_why returns, as whimsical and obcure as ever. this was a great write-up, and now I want to read the book. My favourite quote from the book:
What if Amerika [the novel by kafka] was only written for 32 bit PowerPC?
I sometimes wonder the same sort of thing, when crafting software for iOS or other platforms doomed to obsolecence by the exigencies of capitalism - all that is solid melts into air, and while much of the data or content we produce will probably last centuries and remain decipherable, I'm not so sure about the code.
I read the book in one go on a SFO-CDG flight (plane flights are one of the rare times where I actually dive in my Dropbox folder full of random PDFs that I save over the years). I really enjoyed it. Many people will find things to hate in it, and it's not about programming that much as it is about making things and being a creator. But I really liked it.
More than anything, I absolutely love the pure happiness, joy, love and soul _why put in everything he did. That's the most inspiring to me.
This, and "A computer program will never live as long as the trial" remind me of a comment by Godfrey Hardy in A mathematician's apology:
"Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because languages die and mathematical ideas do not. 'Immortality' may be a silly word, but probably a mathematician has the best chance of whatever it may mean."
grey-area|12 years ago
What if Amerika [the novel by kafka] was only written for 32 bit PowerPC?
I sometimes wonder the same sort of thing, when crafting software for iOS or other platforms doomed to obsolecence by the exigencies of capitalism - all that is solid melts into air, and while much of the data or content we produce will probably last centuries and remain decipherable, I'm not so sure about the code.
GuiA|12 years ago
More than anything, I absolutely love the pure happiness, joy, love and soul _why put in everything he did. That's the most inspiring to me.
jamessb|12 years ago
"Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because languages die and mathematical ideas do not. 'Immortality' may be a silly word, but probably a mathematician has the best chance of whatever it may mean."