This is an objectively idiotic and uninformed take.
Do you people think we spend our weekends tweaking our configs because that is how we get our fun? Some do, sure, the vast majority have created their config once and find themselves more productive compared to whatever alternative you might be suggesting. Configuring vim or eMacs is an investment, as you are likely to still see it around in 20 years. Being familiar with one’s tools is the key to productivity.
Calling it an ‘obsessive hacker tool’ just shows you don’t know what you’re talking about, but come with preconceived notions about why people prefer other tools.
Geez, I’m not saying there are none. I’m saying it’s silly to characterise it as an editor for puzzle lovers. You knowing ‘quite a few people’ can’t be generalised to the millions that use vim daily.
It’s like that joke: I admire Jesus Christ, it’s his fan club I really can’t stand.
You can substitute that with Rust and it sums up my feelings. The language is great, the obsession with static typing and memory safety from its fans, as if it’s the panacea to all problems in computing, is obnoxious and smells of inexperience. It’s not a coincidence that Rust these days is baby’s first low level language, so you get a lot of strong, uninformed opinions on software design.
People don't use vim because they enjoy puzzle solving. I don't even know how you got this conception. People use vim because they are effective at editing with vim, period, just like you are effective with Sublime Text.
People don't use Linux because they enjoy tweaking config files and everybody else has too busy a life to do that. That's a silly misconception and veiled attempt at feeling superior at those time-wasters.
> rather treating the flaws as if they are things to have a puzzle game to work around
Case in point.
Good tools are indeed invisible, but the arguments the article is built on are very shaky and honestly just sound from someone that didn't spend much time with other tools, but still has strong opinions about them.
> Millions of programmers out there, and you're saying there's not even a 1% chance that a single one of them is moving 10x faster
Would that mean that every other claim to be moving 10x faster is an exaggeration? It evidently is, as these claims of massively increased productivity are purely anecdotal.
If the claims were ‘5% productive across the board’, it would be huge, but 1000%? That is a ludicrous tall story that requires extraordinary proof.
I am afraid the author confuses familiarity with proof that his tools are better. The reality is that every tool has a trade off, and if a user prefers tool X compared to tool Y, it’s not because they are dumb, but likely they make better use of the affordances of that tool that only a power user would get.
Give a developer 10 years each with vim, emacs and Sublime Text, they wouldn’t be so sure which is better. [1] They might have a personal favourite, sure, but would also be able to tell why other people prefer other tools.
I am afraid this is one of those arguments borne of ignorance whereby one is has never given a proper chance to software they are unfamiliar with.
1: to me the mark of a greybeard that has been around a while is a vague dislike of every software and any promise of improving such software. In the long run, every piece of software tends towards mediocrity.
Fuck this and whoever is driving this type of research. We’re increasingly living in a world designed by sociopaths. What do these people think this research will be used for?
I wish we had the Hippocratic oath for STEM, or at least that they would take ethics seriously rather than an afterthought against the god of Progress at all costs.
> interest in learning anything new related to software
I reckon the last large piece of technology I have learned is Kubernetes, and I doubt I’ll ever go any further.
On the other hand, I’ve sought some comfort in digital art, and learned a lot about Blender, level design, architecture, but it’s hard to feel like an impostor, after seeing myself as a programmer since I was in my teens. I wish I could find the strength and recklessness to just jump into the unknown and embrace a totally new career. I would have done it in a heartbeat in my 20s, now that I’m reaching 40 years old it is existentially terrifying.
I really dislike how politicized it feels, or rather, how multipartisan the HN community is. It's like Hacker News, but the audience is from BlueSky. Thanks, but no thanks.
Imagine Rupert Murdoch (95, worth $21.7 billion) arguing the pros and cons of job displacement and widening economic inequality caused by generative AI.
Light and dark is propaganda depending on which side you're on.
I'm with you, on the dark side I've seen people slowly turn into crabs, screeching about memory safety and static types. Can you imagine that? Now stick those wings on me, I'm going to fly close to the sun.
Yeah but apart from SBCL, Viaweb, Hacker News, Emacs, Clojure, Scheme, Racket, garbage collection, macros, homoiconicity, the REPL, S-expressions, symbolic computation, what has Lisp ever done for us?
There is no win condition. Despite the usefulness claims of generative AI, it is a net negative on society and on education. Humanity will somehow make do and get used to it; but I doubt the upheaval we will have to go through the next X decades will have any silver lining other than “we made billionaires richer and exponentially increased wealth disparity”
I honestly pity watching my fellow software engineers rush to adapt to this new dystopia, just to stay afloat a little while longer before they are truly obsolete. It is quite tragic.
That applies everywhere. You’re commenting on a forum for startups that compete against established players. David will always, in the long run, win against Goliath.