herdrick

Well, it looks like I'm wrong about what Tufte meant by information density. In that case Tufte wouldn't say that information density is the only thing. "Every pixel doing work" != good design.

But I definitely heard that exchange on a podcast.

When I started using Stack Over Flow, navigation was a headache as the links weren't clear. I'm accustomed to it now.

Those two consecutive sentences would seem to be from different reviews.

Jeff launched this thing by tuning it for what he wanted in a Q & A site. Since he is exactly the sort of early adopter they needed for the first one (for programmers) that worked OK. But now they are launching a fully baked, "Jeff-tuned" product to other populations and I think there will be problems. The problem with an overloaded page is that you've closed off your options - you've made it really hard to iterate. Because every piece of available space is filled with information it's very difficult to test the product with new users.

This happened partly because this is every programmer's instinct, and partly through Jeff's misunderstanding of Edward Tufte's concept of "information density". Somewhere in a Stack Overflow podcast Joel is telling Jeff that there is way too much stuff on the page and Jeff defends that as being an example of information density that Tufte would like. Not true - a vector field has information density: http://www.google.com/images?q=vector%20field When you can apply a single (simple?) rule to understand a lot of data, that's information density. By contrast, Stack Overflow is like any web page in that each element must be examined in turn to be understood. That's why you must eliminate elements ruthlessly, especially when you are starting out.

This is heresy, but I actually think it might be better if it weren't a real word. I find I benefit from inventing names for functions or data abtractions. It helps to clear the mind of what those things might be.

Plus making map into mp or whatever makes it much more googleable. And don't get me started on Clojure having map and a Map.

He was perfectly calm. No need for that. Let's keep things polite here.

Of course if other people are reading your code then you should consider what current programming practice is. But the current practice in Clojure is, for cultural reasons, to make things really succinct. So you can assume those reading your code are ok with that.

Regarding Arc, there's still a distinction, since as you point out you can't enumerate the domain of a function like you can the keys of a hashtable. (And you also "call" a hashtable in Clojure.)

I think you're onto something there. The typical valley firm has almost as much of a uniform as a bank.

The subversive suit. Interesting.

Maybe there's hope for modern rich societies. I've read that in the French culture decisions that are made as much or more for the benefit of the parents. The family goes on vacations that the parents are interested in, enjoying art museums, sophisticated cities, etc, instead of what the kids want: a theme park in the suburbs. Maybe this derives from an attitude that children are born barbarians, that their natural tastes and desires are stupid, and they need to have civilization pounded into them in order. Whereas we in the Anglo-Saxon derived culture put more value on the natural impulses of children.

I think the situation can be improved.

And in fact he's totally wrong about logic programming. It is a completely different way to think about things, just like what he's looking for, it just doesn't happen to make for shorter programs. A very good try though.

I don't buy that. There are countless software shops that are obsessed with programmer skill and productivity, in fact live or die by it, and almost none of them choose a lisp.

So ITA (possibly) wouldn't choose Common Lisp again. I wonder if he includes other lisps in that. And does he agree with ITA on that choice?