
Hey programmers, we need to talk - ColinWright
http://www.sealedabstract.com/rants/hey-programmers-we-need-to-talk/
======
atmosx
> _This programming thing is a lot of fun, right? We have been entrusted with
> the unique responsibility of making pretty much the entire world go round._

I stopped reading after this quote. I don't have the will or time to wast in
such ... naivety.

I wonder, do really programmers believe that they _change the world_ say the
way Newton (principia mathematica - first one to apply the scientific method),
Einstein (Theory of relativity), Platoo (Creation of first higher education
institution on the western world - Athens Academy) , Solon (Famous policy
maker of the first direct democracy - Athens 600 BC), A. Flemming (inventor of
penicillin), etc. ?

Because Steve Jobs didn't change the world. Really, he did NOT. Neither Gates
or Zuckerberg imho. Ghandi did, Mandela did, in ways that technology never
will.

~~~
vlahmot
Maybe not Jobs, Gates, or Zuckerberg. But Turing, Von Neuman, Dijkstra, and
the like have.

Newton and Einstein certainly changed the world, but modern physics would be
untenable without computation. The LHC would be useless without the ability to
deal with the data.

Computation is being used to revolutionize higher education from me being able
to take learn CS from professors at top ranking universities for free to data
analysis being used to develop more effective teaching methods in inner city
schools.

Do you imagine that the next big antibiotic or vaccine will be possible
without computational effort?

I imagine Ghandi would appreciate the power that the web has brought to
individuals in voicing their opinions, in organizing against oppression, etc.

There is far more to programming than Facebook and iPhones.

That being said, his quote is quite arrogant.

~~~
larrys
"Gates, or Zuckerberg"

Perhaps not as a programmer but as a business person?

Gates (along with IBM and a zillion other things coming together at the same
time) have allowed the popularization of computers and reduced the cost to
allow many things to happen as a result of what they have done. Think of
medical advances as a result of people who were able to cut their teeth on
computers and/or components dropping in price. If no PC, no YC or PG and all
that follows from that. Etc.

Things invented lead to other things.

In that sense even Zuckerberg has changed the world by the associations that
people have made that have lead to something because of who they met or became
friendly with on Facebook.

The question is really how do you define "change the world"? And how do you
separate one persons involvement from just what happened to be around at the
time and would have happened anyway had someone else done it first?

------
anonymoushn
The submitted link redirects to sealedabstract.com. The correct link is
[http://sealedabstract.com/rants/hey-programmers-we-need-
to-t...](http://sealedabstract.com/rants/hey-programmers-we-need-to-talk/)

------
astrieanna
Why is it that a version of this that was posted half an hour before this was
posted was killed, while this is allowed on the front page?

[http://hnrankings.info/6950735/](http://hnrankings.info/6950735/)

[http://hnrankings.info/6950932/](http://hnrankings.info/6950932/)

~~~
ColinWright
Better chart is this:

[http://hnrankings.info/6950932,6950735/](http://hnrankings.info/6950932,6950735/)

No idea. I saw it, followed the link, and thought that while the item has some
really, really bad points, it actually has some elements of truth, so I
submitted it, and it survived.

It may well have been deleted by the submitter, or flagged to death - I don't
know the circumstances of the demise of the previous submission. It's not
clear why you talk about it being "allowed" on the front page.

~~~
astrieanna
Thank you for the new kind of graph! That's neat. :D

~~~
ColinWright
You're welcome. I note that the chart now clearly shows that the submission
has been flagged off the front page, and it's currently languishing around 160
or so.

<fx: shrug />

The foibles of HN - sometimes people don't join a discussion and find
underlying truths, but prefer to flag it out-of-sight, out-of-mind.

------
skrebbel
Oh come on. Imaginary internet points can definitely motivate me to spend 30
seconds writing a comment on HN. It's not good enough kicks at all to make me
make significant contributions for open source.

No, to get me to code for free, Github karma or whatever you want isn't going
to help a dime. The coding _itself_ must be interesting and challenging and
attractive. I strongly suspect that nearly every other open source contributor
needs similar motivations. Does anyone really code for fame or points?

I don't see the problem that the author describes.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
Absolutely.

The author presents a very juvenile thesis which basically amounts to "How
dare programmers have an online place where they can exchange discussion and
lounge!"

They've been doing that since newsgroups. It's completely normal. The software
ecosystem is doing just fine, thanks.

------
throwaway125
It's important to keep in mind that humans are social beings, and
communicating with others by writing witty one liners can be very rewarding in
and of itself regardless of the karma points you get. That doesn't mean you
never do anything useful though, it just means that you decided to do
something you enjoy and find personally rewarding at this moment, maybe to
take a break from writing that patch you are working on.

------
kordless
> this person has decided to spend time writing this nonsense instead of doing
> something useful

We are only responsible for our own actions. Judging others actions simply
takes time away from judging our own actions. We're all guilty of this
behavior, probably because a) nobody taught us differently and b) we live in a
highly connected society.

I'd say the problem is going to get more challenging as the singularity
approaches.

------
manmal
Github has this cool way of displaying project contributions, I think they
call it "graph" (they even sell t-shirts with an exemplary graph on them:
[http://shop.github.com/products/contribution-graph-
shirt](http://shop.github.com/products/contribution-graph-shirt)).

Looks like karma for pull requests to me.

------
adamnemecek
Seems down, Google cache

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1jg-
St8...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1jg-
St85mlQJ:sealedabstract.com/rants/hey-programmers-we-need-to-
talk/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

------
troels
Server is struggling. Here's a cached link:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A//sealedabstract.com/rants/hey-
programmers-we-need-to-talk/)

------
TallboyOne
NO... we DONT NEED TO TALK, stop using that idiotic phrase.

------
smtddr
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5980898](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5980898)
_> >this person has decided to spend time writing this nonsense instead of
doing something useful._

Not to agree with it is one thing, but to call it nonsense? Instead, I now
choose to declare this author's writing as another example of SV-arrogance.

------
mathgladiator
I decided to not write a witty one liner...

