SICP, 1986: - recursive tree walks - AI - lisp - prolog - magic
2013: - overengineered nonsense like visual studio and java - hipstr.js, a new "framework" that uses 120% of your CPU to do nothing useful - "cloud" computing, a return to 1960's remote-access services in lieu of personal computing, for the greater profit of software giants - fisherprice "apps" the design of which assumes computer users are 3 years old
Today Apple with their "user-friendly" unprogrammable devices are king, enslaving people into believing that a "computer" is a gadget for wasting time on websites and not a means of computing things
If you don't buy new "devices" every year and contribute your share to world pollution, you're not cool. Even though we now have many gigahertz of CPU and many gigabytes of RAM, upgrades are considered proper etiquette.
When software lets you connect with customers when and where they want, that's business with .NET.
When objects fall back to the ground after they are thrown, that's business with gravity.
As they said in the olden days before this website was run over by spammers and racists, DISCUSS.
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Anonymous2014-07-09 9:11
>>1 I agree with you so hard I am overwhelmed with feelings.
The ordinary people should never have been granted computing power. It should have remained reserved only for those who would seek it out.
This is ridiculous. Technology should be available for everyone. It's just that you neckbeards are doing everything wrong.
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Anonymous2014-07-09 9:30
>>3 Technology is available for everyone, and it is an unmitigated, horrifying disaster. And now you see the results: an internet that reflects the taste of the morons and spammers that it is filled with, and ubiquitous computing devices used not to create and explore, but to spy on and control a population that is too stupid to understand what they have given up. Technology is wasted on the bulk of humanity.
And "neckbeards"? What are you even doing on this board?
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Anonymous2014-07-09 9:40
Is there a feeling better than [b]the pleasure of being cummed inside[b]?
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Anonymous2014-07-09 9:41
>>4 These things are all self evident. >>3 used the classic tactic of saying something generally understood to be wrong to waste your energy and keep us off balance, to keep us stuck in an old argument, to keep us from making real progress with creative constructive discussions and work.
Fast Food is available for everyone, and it is an unmitigated, horrifying disaster. And now you see the results: a bunch of restaurants that reflects the palette of the morons and fatties that it is filled with, and ubiquitous cooking devices used not to create and explore, but to imprison and control a population that is too stupid to understand what they have given up. Chef is wasted on the bulk of humanity.
>>1,4 Computers aren't even becoming easy-to-use, they're becoming dumbed-down. There's a difference between the two -- easy-to-use means the learning curve permits a novice to accomplish what they set out to do (perhaps taking a bit more time than an expert), while dumbed-down means you can't do anything that the unimaginative App coder didn't foresee. Think of your least computer-savvy relative, and imagine them wanting to send a secure email, or to set up encryption, or to make a secure videocall (there's exactly one program for that right now and it's a buggy piece of shit).
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Anonymous2014-07-09 11:28
>>10 Computers are dumbed down for the same reason mathematics and actual programming isn't popular - people have made it abundantly clear that they aren't interested in the concepts and subtle ideas that are an absolute prerequisite for doing more than the unimaginative App coder provided, for using the computer with skill and grace.
Computers and software where people could achieve what you describe were invented then summarily ignored by the general public. Lisp machines and systems, and the Smalltalk machines of Engelbart/Kay for example. You can't make a general purpose computing instrument gentler on people who don't want to learn anything without apping apps and Fisher-Price toys that won't scare them away.
For your health. SPAGHETT
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Anonymous2014-07-09 11:32
"We have allowed what could have once become the most unbridled creative endeavor known to man short of pure mathematics to become a largely janitorial trade; what could have been the greatest amplification of human intellect in all of history – comparable only to the advent of written language – is now confined to imitating and trivially improving on the major technological breakthroughs of the 19th century – the telegraph, telephone, phonograph, and typewriter."
- Stanislav Datskovskiy, Shards of a lost technology.
before this website was run over by spammers and racists
Fuck off faggot, kike, niggerskin who pretend to be a girl but you still have a dick and will have it forever because you love being a ugly abomination
Computers and software where people could achieve what you describe were invented then summarily ignored by the general public.
Not really. When has it ever been easy to send a secure email? When has it ever been easy to manage a web-of-trust? Why is there no program that can keep encrypted full-text search indexes of encrypted emails?
