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Matt Garrish]

"Mumia W." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message 
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Xah Lee wrote:
>> Software Needs Philosophers
>>
>> by Steve Yegge, 2006-04-15.
>>
>> Software needs philosophers.
>>
>> [...]
>> 
>> This post is archived at:
>> http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/04/software-needs-philosophers.html
>>
>> and
>> http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/_p/software_phil.html
>>
>> This essay is reported with permission.
>>
>>Xah
>>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>  ? http://xahlee.org/
>>
>
> Remember that this was a blog post from Steve Yegge that Xah
> Lee got permission to repost.
>
> It was a little long, and I got bored in the middle, but I
> think I understand (a little) Steve's point. He thinks we need
> software philosophers to break programmers' religious-like
> devotion to their languages of choice. I don't agree with
> this.
>
> I'd say we need software philosophers to help us see where
> software is taking us so that we can avoid bad spots if
> necessary. After all, the computer might just be the cotton
> gin of our time. We might be virtually enslaved by
> our own information if we don't watch out.
>
> Philosophers have the ability to think long, to think big,
> and to think about the future, and to think about the
> consequences of actions in a rational manner. They would be
> able to warn us if we were about to do something stupid with
> our society.
>

Thank you for that laugh. I think you're the first person I've read in this 
century who advocates Plato's silly notion of the philosopher kings. If you 
want to talk philosophy, please jump foward past the Enlightment.

Matt 


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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Mirco Wahab]

after all, somebody dumped some
backup of his brain to use-net:

> Software Needs Philosophers
> by Steve Yegge, 2006-04-15.

including lots of personal details.

So what I basically took from it
is written in this paragraph:

> I was born and raised a Roman Catholic, and I renounced it when I was
> thirteen years old, after my Uncle Frank (a devout terrorist Catholic
> if there ever was one) told me to stop reading the Bible, that it would
> “really screw a person up” to do that, that you needed someone to
> interpret it for you. That wasn't the only reason I renounced it, but
> it'll suffice for our purposes.

Under 'best effort interpretation', one could see
the whole thing in the light of the small thing:
he's rescuing 'us' by telling us:
- to think rational,
- to de-construct our beliefs and
- don't put that much personal sympathy into
  'subculture group pseudoreligion',
the latter is what he thinks 'computer language culture'
really is today.

I can't see what's wrong with these hypotheses
(besides he got some terms wrong); he describes
things we most probably are already aware of
(in our own context of notions) - but wouldn't
bother to fill the communication lines of the
world with it (wouldn't give a damn about ...)

(my €0.05)

Mirco

f'up ==> c.l.p.m
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Mumia W.]

Xah Lee wrote:
> Software Needs Philosophers
> 
> by Steve Yegge, 2006-04-15.
> 
> Software needs philosophers.
> 
> [...]
> 
> This post is archived at:
> http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/04/software-needs-philosophers.html
> 
> and
> http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/_p/software_phil.html
> 
> This essay is reported with permission.
> 
>Xah
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>  ? http://xahlee.org/
> 

Remember that this was a blog post from Steve Yegge that Xah
Lee got permission to repost.

It was a little long, and I got bored in the middle, but I
think I understand (a little) Steve's point. He thinks we need
software philosophers to break programmers' religious-like
devotion to their languages of choice. I don't agree with
this.

I'd say we need software philosophers to help us see where
software is taking us so that we can avoid bad spots if
necessary. After all, the computer might just be the cotton
gin of our time. We might be virtually enslaved by
our own information if we don't watch out.

Philosophers have the ability to think long, to think big,
and to think about the future, and to think about the
consequences of actions in a rational manner. They would be
able to warn us if we were about to do something stupid with
our society.

However, Steve Yegge's software philosophers only serve to
eliminate programmer's passions for their programming
languages. While removing irrational beliefs is a good
thing, I see Yegge's philosophers moving through the
software industry, destroying everyone's passions for
programming, and, as a result, the software industry is
destroyed.

It's scary the way I see it. On the other hand, I support
rational thinking, and part of supporting rational thinking
is (presumably) having the courage to support rational
thinking even when the results are not to your immediate
liking. IOW, I have to support something that scares the
bejeebers out of me.

Yet on the other, other hand, if people think rationally,
the quality of life can only improve. Boy, am I confused :)

Fortunately, people have their passions, for both
programming and life, and that's not going to change anytime
soon. If it does, it'll be a very gray world indeed.

