6 ms·

I Love Walled Gardens

6 points by chibea 17y ago

tdoggette 17y ago
“But Rory, programming is my passion. I was willing to spend that long learning how to code.” No, I think back at them — programmers are not given the satisfaction of hearing my voice. No, you were willing to spend that long because you had obsessive-compulsive problems mixed with an antisocial attitude. The fact that he's pretty clearly trolling in the passage above doesn't make it less worth reading, as it does discuss some interesting points about how people use and learn about computers.
- rinich 17y ago
  Can I jump in here and issue a minor clarification? I am not a troll. I am a creative writer. I care much, much more about whether I'm writing in interesting and fun and amusing ways than I do about any pretense of formality, particularly in this piece. (I alternate between phases of more serious writing and more tongue-in-cheek. This is very much the latter.) I don't like the suggestion that the instant a piece of writing stops being formal or serious, it becomes a troll piece. In this case in particular, I thought that there was a very specific reason to write it in the way that I did: Partly it's to highlight the fact that I think this particular criticism of Apple is a tad silly, for a variety of reasons. But it also deflates me, and indicates that perhaps this argument, while relevant, should not be taken as my attempt to speak the word of God.
  - tdoggette 17y ago
    It's not that it's unserious, it's that parts of it were clearly written to get a rise out of people. Maybe "flamebait" is a better term.
    - rinich 17y ago
      But it wasn't. As I wrote elsewhere on this thread: I didn't want this posted to Hacker News. I was writing for a different audience of people, one that enjoys a little melodrama and overdescription. I didn't expect anybody in that "programming" umbrella to read this. I'm sorry that it's wound up here, but it wasn't trolling and I resent the accusation.
      - tdoggette 17y ago
        You posted an essay on the internet about a new Apple product and how it relates to the hacker mentality. It includes such tidbits as "...people won’t be able to satisfy their computer curiosities. To which I again say: Good! Then they’ll have to satisfy their curiosities about emotional maturity and social interaction..." and that paragraph I cited above about obsessive-compulsive tendencies and an anti-social attitude. It attacks the stereotypical perception of the nerd (especially the "hacker" type) while discussing the future of open versus closed computer systems. Who did you think your audience was? Furthermore, you end it with, "Only our chance to pontificate endlessly, to people who don’t think you’re as smart as your derogatory t-shirt claims." That's aimed pretty squarely at the group you're criticizing. I really did enjoy reading it, and it was insightful and interesting. Whether or not it was aimed at the programmer audience, it's on a topic that's of interest largely to that audience, and it certainly seems as though it's designed to elicit a negative reaction. Calling it trolling might be an overstatement, but it makes many of its points through attacking a large portion of the people that are likely to read it.
        rinich 17y ago
        I actually tried to write an explanation upthread a bit; hopefully that'll calm things down. There's a lot of hyperbolic criticism about the iPad that I don't think is justified. This is a hyperbolic response. In some threads here and elsewhere I have tried to state my ideas rationally, but when you have hundreds of Greater Internet Fuckwads spouting things you run out of steam quickly. This is how I chose to unwind. I have a beef with the Aspergers-aspiring model of the programmer. Not all computer people are like that. I'm a computer person and I'm not; my friends are computer people and they're not. But there are still some people who pride themselves in how lacking they are socially, in how incapable they are of relating with people, and they're sadly acclaimed by a lot of people. I think it's a damn shame. Apple draws out the worst in those people, because Apple as a company exists almost to refute their ideas of how computers should work. They focus not on specs and feature sheets but on usability and elegance and things that make people who don't like computers more happy. And I love that! I think it's what's needed to make computers and computer people as mainstream as films and film people are. I'd like to be able to discuss Internet Topics with people without it instantly getting me pegged as one of those nasty Internet People in question. So, yes, it was critical of people who wear insulting t-shirts. I don't apologize to people here who still do, because I honestly think they've got to mature themselves a bit. Most programmers aren't like that, and I don't have a beef with them, and if theirs were the voices leading this conversation I'd have written something less out-of-orbit.
plinkplonk 17y ago
trolls love walled gardens?
- tree_of_item 17y ago
  This is only half-trolling. There are some very good ideas here. I think the author is absolutely correct when he says that the endless tinkering that an "open" system allows is viewed as a useless waste of time by the vast majority of people, and that they aren't completely wrong in that assessment.
  - plinkplonk 17y ago
    "This is only half-trolling." Would a half troll be something like a half elf with a troll father and human mother? :-P I believe such a player class exists in the game Arcanum. More seriously, the author drowns whatever valid points he may have in trollish blather. As to the "endless tinkering that an "open" system allows is viewed as a useless waste of time by the vast majority of people," the value of tinkering is to the tinkerers. Non tinkerers making vlaue judgments on its utility is irrelevant to its desirability to tinkerers. I think music is irrelevant so you shouldn't get to play your violin? A more viable argument is that I shouldn't have to subsidize your violin, not that my judgment about your musical tinkering being "a useless waste of time" is "not completely wrong".
