[HN Gopher] I is for Intent
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       I is for Intent
        
       Author : devdoshi
       Score  : 37 points
       Date   : 2024-02-06 02:04 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (acko.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (acko.net)
        
       | gipp wrote:
       | I'm having trouble connecting the opening paragraphs to the
       | examples much at all. A lot of this seems like splitting semantic
       | hairs -- can't we just generalize our applications "State" to
       | include the "Intent"? The text editing example doesn't require
       | "invalid transitions" because there's nothing invalid about the
       | state "desired_column: 6, current_column: 1".
       | 
       | Which, BTW, is not to say that this delineation isn't useful as a
       | design idea. The author just seems to be under the impression
       | that this is an argument against... idk, strong typing? Making
       | invalid states unrepresentable? And it just isn't.
        
       | tl wrote:
       | > Stanley loves strong and static typing. He's a big fan of
       | pattern matching
       | 
       | Funny, the language that made me a fan of pattern matching was
       | Elixir.
        
         | bounce76 wrote:
         | The author only has a hammer, thus everything else must be a
         | nail.
        
         | striking wrote:
         | I think you missed the rest of the sentence:
         | 
         | > He's a big fan of pattern matching _, and enums, and
         | discriminated unions, which allow correctness to be verified at
         | compile time._
         | 
         | And the forest for the trees:
         | 
         | > [Stanley] hates any source of uncertainty or ambiguity
         | 
         | > [the author argues] this view of software is not just wrong,
         | but fundamentally incompatible with the real world.
         | 
         | The author paints a picture of someone who chooses these tools
         | not because they are nice tools or because the tools are
         | helpful but because of desires that stem from misguided,
         | dogmatic, unhelpful beliefs that make the subject a worse
         | engineer.
         | 
         | By contrast, you are probably a lovely person who loves writing
         | nice code. This article has nothing to say about you.
        
       | deathanatos wrote:
       | > _Stanley can 't dismiss this as just frivolous UI polish for
       | limp wristed homosexuals._
       | 
       | ... ???
        
         | mattxxx wrote:
         | I know. This author is writing from a pretty weird place,
         | especially if they're first categorizing fictional "Stanley" as
         | backend Engineer.
        
       | Karellen wrote:
       | > I chose a text editor as an example because Stanley can't
       | dismiss this as just frivolous UI polish for limp wristed
       | homosexuals.
       | 
       | Well, that's... a choice of language.
       | 
       | Anyway, I suppose I'd better go check exactly when in the '90s
       | this was originally written, and put a comment suggesting that
       | the year be added to the HN title.
       | 
       | ...
       | 
       |  _2024_
       | 
       | Huh.
       | 
       | Well, I suppose we should congratulate the author for having
       | woken from their 30-year coma. Before introducing them to all the
       | LGB+ (don't push them too quickly!) acceptance progress that's
       | been made in that time...
        
         | neilv wrote:
         | I think maybe the author was casually mocking their strawperson
         | Stanley (who they effectively characterized as old), by also
         | associating him with other ideas widely considered outmoded and
         | shameful.
         | 
         | Ironically, if Stanley's experience originated as an Internet-
         | savvy techie of 30 years ago, that would be of the "on the
         | Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" era, when people who were
         | gay, trans, or of other marginalized groups, could go online
         | and find places where they can be accepted. Stanley supported
         | trans friends before most people even knew that was a thing.
         | 
         | Or, if we're still trying to link older with wronger, go back
         | to Stanley's counterculture hippie parents, who were more
         | progressive than today's typical holder of now-fashionable
         | ideas.
         | 
         | The author discusses their actual ideas at length. I think they
         | went a bit off-track throughout the piece, when distinguishing
         | their ideas from some current model, accidentally straying into
         | tactics of propaganda rather than reason. And incidentally
         | contributing to ageism.
        
       | mattxxx wrote:
       | Is it hard to teach "Intent", because the treatise here isn't
       | well thought out?
       | 
       | The article starts with building a straw person, Stanley (who is
       | weirdly homophobic for some reason?), and doesn't really
       | articulate "here's how you code with intent" and "why coding with
       | intent is important". Instead, it tries to tear apart people who
       | don't use intent.
        
       | theoriginaldave wrote:
       | I'm having trouble because I read the headline "I is for
       | _indent_."
       | 
       | I made it all the way to the caret position before I realized my
       | intent was completely wrong.
        
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       (page generated 2024-02-07 23:00 UTC)