Would Avalon count?
131 karma · joined July 30, 2013
And just like its design counterpoint, while some may enjoy the aesthetic, it's actually superfluous and we've mostly moved on.
I get it, it's visual, it's easy to show one's boss domain knowledge; it doesn't do anything for accessibility and the feel (dependable repeatable ui workflow).
Looking at flow-based programming, it looks like it could help in visualizing and understanding asynchronous systems that wouldn't be so intuitive from a code listing. In that way, I suppose it would force a functional style as well. So maybe good for gluing those parts of one's apps together.
I did look at the code examples; attributes and code wrapped in json. Obviously greppable, but then if one expected a learner to grep, version diff, author tests?, linting?, etc. they still must dip into and learn regular dev tools. I don't know if Flyde is supposed to eventually subsume that other functionality or if it is a higher scripting layer used in conjunction, and so must eventually be learned anyway.
Or is Flyde just trying to introduce an easier coding path in order to bypass the more superfluous parts of software dev such as tabs vs spaces, editor choice, oop vs functional vs procedural vs whatever.
Contrast with something like Scratch which is useful because it helps prevent typos, clearly presents expected arguments, and creates snap connected chains of logic.
Even better, contrast something like Drakon which offers visual abstractions such as skewers, happy paths, silhuettes, common fate, etc.
I really like the concept of visual abstractions. Nodes are abstractions but I don't think they are high enough level to improve over text. And I think text will always be awesome even if it is assisted by better ways to animate and visualize logic and systems.
Also, can I grep over Flyde? I'd hate to lose that basic ability.
Drakon: https://drakonhub.com/en/drakon
Open Source is more like a designation. It is an agreed upon set of requirements that, if you change a requirement, it is something else. This is important.
Some things have legally protected designations such as 'ice cream'. Ice Cream has specific meaning in industry and even a grading system. If someone wants to make a cheaper product than the lowest grade of ice cream, they can't call it ice cream, they have to call it something like: frozen dairy dessert.
This makes it easy for people understand what they are actually getting and paying for.
I wouldn't get indignant about mandating english language definitions. I would be indignant that ai companies are not fulfilling the requirements to call it open source and are providing a cheaper product than the abilities that an actual open source model would provide.
To some people what I wrote will be a truism and to others it will beg the question.
I see what side that fell on for you and that's good, I'm not citing anything, so definitely question my reasoning. But don't think for a second that producing a handful of books people ended up wanting can generate that amount of value.
In the case of Rowling, she was also executive producer of several Harry Potter films and was no doubt a benificiary of motion picture accounting to a greater or lesser degree. She controls charities and who knows how many shell companies and trusts to hide and manipulate wealth. That's what you have access to at that scale of rich.
Furthermore, if she wasn't cooking the books, hiding and differentiating wealth for tax benefit, placing herself in position to extract more wealth, then she would be the stupid one among her rich peer group and would quickly find herself like one of those lottery winners who are back to being poor and none the wiser 5 years later.
Another truism is that it sounds fun to be rich, but it probably isn't very.
Another truism is that I'm sure we'd all rather suffer being rich than be poor.
I think politico-economic interference is the crux of the problem.
For example, someone with $10 million are trying to maintain their lifestyle, they want to know what stocks, bonds, and certificates, and real estate to invest in.
Someone with $100 million are trying to leverage through venture capital, joining corporate boards, owning platforms, etc.
Someone with $1+ billion will find that the most cost effective way to keep and gain wealth is buying lobbyists, campaign donations, starting and controlling some non-profits that have tax and spending incentives, getting favors by giving politician's kids high profile jobs, and any other innumberable political grift that maintain their wealth status and that only really work at that scale.
I wouldn't care if billionaires were just hoarding some money. But they are not, and all this while they pay bad wages and have even shoved off the cost of training for their jobs onto society and the labor force who have to speculate and pay for their own training.
I found a copy of, Notes On Structured Programming, by Dijkstra. I'm going to start giving it a read tomorrow (it's a whopping 88pg essay).
It seems that Dijkstra did a lot of paper design work because he was programming for hardware that didn't exist in a programmable form yet.
I just checked it out and it looks cool but I don't think it's for me. I use a Firefox extension called Saka Key that allows me to fully navigate web pages and tabbing with the keyboard but it doesn't work so well when a web page wants to be an app instead of a page. The site forces focus in a text search box and pressing escape doesn't leave the text box, it just replaces displaying the welcome message. It's a usability issue for me :(
Part of this question is in response to the feeling I have that when I'm coding, I'm not hyper focused, I'm constantly sidetracked by dipping down documentation and forum rabbit holes because many things are non obvious at first glance, but then once one learns the abstraction or learns the narrative of thought, that it suddenly becomes obvious and second nature. So following that, I was wondering if there were more resources to load up on these kind of insights to make looking up things only for the most arbitrary technical things.
Then I can build a cabin and code up a storm amiright? :)
I was thinking one would need to download offline copies of the most immediate tools documents but I guess I was hoping for some tried and true articles or techniques (read: silver bullet) and not have to download the whole internet and cross my fingers that I got everything I needed :)