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Re: The most soul-destroying things about computing

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2phar <none@example.com>:

> I gotta say coding these days doesn't seem much fun a lot of the time
> compared to the old days.. dunno if others feel the same.
>
> I think a lot of it has to do with working with so many opaque layers
> of libraries.

Well, if the libraries only were well thought out...

I must say the past year ranks among the funnest episodes during my 35+
years of computing. Have had a rare opportunity to put a lot of my pet
ideas into productive, professional use.

It *is* a bit depressing how after all these decades we are still
struggling with lots of really elementary issues. For example, why
doesn't Python have a balanced tree implementation in its standard
library like Java? Why do database commit functions and Linux file
operations block? Why haven't GUI libraries significantly evolved since
the 1980's but GUI developers still have to hardcode pixel offsets in
their designs?

But there's the shinier side of the coin, too. Computers are everywhere.
You don't have to buy a new one every year anymore. You have all the
programming facilities you can hope for, and your home is as powerful a
computing center as your workplace. High-level programming languages
have broken through and perform nicely. Linux's epoll really is the
greatest thing since sliced bread. The ubiquitous Internet has taken the
women of the world by storm and has also become an architectural Swiss
army knife in most software. Virtualization really works and has tons of
uses.

And emacs still rules the bunch!


Marko

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Thread

The most soul-destroying things about computing 2phar <none@example.com> - 2014-02-10 13:00 -0500
  Re: The most soul-destroying things about computing Koen Lefever <koen.lefever@gmail.com> - 2014-02-10 11:09 -0800
  Re: The most soul-destroying things about computing Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-02-10 22:01 +0200
    Re: The most soul-destroying things about computing Vince Mulhollon <vincemulhollon@gmail.com> - 2014-02-11 06:51 -0800
  Re: The most soul-destroying things about computing Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> - 2014-02-10 15:51 -0500
    Re: The most soul-destroying things about computing deepmagicbeginshere@gmail.com - 2014-02-10 18:15 -0800
  Re: The most soul-destroying things about computing Lance Orner <lance@orner.invalid.net> - 2014-02-11 03:55 +0000
  Re: The most soul-destroying things about computing Oregonian Haruspex <bob_davis_retired@yahoo.com> - 2014-02-12 20:20 -0800

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