5 ms·

Velocity is important because we all eventually die. I've been following Haiku since it was announced. In that time a couple of personal friends have passed on

by dleslie 19d ago

Velocity is important because we all eventually die. I've been following Haiku since it was announced. In that time a couple of personal friends have passed on, and a number of family members. In that time children have been born, gone to school, grown into adults, and had children of their own. Projects that drag on forever make for an interesting artistic statement, but if their goals in any way include utility then velocity is important because time is important.

justsid 19d ago
Not everything has to happen in your or my lifetime. Not everything will happen in our lifetimes. If time is so important, Haiku was never going to work for you anyways on account of it being niche, which adds friction, which adds time. Velocity isn’t going to fix this either
- dleslie 18d ago
  As I mentioned, projects that take a long time make for interesting artistic statements. But if the goal isn't performance art but is utility, then alacrity matters. Many other niche projects have enjoyed enough velocity to have meaningful utility, in my lifetime. Linux was still niche when I started using it in '94.
  - throwaway19567 18d ago
    I think that's a false dichotomy. Some people enjoy building things. It's not performance art, it's a hobby. Can Haiku not be a hobby for people who enjoy hacking away at BeOS? (You might think I'm splitting hairs here, but performance art is precisely the wrong analogy to use, since performance art is for the benefit of others. Performance art is inherently public and assessable in terms of how it reaches others, unlike hobbies. Performance art is env=PROD.) Was the purpose of Haiku ever utility? What do you define as utility? If I spend a day building a shelf, does that have more or less utility than buying a shelf from IKEA? What if I like making shelves? What if I like making OSes? Does the shelf (/OS) that I build have less utility than the one from IKEA (/MS)? In economics, utility is a measure of individual satisfaction. The person who likes tinkering with Haiku is deriving cold hard economic utility from Haiku right now. What should it matter to this person whether you find Haiku web scale and production ready? John Q Public is never going to run Haiku, no matter how much polish you throw at it. Why rush to some goal line that doesn't exist in the first place?
    - dleslie 15d ago
      If its purpose is to be the output of a hobby then it is art; if it is shared with the world, then it is performance art. Art has utility, of course; but we're discussing primary goals.

by dleslie 19d ago

justsid 19d ago

Not everything has to happen in your or my lifetime. Not everything will happen in our lifetimes. If time is so important, Haiku was never going to work for you anyways on account of it being niche, which adds friction, which adds time. Velocity isn’t going to fix this either

dleslie 18d ago
As I mentioned, projects that take a long time make for interesting artistic statements. But if the goal isn't performance art but is utility, then alacrity matters. Many other niche projects have enjoyed enough velocity to have meaningful utility, in my lifetime. Linux was still niche when I started using it in '94.
- throwaway19567 18d ago
  I think that's a false dichotomy. Some people enjoy building things. It's not performance art, it's a hobby. Can Haiku not be a hobby for people who enjoy hacking away at BeOS? (You might think I'm splitting hairs here, but performance art is precisely the wrong analogy to use, since performance art is for the benefit of others. Performance art is inherently public and assessable in terms of how it reaches others, unlike hobbies. Performance art is env=PROD.) Was the purpose of Haiku ever utility? What do you define as utility? If I spend a day building a shelf, does that have more or less utility than buying a shelf from IKEA? What if I like making shelves? What if I like making OSes? Does the shelf (/OS) that I build have less utility than the one from IKEA (/MS)? In economics, utility is a measure of individual satisfaction. The person who likes tinkering with Haiku is deriving cold hard economic utility from Haiku right now. What should it matter to this person whether you find Haiku web scale and production ready? John Q Public is never going to run Haiku, no matter how much polish you throw at it. Why rush to some goal line that doesn't exist in the first place?
  - dleslie 15d ago
    If its purpose is to be the output of a hobby then it is art; if it is shared with the world, then it is performance art. Art has utility, of course; but we're discussing primary goals.