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Comment by gfosco | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't really make sense that I have more and better equipment than ESR. You would think in his field he would spend more money on technology.

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If ESR is able to be productive with the gear he has, I don't see why he would need to spend more money. Tools are necessary, but the marginal utility of upgrades drops off pretty quickly. I'm reminded of this comic strip: http://whattheduck.com/strip/95

>If ESR is able to be productive with the gear he has, I don't see why he would need to spend more money.

Has he done anything productive the last 10 years? His last major project I remember was the Linux kernel configuration program fiasco.

Jeez. The spirit and tone of this comment seem incredibly obnoxious.

Whereas the "OMG, ESR manages to be productive with so little" worship thing wasn't?

How about just answering the question then?

The argument that it's equally obnoxious to assume that someone who's made useful contributions in the past has been productive in the last decade as it is to assume they haven't because you can't recall being told about any, is falling flat with me.

Eric S. Raymond talks a lot about about his importance, but in reality he has produced no software of value, in fact almost no software at all. The arrogant statement he made in the beginning of the interview is a blatant lie:

> You rely on my software every time you use a browser, a smartphone, or a gaming console.

ESR is known for his books, not for his code.

That is because he has been working mostly on infrastructure, http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4071 , http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4351 and http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4335 , for example.

I think he's referring to giflib or pnglib there. Those libraries are fairly widely used in many places and is probably the most widely used code he is associated with. That said, he is fairly egoistical. I don't think even he would deny that.

Well, I checked pnglib for one. He is one of 20+ contributors, not an original project founder, and was only active on it for like 2 years (2000-2002 IIRC):

http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/src/libpng-LICENSE.txt

I wouldn't call that "people depending on MY software everyday".

I wouldn't call that "people depending on MY software everyday".

You and I wouldn't but the person who calls himself "one of the senior cadre who make the internet work" [paraphrasing there] certainly would.

>The argument that it's equally obnoxious to assume that someone who's made useful contributions in the past has been productive in the last decade as it is to assume they haven't because you can't recall being told about any, is falling flat with me.

1) I don't think he made any major useful contributions, ever. He made some marginal contributions, but on the level of major league OSS players. The only exception is his C&tB book.

2) I didn't assume, I asked, hence the question mark at the end of my, er, question. I also added as a informational point that I don't recall anything. And, no, it's not because I don't follow OSS or software developments in general.

http://www.catb.org/gpsd/

I used to play a high-quality Linux game called Battle for Wesnoth to which he contributed.

He doesn't need it and you probably don't either.

Honestly, are you more productive compared to 10 years ago?

I'm not. 99% of the computing performance enhancements have been burned straight away on inefficiencies.

Back in '99 I was unfortunate enough to have a fire which melted a lot of my kit. I got by on a 100Mhz Pentium with 32mb of RAM for 3 months quite happily.

Productive? Certainly not, but that's not the fault or the point of the equipment.

I'm just surprised.. I spend a lot on tech because I love it, and I expect others who are so immersed in tech to do the same. My computer is almost 2 years old now, but it's a quad-core with 12GB ram and 2TB storage (including an SSD boot drive)... I have 4 computers in my house (2 PC Desktops, 1 Mac Mini, and a laptop) along with an iPad3. I love this stuff.

Thanks for describing your penis.

Mine is a wimpy 5 year old Thinkpad but it's how you use it that counts :)

I was also surprised by the absence of cutting edge gear... and then reminded myself that it's not the gear but the mind behind the gear that counts. That's so easy to forget.

I thought the same thing...at first.

If he's not playing games or watching movies on his setup, only using emacs and a terminal, what benefit would the newer hardware get him?

He does want an SSD. That is a definite improvement, in general and especially when you are compiling.

Most of my computer upgrades are driven by "visual" stuff. Movies (HTPC), games (desktop/laptop) and Visual Studio/Eclipse (desktop at home and work).

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