2004-07-30 #1

Paul Graham responses

I got several responses to my rant from yesterday.

"He's over the top with Java, but his essay is great"

Yes, he's over the top with Java, but his eassy is not great. Beside the Java rant it's a writeup of Frederik Brooks, Joel Spolsky and mostly Tom DeMarco. If you've never read them, Paul Grahams essay may sound great, otherwise it's just boring. At least he mentions Brooks.

"You just thought you we're great, and you're not."

I may not be great, I don't know, and really, I just don't care. But to Grahams definition I'm a great hacker. I'm curious, I chose a job where I can hack, I have Python on my resume, I do my pet projects with Groovy, I can tune in. So that's not the point I think. But his definition sounds more like he build it with himself in mind.

"You exaggerate. He didn't say what you said he said."

He wrote exactly what I said. Just combine

if your society has no variation in productivity, it's probably not because everyone is Thomas Edison, but because you have no Thomas Edisons.

with

Of all the great programmers I can think of, I know of only one who would voluntarily program in Java

and voila you're average. "But average is ok, it's not dumb." Paul Graham makes it clear that average is dumb. The uses boring several times, he extends his great hacker to good hackers and what remains if you remove great and good from the pool? The same goes for the last part of the essay called "Cultivation".

This just reminds me of Platon, who thought great philosophers were just like himself and all the others were dumb.

"You scream, so he must have hit some truths"

What bizarre logic! If I argue that you're a thief in front of your boss, and you get angry, I'm right? And I can make you angry this way, believe me. This is just some kind of sophism.