    - rinich 17y ago
      If I want to play the violin, there are violins designed specifically for letting me play them with little restraint. There are books designed specifically to guide me through learning how to play. Most people would hire an instructor to teach me the basics. That's all possible with a closed system. You can make environments specially designed to encourage tinkering, rather than leaving everything open for intrusion. You can write guides teaching people things that they wouldn't normally see on a closed system. It doesn't exist by default like it does perhaps on a system wherein everything is viewable, but you can still create it. So it won't kill programming. It's not like Apple's declaring a holocaust on all other computers. If you're so obsessed with tinkering that you think it's worth fucking around instead of learning to tinker in more meaningful ways — though I must admit that from my biased point of view that always seems like the college graduate whose poetry reads like high school — the other systems are all available, and will be for a long, long time; it won't be long before somebody releases an open source equivalent of the iPad for stupid people to go around claiming is objectively better in every way and for ordinary tinkerers to buy and tinker with. But I'd like to address this troll accusation, because I find it unbecoming. I am not a troll. I have been a productive and contributing member of this community for nearly two years; even though my respect for it has constantly declined, I come in here to debate with people all the time. I don't do it to fuck around with your head or to provoke people. I do it because I enjoy stating my point of view, which is frequently very different from the mass opinions here. My blog is not written for Hacker News. My blog is written for the potpourri audience of artists and literati and young adults that enjoy long essays written about random subjects. It's not a coding blog, so even when I write about subjects that interest people here I'm not writing it in a way that'll appeal to readers here. This article was submitted three times; the first time I asked that it be killed and the submitter graciously killed it for me. This is not of a tone appropriate for Hacker News. But that does not make it a troll post. I wrote a post last month describing fictional Listerine commercials. I'm sure if it had been submitted here people would have been boneheaded to announce the commercials were fake and I was trolling. There are smart people here, but there are not very diverse people.
loup-vaillant 17y ago
> Not when those open systems risk confusing and alienating people who just want to check their mail. Speaking of mail, I would like to be able to host it at home, where it should be. (It's private, after all.) Thanks to the walled garden policy of blocking the outgoing SMTP port (and no one complaining, because web mail is soo convenient), I can't. If Trusted Computing ever becomes the default, it won't be long before using open systems becomes a major hassle. Because, you know, they are dangerous, infected by viruses, used by cyber-pirates, in a word, suspects. Just like home hosted mail servers.
danskil 17y ago
I was rather upset to find no awesome pictures of walled gardens included in this post.
- rinich 17y ago
  The work I do for you people amazes me: http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/whereilive/coast/images/southwestandayrshire/walled_garden.jpg http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/whereilive/coast/images/southw...
Tichy 17y ago
"Instead, they will go to the carefully-screened App Store, and they will search for “How do I make video games”, and they will find a little button that teaches them and gives them a run-time environment in which to tinker." A small problem: run-time environments are not allowed in the app store.
- rinich 17y ago
  I responded to that in the other thread about this article. It's a damn shame. Can you make one that downloads to the iPhone/iPad and run natively? There's nothing in an RTE that needs to access Internet files, right? So theoretically you could program it in its entirety and have people download that. I'm sorry I didn't know that when I wrote the article, though; certainly it throws a nasty complication into the works.
  - Tichy 17y ago
    I haven't really programmed the iPhone yet, so I am not sure. However, I must admit there might be one way out: there is a JavaScript interpreter on the iPhone. I guess if you made a simple form and had it's contents be evaluated by JavaScript at the press of a button, Apple would OK it (not certain, though). Unfortunately JavaScript is quite restricted on the iPhone, too (I've heard it just gets killed if it runs too long, too long being on the order of seconds). Not sure what Apple would say if you wrote an interpreter for something else than JavaScript in JavaScript...
keyist 17y ago
There is a direct analogy to creative writing. The publishing equivalent of Apple would have stifled e.e. cummings for his abuse of punctuation. You wouldn't have Jabberwocky because it contained imaginary words. You wouldn't have Joyce because the App^H^H^HBook Store reviewers decided that it made absolutely no sense. The examples above are all of writers tinkering with English, tinkering with writing, hacking the language to accomplish things that otherwise would have been impossible before. A closed system takes all these away. You shouldn't dismiss the effect of walled gardens on hackers just because you can't or won't empathize with our bit-twiddling.
- rinich 17y ago
  Bullshit. If somebody broke UI rules in as brilliant a way as Cummings did it, Apple would accept the app. Meanwhile, publishing companies reject poets with shitty punctuation every day. The fact that Cummings was published has a lot to do with the fact that his punctuation was awesome. (Also, Cummings wrote more typical sonnets before he started experimenting, so there was precedent.) If you want to be experimental, be it online. Nobody can deny access to your HTML5 creations. In fact, Apple's one of the biggest pushers of compliant modern web browsing.

