claes-magnus

Thank you for reading and sharing your interesting story and your experiences! I am also struggling with what you describe, and this is why I wanted to play around with the notion of hack and hacker. The word in itself is no holy cow to me. I want to get better at just 'messing around'. And in this very limited sense, I do think kids should inspire us, and that a connection to hack-ish things exists. It's about a mentality, not only skills and knowledge. I lack your vast experience (I am a quite old junior front-end developer), so you can imagine what I feel when showing what I've done. Why should one be embarrassed? If you worked professionally for years on some application and had lots of experience and the app sucked, perhaps it would be motivated (or more reasonable to think, the team or management had issues) - but otherwise? I love this sentence: 'a quick job that produces what is needed, but not well.' I read it is a description of a mentality, a quite amateur-sh DIY spirit. Or at least it was fun to play around with the meaning in that way.

btw. your citrine-lang.org seems like an extremely cool project!

Hmm. I liked your other reply. I don't agree with you upon this one. I write:

> It's sound that our children have us, adults, as role models, that they are inspired by us, by what we do, what we say, and by how we act. However, wiIt's sound that our children have us, adults, as role models, that they are inspired by us, by what we do, what we say, and by how we act. However, with regard to creativity and hacking, you don't have to spend much time building with lego, drawing, playing and discussing to realize that you won't match your seven-year-old in terms of getting things done, solving problems related to creative tasks.th regard to creativity and hacking, you don't have to spend much time building with lego, drawing, playing and discussing to realize that you won't match your seven-year-old in terms of getting things done, solving problems related to creative tasks. [...]

> My general point is that sometimes we're so focused on producing (2) 'an incredibly good, and perhaps very time-consuming, piece of work that produces exactly what is needed' that we fail in (1) '[producing] what is needed, but not well' (and thus end up failing in general). In this respect, we should take inspiration from our seven-year-olds.

But what you insinuate in your other reply may still be correct! Perhaps this usage makes the notion of a hack, hacker, hacking empty? I believe it's important to be able to say 'I am wrong'. And perhaps I am here. I have not decided what I think yet.

Haha! I enjoyed your elegant reply. And yes, you're quite possibly right. When writing it I had many doubts, and they have still not left me. Perhaps this text did should not have been published.

Glad to hear so!

About the later part: yes, I actually agree!

Some people contribute to the Web with opinions using cutesy one-liners, some people attempt to explore subject matters in articles and thus sometimes fail, sometimes succeed.

Aren't all definitions arbitrary? If we would only go by how words are used 'in general', who would want to be a 'hacker'? ;) And I don't think the definition of 'hacker' in The Jargon File is just... arbitrary in the context of Hacker News? However, I am guilty as charged of making a very free, playful interpretation. Also, I am guilty as charged for trying to have a title that makes some people curious. I am sorry you did not like the post, but that's life! Cheers and thank you very much for reading!

I agree, but you don't have to save 7 years old in the same way. :)

Your comment made me think, and I think my view may be all to hidden (between the lines) in my post.

I added this passage, which is more on-point, which I stand by:

My general point is that sometimes we're so focused on producing (2) 'an incredibly good, and perhaps very time-consuming, piece of work that produces exactly what is needed' that we fail in (1) '[producing] what is needed, but not well' (and thus end up failing in general). In this respect, we should take inspiration from our seven-year-olds. In the best of worlds, we could take inspiration from them with regard to point 1, mentor them to respecting point 2 while making sure not to smother the essence of point 1 - not in them, nor in ourselves.

Also, I am not fully 'serious' with this post! I just thought it was cute, while also containing some interesting points. :)

I am very grateful for your comment! Cheers!

No worries. Also, I don't count on people clicking on all links. Further also, I totally understand what you mean: you want everyone to see it!

I actually link to [0] in my text in the end when I say we should 'rethink education'. :) I did not know of the full talk, and I am very grateful for your link [1]!

Thanks. :)

This makes me worried as well. Even though I know this, I always tend to, at the moment, forget the limitations some countries have. China, Russia, Iran, and others.

There such tendencies, or views only (so far), in Europe where I live, that seems to think this is a good thing. Not as extreme perhaps. But like: in relation to values x, y, z the content and values a, b, c are bad and because they are bad they should be removed. And no, not speaking about things like child pornography.

The difference between liberal values in general and others is that liberal stance (interpreted very broadly) allows criticism of the liberal stance, while we know from history that totalitarian states and ideologies such as communism, fascism, and so on solve things with bans and by burning books.

I know what kind of world I want my children to get older in...

I'd rather have them interested in communism at 15 and radical. That they have the possibility to browse the Web for texts on communism than an authoritarian control saying communism (or some other ideology) is wrong and removing such sites. And the Web is best aligned with a liberal stance. I write more about my view here: https://herebeseaswines.net/essays/2020-04-28-the-web-is-ama.... But I want to add - even though I've been active in the Swedish liberal movement for a while - that market economy when too far also threatens the Web.

A valid point. Will fix!

