Pierre Johnson wrote:
> What I never forget is that just like air traffic controllers
> are pushing tin, using a computer is pushing bits. Knowing
> what's going on through memory is important. Knowing that trees
> of Judy arrays make better use of memory than other data
> structure designs.
It sounds here like you think it's very important to know how the
hardware works when you write programs. Maybe I interpreted it
incorrectly. I'm from a social democratically governed country across
the pond, so obviously I'm stupid. (<-- Joke, even though I must admit I
was initially offended. Not that you care.)
I agree, but not entirely. Sometimes it is important to use a suitable
level of abstraction, for the sake of productivity, if nothing else.
Quantum physicists may argue that you have to know quantum physics, or
at least electro physics, in order to fully understand what a program
does. That may be true, but hardly productive as it would take many
years of studies to reach the point where you can see the whole picture,
and even then, it would take a lot of time and mental energy to
comprehend even a "hello world!" type program.
I think that many times you are better off not thinking about the bits
too much and I think the abstractions are the main point of REBOL. The
series concept and dialects are my favorite parts, anyway.
Computers are now sufficiently fast for me to not always care if I'm
using a list or an array or a red-black tree etc. Just "block!" is
enough info for me, when I write programs that I think REBOL is well
suited for.
Productivity is very important to me as I don't want to spend all my
time on writing software. Personally, I prefer to know only just enough
details for my software to work well enough. It does not have to be
optimal, as long as it gets the job done. This is truly the strength of
REBOL, as far as I'm concerned.
> In any event, it's irrelevant to me whether others agree. What
> matters is what I can leverage from the scant few smart ones who
> contribute to this mailing list.
>
> Comments other 99.9% of the participants, obviously
> 20-dumbthings and horrifically indocintrated socialists from
> across the pond, go right into the /ignore pile.
>
> Why REBOL the product languishes is obvious. There's only a
> small sect of obnoxious nerds sycophantically worshipping a few
> persons connected to it.
Sounds to me like you would prefer a mailing list consisting only of a
group of people you consider smart. How can REBOL possibly become more
popular with an elitist attitude like that? Calling people dumb on a
programming mailing list is so utterly pointless. It achieves nothing,
except for this flame war I've now, stupidly enough, inserted myself
into. :-)
The whole point of the mailing list is for us REBOL programmers to share
thoughts and offer help to other REBOL programmers. I do not think the
purpose is to let a few brainiacs sit around and try to be smarter than
each other and call each other stupid when they don't agree with each other.
> Uneqivocally, the most successful product of all-time is the
> DTMF ("touch tone") telephone. Any person who can arrange in
> sequence 7 numbers, push buttons mapping to those numbers and
> who can hear/speak can use the best UI ever invented.
>
> The most successful computer products of all-time clearly are
> dBASE II (with interpreter, HOF-based language AND data storage
> format -- more than a DECADE before Java, Python, et. al), LOTUS
> 1-2-3, ZELDA, Mario Bros. and DOOM.
>
> The evident thread among these products is the appeal to the
> "everyman". These products let the any person get up and get
> going pronto.
You forget about the computer game "The Sims", which I believe is just
as successful as the games you mentioned. It may not be rocket science,
but it is fairly complex and it seems that it is the complexity, that to
some extent mimics real life, that players find attractive. All products
do not have to appeal to the everyman in the pick-up-and-play kind of
way in order to be successful. I think it is an error to assume so.
Also, success can be measured in many different ways. World domination
that the likes of Super Mario Bros and DOOM have achieved is not the
only type of acceptable success. Maybe it is enough for REBOL to appeal
to us socialist, indoctrinated, obnoxious, nerdy, 20-dumbthings.
/Martin Johannessson
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