blogs, longbets.org, and education of sociology

[sln at netherlands.co]

Your opinion of yourself is only surpased by your monumental display
of mastery of the English language.

sln


On Sun, 25 May 2008 16:25:33 -0700 (PDT), "xahlee at gmail.com" <xahlee at gmail.com> wrote:

>For about the past 10 years, i have been concerned in the programing
>community's level of education in social issues.
>
>I have found that recently, a news that would be of interest to
>programers.
>
>There was a bet at longbets.org (run by Long Now Foundation) regarding
>the importance of blogs. The bet was made in 2002. The prediction has
>a resolution date in 2007.
>
>In 2008, the bet is resolved. See
>
>“Decision: Blogs vs. New York Times” (2008-02-01) by Alexander Rose
> http://blog.longnow.org/2008/02/01/decision-blogs-vs-new-york-times/
>
>I'd like encourage, for many of you, who have lots of opinions on
>technical issues or social issues surrounding software, to make use of
>longbets.org. It can help shape your thoughts from blog fart to
>something more refined. In any case, your money will benefit society.
>
>here's some examples you could try:
>
>• I bet that Java will be out of the top 10 programing languages by
>2020.
>
>• I bet that the top 10 programing languages in 2015 (as determined by
>requirement from job search engine), the majority will be those
>characterized as dynamic languages (e.g. php, perl, python,
>javascript, tcl, lisp. (as opposed to: C, Java, C++, C#, F#,
>Haskell)).
>
>• You bet that Linux as a desktop system will or will not have a
>market share of such and such by the year xyz.
>
>(I'm not sure the above “predictions” are candidates on longbets.org,
>since one of their rule is that the “predictions” should be socially
>important. Looking at existing entries on their site, the social
>importance of the above items pale in comparison. (however, many of
>their existing “predictions” are somewhat fringe))
>
>       *       *       *
>
>Note, in almost all online forums where tech geekers gather (e.g.
>newsgroups, slashdot, irc, etc), often they are anonymous, each fart
>ignorant cries and gripes and heated arguments, often in a
>irresponsible and carefree way.
>
>One of the longbets.org's goal is to foster RESPONSIBILITY.
>
>In recent years, i have often made claims that the Python's
>documentation, it's writing quality and its documentation quality in
>whole, is one of the worst.
>
>Among all the wild claims in our modern world, from the sciences to
>social or political issues, my claim about Python's technical writing
>quality or its whole quality as a technical documentation, is actualy
>trivial to verify by any standards. When presented to intellectuals of
>the world at large, the claim's verifiability is trivial, almost as a
>matter of fact checking (which are done by interns or newbie grads of
>communinication/journalism/literature majors, working for journalism
>houses). However, when i voiced my opinion on Python doc among
>programing geekers online, it is often met with a bunch of wild cries.
>Some of these beer drinking fuckheads are simply being a asshole,
>which are expected by the nature of online tech geeking communities (a
>significance percentage are bored young males). However, many others,
>many with many years of programing experience as a professional,
>sincerely tried to say something to the effect of “in my opinion it's
>good”, or voice other stupid remarks to the effect of “why don't you
>fix it”, and in fact find my claim, and its tone too fantastical, to
>the point thinking i'm a youngling who are bent on to do nothing but
>vandalism. (the tech geekers use in-group slang for this: “troll”.)
>
>The case of the Python doc is just one example. I have also, in the
>past decade, in _appropriate_ online communties (e.g. newsgroups,
>mailing lists), voiced opinions on Perl's doc, emacs's doc, criticism
>on lisp nested syntax, “software engineering” issues (e.g. OOP),
>various issues of jargons and naming (e.g. currying, lisp1 vs lisp2,
>tail recursion, closure), emacs's user interface issues, criticism on
>the phenomenon of Open Source community's fervor for bug reporting,
>criticism on IT industry celebrities such as Larry Wall and Guido von
>Rossum, opinions on cross-posting, ... and others. Some of my claims
>are indeed controversial by nature. By that i mean that there is no
>consensus on the subject among its experts, and the issue is complex,
>and has political implications. However, many trivially verifiable, or
>even simple facts, are wildly debated or raised a ruckus, because the
>programers are utterly ignorant of basic social knowledge, or due to
>their political banding (e.g. a language faction, Open Source) or
>current trends and fashions (e.g. OOP, Java, “Patterns”, “eXtreme
>Programing”, ... , OpenSource and “Free” software movement, ...).
>
>I think, the founding of Long Now Foundation with its longbets.org,
>shares a concern i have on the tech geeking communities. In
>particular, tech geekers need to have a broader education on social
>sciences, needs to think in long term, and needs to foster personal
>responsibility, when they act or voice opinions on their love of
>technology. (note: not reading more motherfucking slashdot or
>motherfucking groklaw or more great podcasts on your beatific language
>or your postmodernistic fuckhead idols)
>
>(One thing you can do, is actually take a course on philosophy,
>history, law, economics, in your local community college.)
>
>Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Long Now Foundation.
>
>       *       *       *
>
>See also:
>
>“Responsible Software Licensing” (2003-07) by Xah Lee
> http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/responsible_license.html
>
>“On Microsoft Hatred” (2002-02-23) Xah Lee
> http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/mshatred155.html
>
>  Xah
>  xah at xahlee.org
>? http://xahlee.org/
>
>?