Shamar @Shamar@qoto.org

"What have I learnt?" asks Niklaus #Wirth.
"#Programs must not be regarded as #code for #computers, but as #literature for #humans"

I hope that one day people will really understand and embrace Wirth's legacy.

We will have a better cybernetic world then.

https://video.ethz.ch/conferences/2014/wirth/d40b0ce9-b9fa-4ba3-8dee-cf9d0c6f01a4.html

Nice series on #Oberon

https://rsdoiel.github.io/series/mostly-oberon.html

@pzmyers@octodon.social

I did.

But if you try to unite activists' leaders towards the removal of structural issues they will find way to fight you as an enemy.

Their status, power and visibility come from fighting such issue.

If it was fixed for real, they would loose any role.

@natecull

I'd say that most of current day software complexity is unneeded but it's always either accidental or actively pursued to gain one sort of artificial and undue power over people (reduced to "users") or another.

But both accidental and pursued complexity usually stem from underlying systems (hardware included) that do not provide orthogonal abstractions to build upon.

Imagine if you had to define circles on a plane but with non-orthogonal axes.

The simple x²+y²=r² would not work anymore and you'd have to invent the weirdest tricks to get a formula that works.

And anything you'd have to build on top of such formula would be even more complex.

So the pursuit for simplicity is first and foremost a pursuit for orthogonal axes that can effectively describe any computation (a space that is way more complex than a plane) in the simplest (but exahustive) possible way.

That was what I was looking with #Jehanne, but I'm still unhappy of it.
Not just because of the lack of time to work on it or because of plain (but very expensive) errors like GCC.

It's still too complex and arcane. 😥

@natecull

I'm reasoning about this topic too.

I was wondering how to teach #Jehanne to my daughters (it's pretty simple compared to other OS) but it's still full of arcane words, with ugly syntax and weird semantics.

I'm pretty sure we should know better: what wrong assumptions arr poisoning the future of computing?
(Yeah, capitalism apart...)

Why we cannot even think simpler languages (and systems) without so much glibberish?

All programming languages use weird syntax, one way or another, to "maximize programmer productivity" (for some definition of it, if any) with multiple equivalent ways to express a computation.

All use complex type systems (as system F and derivatives) that most people cannot really understand.
Or they use complex runtime rules to counter-balance the lack of any type system.

All scripting languages use different syntaxes, all use different data format (converging to json, that sucks in many ways...), all have different command line switches...

We can do better for sure!

@abbienormal

Sure, it's not betraial: that's a well known parassitic strategy of the Radical Party.

I've seen it at work in the Italian Pirate Party and trust me: nothing good can come from those people. They fight high-visibility controversial battles without any intention to win them for real. It's the worst ally you can have, even if they say all the right things you want to listen *in public*.

@yaaps@banana.dog

@dataKnightmare@octodon.social

Hey!

@estebanm

Oh... yeah I see.

Behind the scenes, despite the moralism and all the fuss about social justice and so on, #US corporate culture is still nostalgic of #slavery.

Yeah it's true: we have a vary bad attitude towards slavery in Europe.

And towards unpaid or underpaid work, that is the same form of oppression under a different brand.

@MatejLach

@MatejLach

Low work ethic in the EU?

Just discovered #AdAway (VPN mode).

Strongly advised.