Nice time last night at J.'s party. Saw some old friends from school which is always interesting. I guess J is a friend from school too, but I don't think of her that way any more now that we've been hanging out for so long in NYC. Those Providence college days seem long ago, which I guess is a complete cliche, but not surprisingly it is also true. I had a great time back then, but I don't miss those years. Things are happening now. I was always young before. Now, suddenly, I'm not. And that doesn't have anything to do with chronological age. I think it has to do with engaging the task that will be the work of your life.
I talked to J.B. for a little bit amid all the wine. He always seems genuinely interested in what I am doing, and I really appreciate that. He's smart. I tried to argue something about cool software being produced (or at least completely thought out) by one person. That it has to bear the stamp of an individual if it is really going to catch the fancy of people. But I wasn't able to argue (explain) my point well. Of course most software will be produced by teams of people. Most of it is too complex to do any other way. This will be especially true of large projects. But I think that the really revolutionary software (where revolutionary doesn't necessarily mean 'world changing' but just something like 'suddenly popular out of left field') will be the result of one person thinking through a problem. Individuals have a better chance than teams at making breakthroughs (although probably highly isolated individuals are at a disadvantage - so the whole issue is sort of muddy.)
I hope I get the chance to continue that conversation with him.
Linus (and others) have exchanged some interesting thoughts somewhat related to this on the Linux Kernal Mailing List. Basically Linus argues that Linux wasn't/isn't even designed at all. Very different than what I was saying (but of course I wasn't talking about superhuman stuff like writing operating systems.) Interesting thoughts. I like that kind of stuff.
Linus: And don't EVER make the mistake [of thinking] that you can design something better than what you get from ruthless massively parallel trial-and-error with a feedback cycle. That's giving your intelligence _much_ too much credit.
Continuity addicts continuity addicts.
Info = dope. I was offline a fortnight.
A fortnight, my god, seemed like 2 years. I think there might be some time dilation between our two locations. What's been going on?
Are you email accessible? You know you can have the system mail you your password - go to /login and type 'frank' into the 'I forgot my password:' field and then click 'mail it to me.'
Good to hear from you. Stay in touch.
Yeah..two years..let's just say it was a really really good cup of Kaos.
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I talked to J.B. for a little bit amid all the wine. He always seems genuinely interested in what I am doing, and I really appreciate that. He's smart. I tried to argue something about cool software being produced (or at least completely thought out) by one person. That it has to bear the stamp of an individual if it is really going to catch the fancy of people. But I wasn't able to argue (explain) my point well. Of course most software will be produced by teams of people. Most of it is too complex to do any other way. This will be especially true of large projects. But I think that the really revolutionary software (where revolutionary doesn't necessarily mean 'world changing' but just something like 'suddenly popular out of left field') will be the result of one person thinking through a problem. Individuals have a better chance than teams at making breakthroughs (although probably highly isolated individuals are at a disadvantage - so the whole issue is sort of muddy.)
I hope I get the chance to continue that conversation with him.
- jim 12-02-2001 8:31 pm
Linus (and others) have exchanged some interesting thoughts somewhat related to this on the Linux Kernal Mailing List. Basically Linus argues that Linux wasn't/isn't even designed at all. Very different than what I was saying (but of course I wasn't talking about superhuman stuff like writing operating systems.) Interesting thoughts. I like that kind of stuff.
Linus:
- jim 12-02-2001 9:12 pm
Continuity addicts continuity addicts. Info = dope. I was offline a fortnight.
- Frank 12-03-2001 6:13 am
A fortnight, my god, seemed like 2 years. I think there might be some time dilation between our two locations. What's been going on?
Are you email accessible? You know you can have the system mail you your password - go to /login and type 'frank' into the 'I forgot my password:' field and then click 'mail it to me.'
Good to hear from you. Stay in touch.
- jim 12-03-2001 6:31 pm
Yeah..two years..let's just say it was a really really good cup of Kaos.
- Frank 12-03-2001 10:01 pm