[HN Gopher] Freeing Your Goats
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       Freeing Your Goats
        
       Author : todsacerdoti
       Score  : 48 points
       Date   : 2021-08-30 19:32 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (hyperthings.garden)
 (TXT) w3m dump (hyperthings.garden)
        
       | ssivark wrote:
       | I was disappointed by how much of the previous discussion [1]
       | avoided what (in my reading) was the most interesting point --
       | the absolute _situated_ and _interactive_ nature of development
       | which almost no other language /system supports. ( _Hell, it was
       | even in the damn title!_ )
       | 
       | It would be really nice to see a thorough discussion focusing on
       | that.
       | 
       | ----
       | 
       | In the spirit of the author's desire to "get weird", I'm struck
       | by how often people's choice of programming languages (and tools,
       | more generally) is from a defensive stance. I understand that
       | when working on problems where better technology is unlikely to
       | lead to significant advantages (so you'd prefer to cap the
       | potential downsides), but I'm still surprised by the sheer
       | paucity of examples where people are willing to make aggressive
       | technology choices to get leverage on their goals, and solve
       | interesting & worthwhile problems.
       | 
       | ----
       | 
       | [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28345617
        
       | voidhorse wrote:
       | What? Were people really that negative about the first post? I
       | thought its combination of programming commentary and references
       | to Sartre and existentialism were great.
       | 
       | Sure totalitarian is an extreme word, but that's kind of the
       | point of hyperbole...the (in this case humorous) use of a word
       | that's semantically too strong.
       | 
       | I hope the OP doesn't give in to the negativity. That first essay
       | had a definite voice (the most important part of writing) and I
       | thought the whimsy totally worked. Maybe if you're a sensitive
       | Rust or Haskell fanboy the essay somehow offended you, but as a
       | sensitive Haskell fanboy that also loves lisp I gotta say, I
       | thought it was fun and entertaining and had an interesting
       | perspective on REPLs that's not often proclaimed.
        
       | platz wrote:
       | here we go again
        
         | saxonww wrote:
         | I was hoping to read an article about free range goats but
         | instead it's about programming languages. On Hacker News, of
         | all places.
        
           | type0 wrote:
           | If you have coyotes in the area, you can forget about the
           | free-ranging your goats.
        
           | shagie wrote:
           | You need to practice goatops. http://www.goatops.com
           | 
           | The HN post about it
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26336880 which has some
           | discussion about dairy goats and similar.
        
           | tialaramex wrote:
           | I was wondering if it was about "Buy your girlfriend a goat
           | day" which I am given to understand is a thing (a note about
           | it is on my friend's fridge, written by his girlfriend, so it
           | must be true).
        
             | toast0 wrote:
             | Does the girlfriend already have goats? If not, your friend
             | really should be looking for two goats, they're very social
             | and a friend is important. Although, I've heard goats are
             | happy to make friends with other animals too, if there's a
             | friendly sheep or a cow or a cat or something already
             | there.
             | 
             | This is the kind of thing I expected to be in the article!
        
               | type0 wrote:
               | Young goats are one of the most fun little farm animals,
               | build them something to jump on, they'll love it.
        
       | pjc50 wrote:
       | Props to the author for a graceful response, and I feel we should
       | apologize for giving it the usual HN kicking. Whimsy comes across
       | badly, and we've all had to deal with too many users of the word
       | "totalitarian" for trivial subjects who are deadly serious about
       | it.
       | 
       | But ..
       | 
       | > But with Common Lisp you just recompile the function while you
       | are looking at your avatar as it stands in the room. No need to
       | shut the game down first, no need to walk back to the room.
       | 
       |  _Ahem_ you can also do this in C#, Microsoft call it  "edit and
       | continue".
       | 
       | You can even turn it on for C++, but in that case it rarely
       | actually works.
       | 
       | Perhaps you can do it in Unity?
        
         | fmakunbound wrote:
         | > Ahem you can also do this in C#, Microsoft call it "edit and
         | continue"
         | 
         | Tried it. It's just not the same thing.
        
         | beecafe wrote:
         | Unity does it by default, but it breaks everything.
        
       | [deleted]
        
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       (page generated 2021-08-30 23:00 UTC)