Thanks again Xah for getting these brain cells working
again.

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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[alex23]

As a professionally trained "philosopher" and "programmer", I'm
perfectly well aware that the onus is on _me_ to make others respect &
appreciate my skills and what they offer. Posting to usenet about how
others just don't "get it" is, in fact, not "getting it".

Even further, using "religion" as the antithesis to the glorious
philosophy which produces only truth makes this little more than the
standard net rant of "your way is different from mine and therefore
wrong". I can just as easily use "philosophy" to mean "the pointless
rantings of obsessed individuals"...

Seriously, this fails on every single level it aims at.

- alex23

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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[jab3]

SamFeltus wrote:

> Religious Fanaticism is a very strong in the Computer community.  But,
> is it really a surprise that when a bunch of hairless apes created a
> new mental world, they created it with a complicated Quilt of religions
> and nationalities, and many became fanatical?
> 
> I am confidant the responces Xah will recieve will validate his
> observation on religious fanaticism.  It is funny, Xah always questions
> people's Sacred Cow's, I have often noted that the reponces often read
> like the writings of religious fanatics.  As a Georgian (US), the
> responces often remind me of the Dark Side (there is a Light) of the
> Southern Baptist Church, translated into Computer Speak.
> 
> Software needs philosophers is an interesting point, perhaps the most
> important function of Philosophers is exposing Sacred Cows as just
> Cattle.

Unless Xah Lee is Steve Yegge, Xah Lee did not write that essay.  Nor did he
claim to:

> Software Needs Philosophers

> by Steve Yegge, 2006-04-15.

<>

> This post is archived at:
> http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/04/software-needs-philosophers.html

> and http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/_p/software_phil.html

> This essay is reported with permission.

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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Terry Reedy]

"nikie" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message 
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Xah Lee wrote:
>
>> Software Needs Philosophers
>>
>> by Steve Yegge, 2006-04-15.
>>
>> Software needs philosophers.
>>
>> This thought has been nagging at me for a year now, and recently it's
>> been growing like a tumor. One that plenty of folks on the 'net would
>> love to see kill me.
>
> No, we all wish you a long and quiet life! Although some of us are a
> little annoyed that you keep cross-posting articles wildly to
> completely unrelated newsgroups...

The above was written by Steve Yegge, not  Xah Lee, who just reposted 
Steve's blog entry.  To reply to Steve, go to his blog.

tjr



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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Mumia W.]

M Jared Finder wrote:
> SamFeltus wrote:
>> [...]
>> Software needs philosophers is an interesting point, perhaps the most
>> important function of Philosophers is exposing Sacred Cows as just
>> Cattle.
> 
> Finally, someone else who sees that Xah's posts consistently expose 
> valid problems!  (Though his solutions are usually not well thought out.)
> 
>   -- MJF

I agree, Xah's articles make you think. Although in this case, it's a
blog article by Steve Yegge that Xah evidently got permission to post.

Software *does* need philosophers, but the more I think about the 
implications of that, the more I think it's scary.

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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[nikie]

Xah Lee wrote:

> Software Needs Philosophers
>
> by Steve Yegge, 2006-04-15.
>
> Software needs philosophers.
>
> This thought has been nagging at me for a year now, and recently it's
> been growing like a tumor. One that plenty of folks on the 'net would
> love to see kill me.

No, we all wish you a long and quiet life! Although some of us are a
little annoyed that you keep cross-posting articles wildly to
completely unrelated newsgroups...

> People don't put much stock in philosophers these days. The popular
> impression of philosophy is that it's just rhetoric, just frivolous
> debating about stuff that can never properly be answered. "Spare me
> the philosophy; let's stick to the facts!"
>
> The funny thing is, it's philosophers who gave us the ability to think
> rationally, to stick to the facts. If it weren't for the work of
> countless philosophers, facts would still be getting people tortured
> and killed for discovering and sharing them.
>
> Does it ever strike you as just a teeny bit odd that after a brief
> period where philosophy flourished, from maybe 400 B.C.E. to ~100 C.E.,
> we went through a follow-on period of well over one thousand five
> hundred years during which the Roman Catholic Church enslaved
> everyone's minds and killed anyone who dared think differently?