6 points by chibea 17y ago

“But Rory, programming is my passion. I was willing to spend that long learning how to code.” No, I think back at them — programmers are not given the satisfaction of hearing my voice. No, you were willing to spend that long because you had obsessive-compulsive problems mixed with an antisocial attitude. The fact that he's pretty clearly trolling in the passage above doesn't make it less worth reading, as it does discuss some interesting points about how people use and learn about computers.

rinich 17y ago
Can I jump in here and issue a minor clarification? I am not a troll. I am a creative writer. I care much, much more about whether I'm writing in interesting and fun and amusing ways than I do about any pretense of formality, particularly in this piece. (I alternate between phases of more serious writing and more tongue-in-cheek. This is very much the latter.) I don't like the suggestion that the instant a piece of writing stops being formal or serious, it becomes a troll piece. In this case in particular, I thought that there was a very specific reason to write it in the way that I did: Partly it's to highlight the fact that I think this particular criticism of Apple is a tad silly, for a variety of reasons. But it also deflates me, and indicates that perhaps this argument, while relevant, should not be taken as my attempt to speak the word of God.
- tdoggette 17y ago
  It's not that it's unserious, it's that parts of it were clearly written to get a rise out of people. Maybe "flamebait" is a better term.
  - rinich 17y ago
    But it wasn't. As I wrote elsewhere on this thread: I didn't want this posted to Hacker News. I was writing for a different audience of people, one that enjoys a little melodrama and overdescription. I didn't expect anybody in that "programming" umbrella to read this. I'm sorry that it's wound up here, but it wasn't trolling and I resent the accusation.
    - tdoggette 17y ago
      You posted an essay on the internet about a new Apple product and how it relates to the hacker mentality. It includes such tidbits as "...people won’t be able to satisfy their computer curiosities. To which I again say: Good! Then they’ll have to satisfy their curiosities about emotional maturity and social interaction..." and that paragraph I cited above about obsessive-compulsive tendencies and an anti-social attitude. It attacks the stereotypical perception of the nerd (especially the "hacker" type) while discussing the future of open versus closed computer systems. Who did you think your audience was? Furthermore, you end it with, "Only our chance to pontificate endlessly, to people who don’t think you’re as smart as your derogatory t-shirt claims." That's aimed pretty squarely at the group you're criticizing. I really did enjoy reading it, and it was insightful and interesting. Whether or not it was aimed at the programmer audience, it's on a topic that's of interest largely to that audience, and it certainly seems as though it's designed to elicit a negative reaction. Calling it trolling might be an overstatement, but it makes many of its points through attacking a large portion of the people that are likely to read it.
      - rinich 17y ago
        I actually tried to write an explanation upthread a bit; hopefully that'll calm things down. There's a lot of hyperbolic criticism about the iPad that I don't think is justified. This is a hyperbolic response. In some threads here and elsewhere I have tried to state my ideas rationally, but when you have hundreds of Greater Internet Fuckwads spouting things you run out of steam quickly. This is how I chose to unwind. I have a beef with the Aspergers-aspiring model of the programmer. Not all computer people are like that. I'm a computer person and I'm not; my friends are computer people and they're not. But there are still some people who pride themselves in how lacking they are socially, in how incapable they are of relating with people, and they're sadly acclaimed by a lot of people. I think it's a damn shame. Apple draws out the worst in those people, because Apple as a company exists almost to refute their ideas of how computers should work. They focus not on specs and feature sheets but on usability and elegance and things that make people who don't like computers more happy. And I love that! I think it's what's needed to make computers and computer people as mainstream as films and film people are. I'd like to be able to discuss Internet Topics with people without it instantly getting me pegged as one of those nasty Internet People in question. So, yes, it was critical of people who wear insulting t-shirts. I don't apologize to people here who still do, because I honestly think they've got to mature themselves a bit. Most programmers aren't like that, and I don't have a beef with them, and if theirs were the voices leading this conversation I'd have written something less out-of-orbit.

