Husafan

What we mean by "intelligence," must also be considered. As they are, computers are most useful for solving problems where a solution is known, theoretically, to exist.

For example, you know there are articles on the internet concerning Javascript, and when you ask google to point you towards them, the relevance of the returned results is often viewed as a measure of the algorithm's "intelligence." But behind this intelligent response lies complex but defined probability calculations that are provably correct given a known algorithm. On the other hand, can you ever imagine asking the questions, "Computer, does this shirt look good on me?" or, "Computer, what is the most ethical course of action in this situation?" How a human responds to these questions helps indicate that human's level of intelligence. But different people could also disagree on the above questions and still be considered intelligent.

To me, it doesn't seem to make much sense to invest in computers that are modeled after humans, as there are certain types of situations where even the most intelligent of these machines could be wrong as a matter of opinion. Rather, the more powerful computers become, the more sense it makes to have them tackle finite problem spaces more efficiently. Because of this, I don't really see the case where human intelligence and computer intelligence would or should converge. Put simply, it would NEVER make sense to give Skynet control of our nukes.

Very nicely worded. Now, can address the OP's concern about security flaws not being fixed? Is security flaw == to Gantt chart request?

Ya, this would be against the ToS.

So then, in your opinion, IS there a difference between a language that is "production," ready, and one that is not? And if so, what is it?

Right. Open source languages become popular not by describing and fixing security holes promptly, but by having their super-users analyze patch notes for vulnerabilities, and code around them. The sure fire path to widely used, production ready releases.

Only if that's your bottle-neck.

How so? Aren't presentations about a current project's shortcomings/roadmap for improvements pretty standard?

I do agree that it speaks well about the developer, but your opinion about whether Ruby currently sucks or not should be informed by the content of the slides.

[edit] I can show you a shoe box and call it a car. I can candidly explain to you how it falls short of current cars, and how I will remedy these problems. All of that does not hide the fact that my shoe box is currently a sucky car.

My start-up has had an absolutely terrific experience so far with cvsdude.com. If you want a subversion/trac/bugzilla package, the pricing is reasonable and their customer service has been great. Also, if you want to host an open source project, they have free options.

I highly recommend it.

I wish I could have seen one of the airplanes fly..

That sounds like a really, really good idea. Thank you.

Before anyone posts another example of word-of-mouth working: the op did not say it doesn't work. He simply listed reasons why it may not work in certain situations.

Fair enough. I see your point and thank you for your patience.

If I may give this one last shot:

Why is slowness acceptable in a language tuned towards exploratory programming, and therefore an unimportant criteria when judging Arc?

What an interesting blue, gem logo.. I've seen something like that before, but I just can't put my finger on it..

Looks like a neat framework though.

I think your paraphrasing is incomplete. It would be truer to the op's point to say, "Blub does not include an XML parser, therefore Blub is rubbish for exploratory programming with XML documents."

This may be true of facts, but there is no problem with explaining why your opinion is one way and not the other.

Unless you are asserting that speed not being important is a fact of exploratory programming, rather than PG's opinion, I see no problem with answering my initial question.

If it makes you feel better though, I can rephrase:

Why is speed not important to you, PG?

Why is speed not important?

Edit: How is speed not important?

"And we were always far ahead of them in features. Sometimes, in desperation, competitors would try to introduce features that we didn't have. But with Lisp our development cycle was so fast that we could sometimes duplicate a new feature within a day or two of a competitor announcing it in a press release. By the time journalists covering the press release got round to calling us, we would have the new feature too.

It must have seemed to our competitors that we had some kind of secret weapon--" -PG

It's up to 37Signals to find the new features; it is not up to competitors to stop competing.

Gotcha. Well maybe you could do this asynchronously, after page load? Once the page is done loading, extension fires off for info about links on the page? Assuming this didn't take to long, it might be doable before they clicked a new link.

Also, extensions have access to cookies per domain? Maybe the extension could use this to cache results for a given page client-side?

Seems like this should be settable. If I want to be uber-cautious, not rated should default to NSFW. Also, maybe a white/black list of domains the user knows to be safe/unsafe for themselves?

Why do you need to rewrite links to your server? Can your extension not insert JavaScript to do most of this logic client-side?

I love this type of code on code violence. Our machine learning professor had us do several of these in college. Another cool one is Robocode, from IBM alphaworks: http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/robocode

Well it sure does sound like something DHH would say.

I very much like the idea. You should consider selling it on an appliance that you've optimized for, a la google search.

Your "(Incendentally, a moment's...)" comment makes me sad. Obviously Roth spent well over a moment reading and contemplating your essay. The fact that you disregard his thoughts so flippantly, along with those of other intelligent people, makes me wonder whose opinions you would respect.

He clearly states he thought your central point was: "It will always suck to work for large organizations, and the larger the organization, the more it will suck," because "humans weren't meant to work in such large groups."

How is this so different than your stated thesis that: "the central point is that in an organization organized as a tree structure, structural forces tend to give each person freedom in inverse proportion to the size of the whole tree. That we work better in groups of 10 than 100 I feel is obvious enough not to need justification?"

His refutation relies on examples of humans partaking in behavior that they were not originally "evolved" to do. It is a direct response to your reliance on evolution. If you thought the whole point of your essay was "obvious enough not to need justification," then why did you write a whole essay on the subject?

To address your central point, I would cite the space program. Humans were obviously not evolved to be space-faring creatures, and yet hundreds (thousands?) of human intellects in concert (in a tree-structured organization) managed to land a man on the moon. The idea of synergy, where many humans in an organizational structure can accomplish more than any single human's evolved capabilities, has long been recognized (http://www.complexsystems.org/magic.html). Many people that work in such organizations draw personal satisfaction from the fact that they are furthering what they consider a greater good, rather than their own personal desires. Where a start-up glorifies individuals, organizations tend to glorify the whole. The fact that this is not satisfying to some does not mean it is not satisfying to others, and certainly does not imply that “You were not meant to have a boss.”

> and would be impossible if you were a startup founder

Only if you're bootstrapping. A lot of start-ups are not so lucky as to get funding and help from a company like Y-Combinator. End up with a bad VC, and you can easily find yourself feeling 'caged' again.

Concerning this point, it is not necessarily just the mentality. It is worth noting that China has had a government imposed and subsidized industrialization program in place for some time now. India, which is a democracy, is not forcing its people to work in factories when they might be happier living in a village. This might explain the difference in GDP?

I don't think it bodes well for the clarity of your essay that you're using the beginning of your last paragraph to defend your thesis.

Atwood admits that your, "essay does contain some fair points," but he also indicates that he, along with others, had trouble getting through it because of the distasteful metaphor you lead with. In light of this, I am sure you can understand them not spotting the thesis in your last paragraph.

Finally, perhaps someone with a "conscientiously broadened mind," as you so describe yourself, could fathom a working environment unlike the one you describe? I imagine that new-hires at 37signals, or Fog Creek, would not feel they are missing out because they are not currently heading a start-up. Quite the opposite, I would think they are grateful for the opportunity, the environment and the benefits. Not all successful companies treat their developers like animals. And the ones that don't tend to inspire loyalty. Can you really not see how you may have offended some of these people?

If my mother wants to know what I am doing, she will call me.

People who do not spend most of their time in front of a computer will call their friends directly, rather than checking Twitter.

Only the stereotypical geek sees an advantage in non-personal communication about personal matters.

Not to say that every project needs to be planned like NASA, but I would like to know how many start-ups have calculated their acceptable rate of failure (in their software) prior to launch.

This is one of the coolest things I have ever read. Thanks to OP.