Re: [ANN] Bou - a Lua-based Build System

[David Haley <dchaley@...>]

On this day of 02/09/2008 03:16 AM, Brandon Van Every saw fit to scribe:
> On Feb 9, 2008 6:06 AM, Stefan Sandberg <keffo.sandberg@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Woah, that's the most depressing statement I've heard in a long time, I
>> almost feel sorry for you!
>>
>> I couldn't care less about what people trade currency for in their day
>> to day job, what impresses the shit out of me is all the stuff people
>> come up with for no apparent reason
>> other than their own personal gratification, or simply for the art in it..
>>
>> You basically reduced all the wonderful things people do for "fun" into
>> a pile of crap..
> 
> They don't last. They don't change the software industry.  The
> software industry is basically junk.  It takes important strategic
> principles to do anything about it.  Lua has a good idea in this
> regard, that a small off-the-shelf language can be easily embedded
> rather than your homebrew.  But hobbyists who merely play with Lua are
> not producing a similarly good idea.  Where "good" == "strategically
> important" == "will change the software industry" == "will make
> programmers' lives less miserable in a paying industrial context."
> 
> To put it another way, hobbyists deal with the depressing truth of the
> software industry by completely ignoring it.  They do not face it or
> contribute to overcoming it.
> 
>> You probably have the makings of an excellent boss, but please refrain
>> from commenting on what us "hobbyists" think is important.
> 
> No problem, as I do not think what hobbyists think is important.
> Hobbyists, in my experience, do not have the stamina to make a
> difference.  I wish they'd find it somewhere.  Turn them into
> ideological warriors who are going to make software better.


Maybe not everybody is interested in being strategically important,
changing the software industry, making a difference, or being
"ideological warriors" (that sounds kind of scary to me, actually). They
might have other goals that are, as I am sure you agree, just as
respectable. Can we perhaps leave it at that?

Cheers,
- David

-- 
~David-Haley
http://david.the-haleys.org