The archive is intended to be like so by request. The idea would be caching. They count on people to clicking on all the covers. If it's this is the case or not, I don't know. But their target groups is very narrow on the other hand.

This 'argumentation' is not valid though in the case with the picture at 'about'. And that's my fault. I will fix this.

So yes, you're right. One could argue the same is true for the images at the 'about' page. But yeah...

I don't think so, but perhaps you're right. UI is included in UX as one of many considerations. Depending on what consideration should be emphasized we may need strong UI, or we can solve things like I do on my blog (herebeseaswines.net) - I deliberately put "about" and the "archive" at the bottom. :) In my view aesthetics is a more problematic term. But it is very useful, in aesthetics we have arguments on we have arguments on why things are (as someone say they are). In this, we have to have many considerations. For instance, I try to justify the aesthetics of blog here: https://herebeseaswines.net/essays/2020-04-21-the-aesthetics...

Haha! I fixed this one straight away. :)

Markdown is way easier to use for people who don't like technology. And I don't PHP. Perhaps it would've been better but I did not suffer from writing 30 lines of code. However, I guess it would be possible to still combine Markdown with PHP? But even though you are skeptical, I think most people (especially people who are not familiar with technology) prefer writing Markdown...

I agree. On the other hand, the world would be more... Nice... if confidence did not rule everything. But yeah, you're right

Thanks! Will fix the images. Promise.

Imposter syndrome. I feel it all the time as a programmer. But I don't if it's a necessarily bad state. Doesn't it matter how we relate to it? This is my view. Only if we give in, and don't try because we feel imposters it's a bad state. I am not saying it's a good state, but still - it's a state that can very productive! Well, another discussion... but it's a very interesting one.

Yeah, and I can't disagree with anyone who enjoy deltron3030. ;) Deltron 3030 is an epic album!

Thank you!

Your estimate is correct: I try to keep out of the way best I can. The covers are amazing if you ask me. It would be stupid to 'compete', and I am not even a designer. Besides, they did not want the 'professional' feel - they wanted the 'shop' described in the about page. As they add more content, the site will look like this shop and will be hard to use. This is why I use the oxymoron.

But I guess I tried to make a more general point. Sometimes my feeling is that blogs, small businesses such as this one, well... pages, in general, are overly complicated. Both in terms of technology and interface. Overly complicated is unfortunately often spelled professional. And professional often means the quite opposite of personal. Headache Comix just want to post stuff. Actually, one comment was that they don't care if things, in the end, would be hard to find given way more content. And that the people reading the magazine expects this. No, even wants it. Like walking in a museum as they should be (in my view), paintings all of the place - not perfectly aligned, not perfect degrees and lots of whitespaces and so on. :) I don't know if this explanation helped to clarify my take here, but... yeah.

I guess this is your point also, kind'a. And thank you btw! But I disagree with you about the 'silly' part. I actually think this is an important question. If it is true that some sites are overly complicated without good reasons, what then? :) Also, I make the case that the Web should house these sites as well as more 'professional' ones. That's the beauty of the Web if you ask me.

You're right! Sorry, missed this. :) It should not be a question mark in the title. There is none in my post

Thanks. That was my intention, for good and bad perhaps. :)

I wrote, >> Yes, ok. But this doesn't say it's a bad tool? Only a not very used tool? (I know that you've not claimed neither; only that is not a very used tool)

But since you continued to stress your hypothesis and ignored this, I (incorrectly) presumed you had another agenda. I misinterpreted you, and I am thankful for you sharing knowledge on the other stuff. :) Sorry!

This is exactly what I am beginning to realize: >> hey can often allow you to solve a problem without ever writing a single line of code (unless you consider a Unix pipeline to be 'code' Therefore it is very valuable for me when someone who obviously have greater knowledge points this out. Thanks! This was also my point with my project: a demonstration aiming to show that we didn't need JS, but only a few lines of sed. :)

Nice!!! I am very grateful. Thank you for sharing! I did not know you could solve it like so. And yes, this is very expressive!

It is very hard to estimate such matters when you're a junior developer. :) Say you're right. Actually, I don't doubt you. I am certain that I will find I was wrong when I wrote that. But still, this does not mean sed is not a tool worth learning and I am very greedy in such contexts. I love learning. And in some contexts, it seems very reasonable to use sed (and awk) rather than js, python or a 'richer' language?

Yes, ok. But this doesn't say it's a bad tool? Only a not very used tool? (I know that you've not claimed neither; only that is not a very used tool)

Yes, I have it (I am on a Linux). Thank you for sharing! :) Cheers!

I don't know. As I said, I am a junior web developer so it is hard for me to generalize. Perhaps no-one use it? But I enjoy it. :)

You should enjoy my post from yesterday: https://herebeseaswines.net/essays/2020-04-18-a-bash-perl

Yes, I wanna learn Perl! :)

I actually tried using tee to solve this, but failed. :) If you have the time, can you please tell me how to solve this particular problem? I would love to learn, otherwise, I will read elsewhere. The man pages on tee did not contain any examples. Thank you for your suggestion!