I wonder where you get your historical "facts" form? (Monty Python
movies?) Let's just add a few fun facts: Yes, philosophy did flourish
in ancient greece, but liberty certainly didn't. Yes, Athens was (at
least most of the time) a democracy - which by the way, most
philosophers thought was a very bad thing. But still, about 90% of the
population of Athens were slaves at that time. Not just "mentally
enslaved", no, real, physical slaves.
Also, it was dangerous to have oppinions that authorities didn't like
(Socrates for example was sentenced to death because of impiety,
Anaxagoras and Aristoteles had to flee because of similar charges,
Hipposus, who _proved_ a flaw in Pythagoras' number theory was
drowned). And, sad to say, if philosophers would have been in charge,
things would probably have been even worse (Ever read Plato's "The
State"?)

Also, has the roman catholic church really "killed anyone who dared
think differently"? The Spanish Inquisition for example killed about
1000-2000 people in two centuries. That's bad enough, no question, but
"anyone who dared think differently"? Hardly.

> What's weirder is that we tend to pretend it didn't really happen. We
> like to just skip right over the dominance of religion over our minds
> for a hundred generations, and think of religion today as a kindly old
> grandpa who's just looking out for us kids. No harm, no foul. Let
> bygones be bygones. Sure, there were massacres and crusades and
> genocides and torture chambers with teeth grinding and eyes bleeding
> and intestines torn out in the name of God. But we were all just kids
> then, right? Nobody does that kind of thing today, at least not in
> civilized countries.

Hmmm. There were massacres in the name of liberty to, e.g. in the
French Revolution. Does that make liberty (and those who value it)
equally evil? (The same is of course true for money, love, or probably
anything else people like)

> We try not to think about the uncivilized ones.

We do! Let's think about some of them: The Khmers rouges come to my
mind, also China, and a few years back the Soviet Union. Notice
something? Right, no religion. In fact, they were more or less
following the works of the philosopher Karl Marx.

> It was philosophers that got us out of that Dark Ages mess, and no
> small number of them lost their lives in doing so.

In the "Dark Ages" pretty much the only chance to get a decent
education was to become a monk or at least be taught by monks. So, it
isn't surprising that almost all of the philosophers at the time (like
William of Occam or Roger Bacon) were monks. Therefore, philosophy was
never clearly separated from theology during that time.

The end of the middle ages is probably marked by the renaissance and
the reformation, the latter of course started by a priest.

What have we learned? Yes, Religion was an important power in the
development of europe over the last 3000 years (yes, I'm including the
Antiquity in this, it didn't just take a break to watch the philosophy
channel). So were money, and military power, technology, social
factors, and of course philosophy. Yes, it did have bad consequences,
and it did have good ones. The same is true for all the other powers as
well.

(BTW: Have you ever considered the possibility that philosophers might
not be interested in tab-versus-spaces-debates in the first place?
Maybe they have more interesting matters to discuss. Just like the rest
of us.)

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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Burton Samograd]

Pascal Bourguignon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> "SamFeltus" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>> Software needs philosophers is an interesting point, perhaps the most
>> important function of Philosophers is exposing Sacred Cows as just
>> Cattle.
>
> As I see it philosophers have a big problem: nobody need them, so
> they're out of job.  That's why we see occasional articles "X needs
> philosophers".  I just ask: where are the job offers?

Some might think that Aristotle's categorization and type theories
might have created a few jobs in our current hobby/profession.  There
are many types of philosophy, but from what I've read, the most
interesting the the mental deconstructionism of reality on a
humanistic linguistic level, similar to mathematics without all the
abbreviations.

No, there aren't any jobs for philosophers, and their works are
generally very underappreciated during thier lives, but it's quite
difficult to say that it's useless, just often misunderstood by the
less forward thinking people of their time.

-- 
burton samograd kruhft .at. gmail
kruhft.blogspot.com www.myspace.com/kruhft  metashell.blogspot.com
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Philippe Martin]

Xah Lee wrote:

