[jingo]

That Knuth quote by itself is interesting.

Perhaps he is not suggesting that popular ideas likely to be are wrong.

Instead maybe he is saying that to think and develop ideas like Knuth's one needs a certain amount of irreverance for what is popular.

(Undue?) reverance is rampant in the software industry, in my opinion. Would Knuth agree?

[soveran]

An extended version of the quote would be "Don't just believe that because something is trendy, that it's good. I would go the other extreme where if I find too many people adopting a certain idea I'd probably think it's wrong. Or if my work had become too popular I probably would think I have to change." I took it from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75Ju0eM5T2c

[kelseydh]

Unfortunately this sentiment is why software is plagued with an unhealthy culture of constantly needing (/wanting) to learn new languages and frameworks.

The "elite" developers (who often don't actually maintain real production apps, or need to live with the consequences of their design choices) begin to fad over a new language. O'Reilly publishes a book and sure enough... Influential senior developers who obsess over these elites start fangirling, leading them to convince their bosses/teams/companies to also adopt this new "cool" technology. As the popular tide of generic bandwagoners rises, the "elite" developer begin to feel the pressures of wanting to redefine their identity again, and soon jump ship to switch to the next hot thing.

Then the process repeats...

[stonemetal]

I think you are correct, I don't think he means popular ideas are likely to be wrong. Just more likely to be misused or misapplied. As in the linked article, they received a lot of advice to use rails not because it was the right tool for the job but because it was the popular tool for a vaguely similar job. Also no one had the knowledge to comment on their selected tool because it wasn't the popular tool.

[Roboprog]

As a developer in the "out-back" (California Central Valley / Sacramento area), I find it a bit funny watching somebody who gets to use Ruby (at all) angsting over which framework to use. At least they have escaped the XML-Hell trap that is JEE.

I'm happy for the guy that he gets to do anything at all beyond that which is promoted by Oracle or Microsoft. I suppose Google might belong on the list of "Promoters not to be Ignored", as well, but they haven't flogged the use of inappropriate hammers enough, yet.

[jingo]

"JEE"

"Oracle or Microsoft"

Would any self-respecting programmer follow along with such idiocy if they were not paid to do so?

[Roboprog]

Certainly not the things I reach for when I'm at home, but that is indeed what they pay me to do :-)

[amelius]

I hope that quote doesn't become popular, because it may invalidate itself.

[cheatsheet]

This is the most ironically stupid thing about hacker culture. It's just as 'follow the leader' as directly following the leader, and it makes the culture and the people in it definably predictable.

Actually reasoning about stuff when stuff can be reasoned about, and considering most opinions to be superfluous nonsense is the right direction. Opinions follow abstract models. You can pretty much find a computational or mathematical model, throw some nouns and verbs on it, and bam, you've got an opinion that has nothing to do with reality.

[jingo]

"You can pretty much find a computational model..."

I humbly request some illustrative examples. Note I agree with you. Examples can be powerful (and, unfortunately, polarizing). Whatever you can share would be appreciated.

[cheatsheet]

Epistomology, psychology, and information theory tend to reflect them in an almost mirror way.

Then again, is it just me who sees the patterns in the words, or are the patterns actually there? I think it probably depends on how you mind constructs analogies and relations between it's map of cultural topics and dialogue, etc. It just bother me when I see flashes of pictures that I normally equate with programming and math, that model the relational structure of what I'm reading. The two have nothing to do with one another, and yet they persist in flashing across the visual processing part of my mind without me doing anything. I am occasionally fascinated by determining whether they mean anything, or where they come from.

People use terms though - black and white thinking, etc. Lots of analogies and metaphors have very simple abstract forms. It's memes, deeply validated patterns. They don't have to be true in reality as long as people keep talking about them and agreeing they exist.

I feel as though I have become a scientist scientist. Thanks for the kind words, but I'm just trying to get through a rough mental space. I prefer maintaining a zen beginner mind, because it is fairly easy to silence doubt.