plinkplonk 17y ago

trolls love walled gardens?

tree_of_item 17y ago
This is only half-trolling. There are some very good ideas here. I think the author is absolutely correct when he says that the endless tinkering that an "open" system allows is viewed as a useless waste of time by the vast majority of people, and that they aren't completely wrong in that assessment.
- plinkplonk 17y ago
  "This is only half-trolling." Would a half troll be something like a half elf with a troll father and human mother? :-P I believe such a player class exists in the game Arcanum. More seriously, the author drowns whatever valid points he may have in trollish blather. As to the "endless tinkering that an "open" system allows is viewed as a useless waste of time by the vast majority of people," the value of tinkering is to the tinkerers. Non tinkerers making vlaue judgments on its utility is irrelevant to its desirability to tinkerers. I think music is irrelevant so you shouldn't get to play your violin? A more viable argument is that I shouldn't have to subsidize your violin, not that my judgment about your musical tinkering being "a useless waste of time" is "not completely wrong".
  - rinich 17y ago
    If I want to play the violin, there are violins designed specifically for letting me play them with little restraint. There are books designed specifically to guide me through learning how to play. Most people would hire an instructor to teach me the basics. That's all possible with a closed system. You can make environments specially designed to encourage tinkering, rather than leaving everything open for intrusion. You can write guides teaching people things that they wouldn't normally see on a closed system. It doesn't exist by default like it does perhaps on a system wherein everything is viewable, but you can still create it. So it won't kill programming. It's not like Apple's declaring a holocaust on all other computers. If you're so obsessed with tinkering that you think it's worth fucking around instead of learning to tinker in more meaningful ways — though I must admit that from my biased point of view that always seems like the college graduate whose poetry reads like high school — the other systems are all available, and will be for a long, long time; it won't be long before somebody releases an open source equivalent of the iPad for stupid people to go around claiming is objectively better in every way and for ordinary tinkerers to buy and tinker with. But I'd like to address this troll accusation, because I find it unbecoming. I am not a troll. I have been a productive and contributing member of this community for nearly two years; even though my respect for it has constantly declined, I come in here to debate with people all the time. I don't do it to fuck around with your head or to provoke people. I do it because I enjoy stating my point of view, which is frequently very different from the mass opinions here. My blog is not written for Hacker News. My blog is written for the potpourri audience of artists and literati and young adults that enjoy long essays written about random subjects. It's not a coding blog, so even when I write about subjects that interest people here I'm not writing it in a way that'll appeal to readers here. This article was submitted three times; the first time I asked that it be killed and the submitter graciously killed it for me. This is not of a tone appropriate for Hacker News. But that does not make it a troll post. I wrote a post last month describing fictional Listerine commercials. I'm sure if it had been submitted here people would have been boneheaded to announce the commercials were fake and I was trolling. There are smart people here, but there are not very diverse people.

