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by bjz_
3453 days ago
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Maybe we should make it de rigeur that people relate their "inventions" with past art? A lot of times, when I point out past art, I get met with instant open hostility from younger devs. Is it any wonder that programming has the attributes of a popular medium, not a field of engineering study? [...] If young coders want to be the future intelligentsia and harbingers of a better kind of programming, they need to foster a set of subcultural norms that best leverages collective knowledge. Programming has to become a field that remembers its own history and can learn from its mistakes. Graydon has consistently pointed out Rusts influences, indeed it is one of the reasons behind its name - ie. 'rusty old ideas'. But the influences of the creator are not enough. We need to promote the value of a historical perspective in our discourse, and so I I'm glad for your post. As a young developer I see it in my peers, but even sadder I also see it in my mentors and elders. So often there is two extremes of fervent excitement and lack of imagination that things could be better beyond ones own experience... both borne out of a lack of historical literacy. That said, I don't mind reinventing the wheel in new ways - every time our wheels get better and better. But perhaps they could get better faster with fewer steps backwards with a little schooling on the foundations of our field. |
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Not always. Pry debugging Ruby can be pretty awesome but still often leaves a lot to be desired compared to the VisualWorks Smalltalk debugger+environment. Then there's the One Laptop Per Child project. How many developers were trying to recreate things that already existed in Smalltalk? What if they could've freed up the developer power wasted in that wheel reinvention? Seriously, a lot of the advanced state saving/rollback features would've just come for free in Smalltalk.