> Software Needs Philosophers
> 
> by Steve Yegge, 2006-04-15.
> 
> Software needs philosophers.
> 
> This thought has been nagging at me for a year now, and recently it's
> been growing like a tumor. One that plenty of folks on the 'net would
> love to see kill me.
> 
> People don't put much stock in philosophers these days. The popular
> impression of philosophy is that it's just rhetoric, just frivolous
> debating about stuff that can never properly be answered. ?Spare me
> the philosophy; let's stick to the facts!?
> 
> The funny thing is, it's philosophers who gave us the ability to think
> rationally, to stick to the facts. If it weren't for the work of
> countless philosophers, facts would still be getting people tortured
> and killed for discovering and sharing them.
> 
> Does it ever strike you as just a teeny bit odd that after a brief
> period where philosophy flourished, from maybe 400 B.C.E. to ~100 C.E.,
> we went through a follow-on period of well over one thousand five
> hundred years during which the Roman Catholic Church enslaved
> everyone's minds and killed anyone who dared think differently?
> 
> What's weirder is that we tend to pretend it didn't really happen. We
> like to just skip right over the dominance of religion over our minds
> for a hundred generations, and think of religion today as a kindly old
> grandpa who's just looking out for us kids. No harm, no foul. Let
> bygones be bygones. Sure, there were massacres and crusades and
> genocides and torture chambers with teeth grinding and eyes bleeding
> and intestines torn out in the name of God. But we were all just kids
> then, right? Nobody does that kind of thing today, at least not in
> civilized countries.
> 
> We try not to think about the uncivilized ones.
> 
> It was philosophers that got us out of that Dark Ages mess, and no
> small number of them lost their lives in doing so. And today, the
> philosophy majors are the butts of the most jokes, because after the
> philosophers succeeded in opening our minds, we forgot why we needed
> them.
> 
> And if we stop to think about it at all, we think that it was other
> people, people who are very unlike us, who committed those atrocities
> in the name of Faith (regardless of whether it's faith in a god, or in
> a political party, or any other form of mind control carried out by
> force).
> 
> We like to think we live in an enlightened age, but we don't. Humans
> haven't changed significantly in 10,000 years. We're still killing and
> torturing each other. It's apparently incredibly easy to decide to kill
> someone and then do it. Happens every day, all around the world.
> Torture, too.
> 
> But those people are just people. If they had been born down the street
> from you, they'd have gone to school with you, been friends with you,
> learned to program with you, written blogs and comments, never tortured
> or killed anyone in the name of an idea. They'd have been you. Which
> means they are you; you just got lucky in where you were born.
> 
> One of the commenters on my last blog entry expressed the fervent wish
> that I drop dead. To be sure, they qualified it with ?on the
> internet?. But if they really feel that way, especially about
> something as hilariously and absurdly unimportant in the Grand Scheme
> as whether the Lisp programming language has any acceptable
> implementations, then what does it say about us?
> 
> Everyone who commented angrily on that blog entry was caught. I caught
> you, anonymous or not, being a religious fanatic. The only
> ?negative? commenter who doesn't appear to be a religious zombie
> was Paul Costanza (ironic, since he claims to be the opinionated one),
> who relegated his comments to pedantic technical corrections. They're
> welcome, of course; I'm always looking to correct any technical
> misconceptions I harbor. But they're moot, since even if I was wrong
> about every single technical point I brought up in that entry, my
> overall point ? Lisp is not an acceptable Lisp ? remains largely
> uncontested by the commenters.
> 
> Some of them just don't get it, which is fine; no harm in that. If
> you've been using Lisp for years and years, and you've written books
> and articles and zillions of lines of Lisp code, then you're unlikely
> to remember anything about what it's like coming to Lisp for the first
> time. They're religious because they've forgotten what it's like to be
> a skeptic.
> 
> But make no mistake; a substantial percentage of people who take a side
> in any programming language discussion that d

Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Tel A.]

Xah,

I agree with the thrust of your thread here, though I don't think it's
anything special: people invest their values in what they invest their
time in. To top it off, you're taking an anti-CL viewpoint in a group
predominantly focused around CL (despite being named for just lisp).
You're fighting against group polarization even as you fuel it.

Nevertheless, I agree with your point.

Unfortunately, I think you need to look closer into the philosophy of
your own writing. Rhetoric might not produce definitive answers, but it
has a purpose.

If you're looking for a place to openly criticize lisp, to search for
ways to improve it or to craft an alternative then, simply and without
malevolence, look somewhere else. That is the frustrated plea of those
who respond violently to your posts. C.l.l. isn't so versatile;
however, I'm sure the people here are if you approach the problem from
the right angle, with the right rhetoric.

Good luck.

-- 
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Ilias Lazaridis]

Mark Shelor wrote:
> Xah Lee wrote:
> 
>> Programming languages are religions. For a long while now I've been
...