loup-vaillant 17y ago

> Not when those open systems risk confusing and alienating people who just want to check their mail. Speaking of mail, I would like to be able to host it at home, where it should be. (It's private, after all.) Thanks to the walled garden policy of blocking the outgoing SMTP port (and no one complaining, because web mail is soo convenient), I can't. If Trusted Computing ever becomes the default, it won't be long before using open systems becomes a major hassle. Because, you know, they are dangerous, infected by viruses, used by cyber-pirates, in a word, suspects. Just like home hosted mail servers.

danskil 17y ago

I was rather upset to find no awesome pictures of walled gardens included in this post.

rinich 17y ago
The work I do for you people amazes me: http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/whereilive/coast/images/southwestandayrshire/walled_garden.jpg http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/whereilive/coast/images/southw...

Tichy 17y ago

"Instead, they will go to the carefully-screened App Store, and they will search for “How do I make video games”, and they will find a little button that teaches them and gives them a run-time environment in which to tinker." A small problem: run-time environments are not allowed in the app store.

rinich 17y ago
I responded to that in the other thread about this article. It's a damn shame. Can you make one that downloads to the iPhone/iPad and run natively? There's nothing in an RTE that needs to access Internet files, right? So theoretically you could program it in its entirety and have people download that. I'm sorry I didn't know that when I wrote the article, though; certainly it throws a nasty complication into the works.
- Tichy 17y ago
  I haven't really programmed the iPhone yet, so I am not sure. However, I must admit there might be one way out: there is a JavaScript interpreter on the iPhone. I guess if you made a simple form and had it's contents be evaluated by JavaScript at the press of a button, Apple would OK it (not certain, though). Unfortunately JavaScript is quite restricted on the iPhone, too (I've heard it just gets killed if it runs too long, too long being on the order of seconds). Not sure what Apple would say if you wrote an interpreter for something else than JavaScript in JavaScript...

keyist 17y ago

There is a direct analogy to creative writing. The publishing equivalent of Apple would have stifled e.e. cummings for his abuse of punctuation. You wouldn't have Jabberwocky because it contained imaginary words. You wouldn't have Joyce because the App^H^H^HBook Store reviewers decided that it made absolutely no sense. The examples above are all of writers tinkering with English, tinkering with writing, hacking the language to accomplish things that otherwise would have been impossible before. A closed system takes all these away. You shouldn't dismiss the effect of walled gardens on hackers just because you can't or won't empathize with our bit-twiddling.

rinich 17y ago
Bullshit. If somebody broke UI rules in as brilliant a way as Cummings did it, Apple would accept the app. Meanwhile, publishing companies reject poets with shitty punctuation every day. The fact that Cummings was published has a lot to do with the fact that his punctuation was awesome. (Also, Cummings wrote more typical sonnets before he started experimenting, so there was precedent.) If you want to be experimental, be it online. Nobody can deny access to your HTML5 creations. In fact, Apple's one of the biggest pushers of compliant modern web browsing.