sfk

Most software engineers think about problems in bureaucratic (object-oriented) ways and not in formal ways, because they have been ruined by their "training".

Once they have a job, they discover that convoluted OO code bases offer great job security, so nothing will ever change.

What is the point? Children need to learn how to think, not how to code.

Wow, after 7 days someone has bothered to downvote this. Here, you have another chance.

Usually comments that complain about downvotes are downvoted. Have another go, perhaps you'll reach -20. If you persist, you will be eminently qualified as a Wikipedia admin.

Downvoted again by mindless mainstream. Have another go, perhaps you'll reach -10.

Perhaps don't put your system in the path of a proton beam? I've had a large test suite that consistently used 8GB running for three years without ECC RAM. Any bit flip would have been caught by the test suite. My conclusion is that bit flips are entirely exaggerated (probably by the hardware industry for obvious reasons).

It's an essay, not a comprehensive treatise that might fill 1000 pages.

I was glad to see some of the old pg back. His startup essays tended to be bit artificial, as if he had to force himself to write them.

WWII had a cohesive effect on the American society and economy that lasted approximately until the 1980s. The results were more equality and less fragmentation during that period.

Since the 1980s technological progress and also social factors brought an ever increasing re-fragmentation, which, if not properly addressed, might lead to problems soon.

Acknowledging these problems is remarkable -- I think it's the first time pg did that.

I don't see how that follows. Consultants like Bruce Eckel have moved from C++ via Java to Python.

The current design is closer to the original design. Wait a couple of years, and the design you like will be back. Everything goes in circles for the reasons other people have mentioned above.

The process of creating cross links in one's mind that are actually still available when not staring at google.com works far better when in sitting in a library and reading actual books.

I think science (as opposed to hype like "big data") will progress faster again once the Internet goes out of fashion.

I'm pretty sure it isn't, but this question could be a trap.

What a load of marketing speak... You forgot to mention "synergy".

I think Python is a good language, but not for learning.

Everything that relates to theory (scoping, object system, typing) is poorly specified and has loads of special cases that can only be understood by using the language a lot.

I could swear that it was at #3 when I posted, but perhaps you're right. Anyway, there was no flame war or excessive incivility it that thread...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10532611

In this case the flagging is ridiculous and the moderators should ban the company IPs that the flags came from.

This thread dropped from number 3 to number 97 in 3 minutes right after I made the Google comment.

Censorship at its finest.

For me the quoted part is true: I've just ignored online ads until Google went malicious with their doodles:

I refuse to have every famous person of the past and the present to be subconsciously linked to six letters of a brand name.

So I installed adblock. This is quite ironic, since Google depends on people looking at ads.

Another this-is-how-the-world-works apologist on HN.

"If they get defensive, it’s an immediate no-go. Remember, there’s a difference between defending which is good and being defensive which is bad. The difference is that the former is based on rational facts, the other is based on emotion."

And whose call is it to make that distinction? Presumably the author of the optimal-hiring-procedure #122327 that has been posted here.

In 2015 open source software development is 90% about doing peripheral work, sit in committees of various foundations, force people to use a different infrastructure every two years, and generally, avoiding real work as much as possible.

Men would not even have the option to give up their career for their spouse, since that would trigger a divorce in most cases.

And yes, intelligent women are the worst in that respect. Until that changes, who is in denial?

"It appears that the voidnull account has been disabled on Hacker News."

I think they ban tor, or new-account tor users (which completely defeats the purpose of using tor in the first place).

Where are the 50% of open source projects that should have been started by women?

Or are they deleted from the Internet by those in power?

Seats of power? Any woman can start and maintain an OSS project like xterm. They don't, because it's a thankless task and either they aren't interested enough or they figure out the "thankless" part faster than men.

Here it is:

http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science

Obviously this is about averages, there will be several women here to whom the theory does not apply.

Even for HN standards, your comment is one of the most peculiar summaries I've read.

I was referring to "moving into a devices and services model for revenue as opposed to a software licensing model" - which I think is likely.

If every company starts doing this (using open source!), the majority of software will be written and maintained by volunteers begging for donations from said companies.

What will be left is devops jobs, "full stack" engineers, i.e. all jobs where you can't really focus on developing software.

Very few interesting jobs may remain in Microsoft Research.

I agree with much what you wrote, but why is this cause for happiness? It's basically the end of programming as a profession should every company go that way.

May I access your bank account and transfer some untouchable numbers to mine?