...
> Is there really something new out there?  I would argue that software 
> needs innovation more than it needs philosophers.

software needs innovation.

innovation needs philosophy.

philosophy needs openness.

-

For readers which like a more compact overview of LISP (and its 
surrounding community):

"Showcase for: how the "human factor" can negate, eliminate and even 
reverse the evolution of a Programming Language System."

http://lazaridis.com/core/eval/lisp.html

-

Note: the results of this reviews are currently moved into several 
projects:

http://lazaridis.com/pj

http://case.lazaridis.com/multi

.

-- 
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Pascal Bourguignon]

"SamFeltus" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Software needs philosophers is an interesting point, perhaps the most
> important function of Philosophers is exposing Sacred Cows as just
> Cattle.

As I see it philosophers have a big problem: nobody need them, so
they're out of job.  That's why we see occasional articles "X needs
philosophers".  I just ask: where are the job offers?


-- 
__Pascal_Bourguignon__   _  Software patents are endangering
()  ASCII ribbon against html email (o_ the computer industry all around
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[M Jared Finder]

SamFeltus wrote:
> Religious Fanaticism is a very strong in the Computer community.  But,
> is it really a surprise that when a bunch of hairless apes created a
> new mental world, they created it with a complicated Quilt of religions
> and nationalities, and many became fanatical?
> 
> I am confidant the responces Xah will recieve will validate his
> observation on religious fanaticism.  It is funny, Xah always questions
> people's Sacred Cow's, I have often noted that the reponces often read
> like the writings of religious fanatics.  As a Georgian (US), the
> responces often remind me of the Dark Side (there is a Light) of the
> Southern Baptist Church, translated into Computer Speak.
> 
> Software needs philosophers is an interesting point, perhaps the most
> important function of Philosophers is exposing Sacred Cows as just
> Cattle.

Finally, someone else who sees that Xah's posts consistently expose 
valid problems!  (Though his solutions are usually not well thought out.)

   -- MJF
-- 
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Dražen Gemić]

Xah Lee wrote:
> Software Needs Philosophers
> 

Welcome to my junk filters 

DG
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[SamFeltus]

Religious Fanaticism is a very strong in the Computer community.  But,
is it really a surprise that when a bunch of hairless apes created a
new mental world, they created it with a complicated Quilt of religions
and nationalities, and many became fanatical?

I am confidant the responces Xah will recieve will validate his
observation on religious fanaticism.  It is funny, Xah always questions
people's Sacred Cow's, I have often noted that the reponces often read
like the writings of religious fanatics.  As a Georgian (US), the
responces often remind me of the Dark Side (there is a Light) of the
Southern Baptist Church, translated into Computer Speak.

Software needs philosophers is an interesting point, perhaps the most
important function of Philosophers is exposing Sacred Cows as just
Cattle.

---
Sam the Gardener  
http://SamFeltus.com
http://SonomaSunshine.com

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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[corff]

In comp.lang.perl.misc Xah Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

: the way through the Software Dark Ages we're in today: a time that will

Wrong. We live in a paradise of ideas and possibilities well beyond the
wildest dreams of only 20 years ago.
 
: But I've failed. This isn't the essay I wanted to write, because I'm
: neither a great thinker nor a great writer.

Finally you got _something_ right.

Anyway, unless ($your_text=m/\b[Pp]erl\b/) {print "Completely OT."}

Sorry for feeding the unspeakable, Oliver.


-- 
Dr. Oliver Corff  e-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: Software Needs Philosophers

[Mark Shelor]

Xah Lee wrote:

> Programming languages are religions. For a long while now I've been
> mildly uncomfortable calling it “religion”, but I don't feel bad
> about it anymore. They're similar enough. At the top of the language
> religion is the language itself; it serves as the deity and the object
> of worship.


Programmers often display religious devotion to their chosen 
language(s).  But that's a reflection of the programmer, not of the 
language.

Programming languages are nothing more than instruments: a means for 
describing the process of computation.  Any given language has no 
meaning or significance above and beyond its use as an instrument for 
describing and performing computations.

What's the need for religion or mysticism, other than to impart false 
importance to problems that are already well-understood?  There's no 
measurable value or progress in such an endeavor.  Instrumentalism is a 
more constructive path.