Computers and software where people could achieve what you describe were invented then summarily ignored by the general public. Lisp machines and systems, and the Smalltalk machines of Engelbart/Kay for example.
They were way before their time, and you can't blame users for not being able to judge systems correctly when programmers themselves sometimes can't.
You can't make a general purpose computing instrument gentler on people who don't want to learn anything without apping apps and Fisher-Price toys that won't scare them away.
Those people would churn shit code anyway regardless of the programming environment. Give them Lisp and they'll abuse macros, the metaobject system, and the typesystem to kingdom come.
>>13 Oh ho ho, I guess we hit a nerve there, white trash.
I have to object to the comment on Apple being unprogrammable. OS X comes with bash, perl, python, and ruby as part of the standard install, plus the optional xcode. Compare that to what Microsoft gives you.
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Anonymous2014-07-09 13:38
>>17 It doesn't matter what it comes with if the hardware prevents you from running any unsigned executables.
>>18 And also if your OS has backdoors that can prevent you from running unsigned code in the future ("for your safety"), or spy on you ("for the children"), or god knows what.
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Anonymous2014-07-09 15:07
>>18 My Haskell poems don't have any problems with that.
Okay, I realize everyone else here has gotten used to it, but for me, the constant ethnic slurs and race-based conspiracy theories have been sucking the fun out of /prog/ for a long time. It's not even the fact that these are mean things to say. Rather, it's the lack of imagination. You guys are button mashing the same tiny vocabulary of boring memes over and over again. Hell, even that wouldn't be a big deal if I couldn't hear exactly the same generic brand white power logorrhea at a sleazy bar two blocks from here every Friday night.
I'm starting to think my time would be better spent on [s4s].
>>38 Typical shitskin 4channer. Go back there. It is z and you can't prove me wrong. Nobody cares about your arbitrary pseudo-intellectual nerd culture understanding of ``optimization''.
>>39 Made up acronym Soldiers of the Queen (historical journal; Victorian Military Society; UK)? retard
>>44 This might surprise you, but I invented the ``back to 4chan'' meme everyone here is from 4chan if you go far enough. Telling random posters to go back there doesn't make you look like a part of the cool /prog/ oldfag elite, it makes you look like a fucking moron.
Back in 1986? Our field wasn't flooded by hipster design faggots with their ironic horn-rimmed glasses, skinny jeans and mustaches.
overengineered nonsense like visual studio and java
Management should never make design decisions, neither should a single programmer, or any group of easily-agreeing programmers.
hipstr.js
It's an easy-to-get-into language, like all dynamically typed languages, IT JEST WERKZ. It may not work well, but it won't crash horribly, and that's what newbies (and hipsters) like.
"cloud" computing
Marketing and dumb-users it not a good mix.
fisherprice "apps" the design of which assumes computer users are 3 years old
That's retards hipstr.js peeps tapping into a volatile market, blame the users for buying that shit, not us programmers. If anything, we can't do anything about it. We write, market or use apps. Blame the users.
All this really boils down to is this: Yeah it sucks, but is there anything we programmers can do something about?
We can't make 'a better platform', because it would require app support.
Come to think of it? App stores are really just package repositories. Can't we make/use/distribute-to-end-users our own open-source and cross-platform package repo?
I blame software for the state of modern programming. How many of those corner-rounding fools even know what a capacitor is? How many would even be interested in knowing the transistor pattern for a simple AND gate? How many would have the brain capacity to count out the clock cycles by hand to make a real time, timing critical program?
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Anonymous2014-07-12 13:43
>>52 Disgusting. Thank goodness most people do not need to know any of this.
>>54 Code monkeys are the ones who focus on the useless hardware shit and think that code is secondary in importance. Code monkeys spend most of their time making prematurely optimized, obfuscated, unreusable and inextensible code.
Code monkeys don't even know what a computer looks like inside its case
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Anonymous2014-07-12 16:32
>>58 You have the wrong definition then. The ones that don't know are program wizards who think in terms of meta-algebras and cofree comonads. One line of code from such a wizard is worth a thousand OPTIMIZED SEPPLES lines from a code monkey.
Program wizards? Sounds more like program rabbis to me. Meta-algebra is the most jewish I've read this week
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Anonymous2014-07-12 16:45
>>60 That's because you are incapable of abstract thought and should go back to charging capacitors or welding transistors or whatever it is that code monkeys do. Pure thought is not for you.