[HN Gopher] The philosopher: A conversation with Grady Booch
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       The philosopher: A conversation with Grady Booch
        
       Author : andrewl
       Score  : 14 points
       Date   : 2023-03-19 17:22 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.infoworld.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.infoworld.com)
        
       | csbartus wrote:
       | This is also strong: "Web3 is a flaming pile of feces orbiting a
       | giant dripping hairball."
        
       | andrewl wrote:
       | I thought this was particularly interesting:
       | 
       | I had the opportunity to conduct an oral history with John Backus
       | --one of the pioneers of functional programming--in 2006 on
       | behalf of the Computer History Museum. I asked John why
       | functional programming didn't enter the mainstream, and his
       | answer was perfect: "Functional programming makes it easy to do
       | hard things" he said, "but functional programming makes it very
       | difficult to do easy things."
        
       | mistrial9 wrote:
       | I cannot get over an image from Dr Dobbs Journal sometime, where
       | a well-drawn set of seven (?) gray beard, pocket protector guys
       | were standing in a semi-circle solemnly considering a poster,
       | meant to be a computer programming problem. The vibe was lots of
       | wise old males deciding on the wisest course. Of course everyone
       | was paid well but most "chose" humble attire.
       | 
       | The reality is that every senior coder that could not put a
       | signature on some legal paper was replaced and outsourced, faster
       | than anything. It continues to this day. "Do not hire anyone over
       | 40" they say, in Fast Company style. Since I was also once in my
       | own early 20s I cant say I blame them entirely, but, you know..
       | In the 90s it was 50 year old car engineers in Germany.. "oh
       | those guys, too bad no one will hire them oh well" .. but fast
       | forward to the go-go second round of post 2008, and it was the
       | csh coders, Solaris jockeys, Mac and Amiga graphics experts.. and
       | even some of the digital printing people.. "no room at the Inn!"
       | out with you, and hope you saved some of that money you got.
       | 
       | Grady epitomizes the era and standing of those old gray beard
       | guys, to me.
        
       | ofrzeta wrote:
       | Not a great interview. For instance, after his answer about LLMs
       | ".. we must be cognizant of their risks and limitations." the
       | interviewer asks "What do you make of transhumanism?". Overall
       | too many topics briefly touched upon like Babbage, Lady Ada,
       | Quantum Computing without much substance.
       | 
       | Why did IBM not develop a Large Language Model?
        
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       (page generated 2023-03-19 23:02 UTC)