> Problem is, each time you switch religions, the next one has less
> impact on you. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic, they say. I don't
> know what that means for me, since I was raised by the
> assembly-language wolf, but it appears to mean that I'm never going to
> be enthralled with another programming language. And now that I've
> swallowed the red pill, what choice do I have? I need to try to show
> people what's out there.


Is there really something new out there?  I would argue that software 
needs innovation more than it needs philosophers.

Mark
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Software Needs Philosophers

[Xah Lee]

Software Needs Philosophers

by Steve Yegge, 2006-04-15.

Software needs philosophers.

This thought has been nagging at me for a year now, and recently it's
been growing like a tumor. One that plenty of folks on the 'net would
love to see kill me.

People don't put much stock in philosophers these days. The popular
impression of philosophy is that it's just rhetoric, just frivolous
debating about stuff that can never properly be answered. “Spare me
the philosophy; let's stick to the facts!”

The funny thing is, it's philosophers who gave us the ability to think
rationally, to stick to the facts. If it weren't for the work of
countless philosophers, facts would still be getting people tortured
and killed for discovering and sharing them.

Does it ever strike you as just a teeny bit odd that after a brief
period where philosophy flourished, from maybe 400 B.C.E. to ~100 C.E.,
we went through a follow-on period of well over one thousand five
hundred years during which the Roman Catholic Church enslaved
everyone's minds and killed anyone who dared think differently?

What's weirder is that we tend to pretend it didn't really happen. We
like to just skip right over the dominance of religion over our minds
for a hundred generations, and think of religion today as a kindly old
grandpa who's just looking out for us kids. No harm, no foul. Let
bygones be bygones. Sure, there were massacres and crusades and
genocides and torture chambers with teeth grinding and eyes bleeding
and intestines torn out in the name of God. But we were all just kids
then, right? Nobody does that kind of thing today, at least not in
civilized countries.

We try not to think about the uncivilized ones.

It was philosophers that got us out of that Dark Ages mess, and no
small number of them lost their lives in doing so. And today, the
philosophy majors are the butts of the most jokes, because after the
philosophers succeeded in opening our minds, we forgot why we needed
them.

And if we stop to think about it at all, we think that it was other
people, people who are very unlike us, who committed those atrocities
in the name of Faith (regardless of whether it's faith in a god, or in
a political party, or any other form of mind control carried out by
force).

We like to think we live in an enlightened age, but we don't. Humans
haven't changed significantly in 10,000 years. We're still killing and
torturing each other. It's apparently incredibly easy to decide to kill
someone and then do it. Happens every day, all around the world.
Torture, too.

But those people are just people. If they had been born down the street
from you, they'd have gone to school with you, been friends with you,
learned to program with you, written blogs and comments, never tortured
or killed anyone in the name of an idea. They'd have been you. Which
means they are you; you just got lucky in where you were born.

One of the commenters on my last blog entry expressed the fervent wish
that I drop dead. To be sure, they qualified it with “on the
internet”. But if they really feel that way, especially about
something as hilariously and absurdly unimportant in the Grand Scheme
as whether the Lisp programming language has any acceptable
implementations, then what does it say about us?

Everyone who commented angrily on that blog entry was caught. I caught
you, anonymous or not, being a religious fanatic. The only
“negative” commenter who doesn't appear to be a religious zombie
was Paul Costanza (ironic, since he claims to be the opinionated one),
who relegated his comments to pedantic technical corrections. They're
welcome, of course; I'm always looking to correct any technical
misconceptions I harbor. But they're moot, since even if I was wrong
about every single technical point I brought up in that entry, my
overall point — Lisp is not an acceptable Lisp — remains largely
uncontested by the commenters.

Some of them just don't get it, which is fine; no harm in that. If
you've been using Lisp for years and years, and you've written books
and articles and zillions of lines of Lisp code, then you're unlikely
to remember anything about what it's like coming to Lisp for the first
time. They're religious because they've forgotten what it's like to be
a skeptic.

But make no mistake; a substantial percentage of people who take a side
in any programming language discussion that devolves into a flamewar
know exactly what the other side means, and they want to invoke the
Ultimate Censorship: drop dead! Killing someone, after all, is one of
the best ways to silence them. You also have to burn all their
writings, which is getting harder these days; hence the increased
vehemence on the 'net.

Those of you who've followed what I've written over the past year or so
know where I'm going. I'm taking a stand, all right