[geeks] Writing software [was Re: Can't decide on an OS]

[Jonathan Patschke]

On Mon, 30 Sep 2013, Mouse wrote:

> Actually, I disagree with that last.  They are damaging the net in that
> they are supporting - creating, even - the idea that "everybody" does
> this or that, that the Web is a suitable interface for anyone to
> anything - that the net is not horribly broken.

It's a poor interface, but it's been getting better in many ways.
Although, this has been countered by design wonks making it more
distracting and less useful in others.  The reliance on client-side code
(Javascript) is annoying, but this is just the next iteration of NeWS with
worse controls and better market acceptance.

I'll point out a specific use-case where I agree with you wholeheartedly:
web forums.  These things are awful, and they are universally a horrible
re-implementation of netnews.  They try to solve the same problems that
were solved 20 years ago, and they bring many of their own with them.

Email's a pretty awful application for the Web, too, as are highly
interactive tasks with lots of state.  I don't understand how web-mail
ever took off for anything other than mobile use, but that's probably an
aesthetic thing.

However, those systems exist because they are easier to learn, even if not
easier to use (ie: GUI syndrome).

So, no, not everything is well-suited to the web, but so many things are.
I'm trying to think of what a parametric search would look like on Mouser
or Digikey without the web, though.  Or, perhaps what another interface to
the ACM Digital Library would look like.  In your view, would something
like a tn3720 session be more useful?

I'm not trying to be snarky.  I genuinely want to understand.

That's all I can remember things being like beforehand.  Sure, there was
WAIS, and there was gopher, but to really find anything, you had to telnet
(or 3270) somewhere, and run some site-specific search tool for many, many
sites.  Doing in-depth research on anything took ages or required going
back to the library or telephoning an actual person.

> No; that is implicit in the societal structure that is rapidly giving
> us the Corporate State.

That seems to be more people being too distracted to notice, or too
overworked to care, or too fearful to pay attention.  I really don't know
that the web has anything to do with it.

Neil Postman pretty much predicted this back when television was the prime
distraction.  Perhaps the problem isn't the distractions themselves, but
the lack of fulfillment people feel that makes them such a draw.

I don't know what life is like up in Canada, but the constant drumbeats of
fear and jingoism down here complete with utterly useless news sources and
thoroughly corrupt politicians makes being socially-conscious a steep
uphill climb.  A nice thing that's come of the web is the ability to read
The Guardian, The Economist, and the Globe and Mail all side-by-side.

>> Nor is there any active mechanism in place to degrade the network to
>> keep overhead low.  That's more-or-less a conspiracy among network
>> "service" providers.
>
> How is that not an active mechanism?

Because it's not top-down from any sort of government edict.  It's typical
short-sighted "next quarter earnings" business at play.  On one hand, I
see their side of the problem: putting copper and glass in the ground
isn't cheap.  On the other hand, telecoms are a cartel, and this is
price-fixing.

I'd argue that it's more of a passive mechanism inhibiting new players
from competing: protectionism, same as it's always been.  If there were
the threat of a sufficiently wealthy individual starting a new telco that
could compete on speed-of-service and end-run around the current backbone
monsters, this would get sorted.

> You asked what the basis for my emotions was; I was giving my best
> guesses.  Rational arguments have little-to-nothing to do with them.

I can accept that.  None of us is a fully rational being.

>> If I may, I'd like to offer the hardest and least-comforting lesson
>> that life continues to teach me:  You can't go back.
>
> I know.
>
> That's why this is driving me into depression.

That lesson will do that; I've been there.  Really, though, any of us is
too small to resist the march of time.  The only way forward is to
embrace it or run tangent.  Standing in opposition alone will just erode
and embitter you.

But when I'm standing in that crossroads of missed expectations and
feeling like I'm standing out of my place in time, the easiest way to make
it go away is to pick my battles.  I chose to let the angle brackets and
"social" networks win, but I still compose my mail in vim and send it via
Alpine as I did almost 20 years ago in vi and PINE.

My horns and piano don't require any sort of network access, the spices
and stove do well offline, and the tools in my garage work just fine when
AT&T's down.  Though, I can sometimes make them all work better towards my
goals if I can search for the non-obvious thing I'm missing on some damned
web-forum.

> I'm having trouble finding that "beauty", much less finding enough of
> it to outweigh the dross.

In 1996, I was convinced that this web thing was just a fad.  Four or so
years later, I was in the position of hating all these idiots who could
just Frontpage-up a horrid looking web site and call it done.  Somewhere
along the line, I came to the realization that I can bend this clumsy tool
into a thing that reduces the non-creative work I need to do in my life.

Now, I see it as a way to expose functionality to a wider audience.  Even
within an organization, there's a lower barrier to entry to tell someone
"type in this URL" than to ask them to download an executable or script
and run it.  To my benefit, I also only have to fix bugs in one spot; I
don't have to worry about distributing updates.

>>    4. I don't have to worry about an unscrupulous person intercepting
>>       paperwork that sits unmonitored in an unlocked box in front of
>>       my house.
>
> Instead, you have to worry about a _much_ larger set of unscrupulous
> people doing something analogous to the softcopy.  Or perhaps you don't
> worry about that.  I hope you never get bitten by it.

That problem exists whether or not I use the web services.  If the
phreaker text files dating back to the 1970s have any truth to them,
sensitive information on public-facing computers is a problem that
pre-dates the web.  Since there's already the danger, I might as well
benefit from it; I can't convince the companies handling my data to behave
better unless I can leave them and I'm a valuable enough customer for that
to matter to them.

As one guy with a single-person household, a small home-based business,
and a rental property, I'm just not that important.  Rather than telling
the world how it needs to be to make me happy, I can decide to be happy in
my little space in the world.

> I don't mind the Web being available to people who, like you, want to
> use it.  I mind it being imposed on people who, like me, don't.  I mind
> calling a company and being forced to listen to an ad for their website
> for fifteen seconds before it pays attention to any input I give.

It's in that company's interests for you to use the web site instead of
the phone number.  Their costs are less, and httpd doesn't ask for smoke
breaks.

This isn't an evil conspiracy.  This is the market sorting itself out.

-- 
Jonathan Patschke | "No matter how much the government controls...any
Elgin, TX         %  problem will be blamed on whatever small zone of
USA               |  freedom that remains."         --Sheldon Richman