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0 pointsspecialist5y ago0 comments

I really thought we'd have grid computing, aka utility computing. Running our self-contained software agents, persisting data and state in ubiquitous tuplespaces.

That's my excuse for being so slow to grasp "cloud". When AWS made EC2 public, I really didn't understand why anyone would want to use it.

Cloud era "serverless" just pisses me off. The applicable cliche is "Every sufficiently complex C project recreates LISP, poorly."

It's seems like we're doomed to repeatedly reinvent the past. Championed by youngsters who never read the book.

Maybe this explains "worse is better".

I know, I know. I've become the old crank. All you noisy kids get off my lawn.

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btilly5y ago

That's Greenspun's 10th rule. The full version of which is, "Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of CommonLisp."

Robert Morris' addendum is, "Including Common Lisp."

If you don't believe Robert Morris, tell me what LOOP does. :-)

(Note, this is the Robert Morris who wrote the first major internet worm, cofounded Viaweb with Paul Graham, and cofounded YCombinator, again with Paul Graham.)

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