Seth: Do have an example (even an invented one)? This is not something I've come across, but maybe I didn't notice it.

Beware the beautiful abstractions that subtly replace the requirements of the software with their own preservation

(I’m not subskeeting anybody, this is self reflection)

Do have an example (even an invented one)? This is not something I've come across, but maybe I didn't notice it.

Almost any time you say “Everything is a _” you’re in danger territory. “Everything is a list” or “a tree” or “a stream” tends to lead to a lot of work spent preserving that idea

it’s almost like binary thinking results in imprecise software & outcomes once you get above, like, machine language. 🤔

i want to make it very clear this is not me throwing shade at @pfrazee.com . software engineers are absolute poets for being able to express the nuance of reality to machines that think in either 1 or 0.

This is such a gorgeous way to describe what we do. 😍

as a product manager who can write sorta decent code in a handful of languages, i have immense respect for all software engineers & developers. y’all are able to write philosophy that impacts reality. that is an existentially cool skill set.

i taught myself enough full stack stuff to minimize the amount of annoying questions i ask engineers & so that i could write & submit basic af bug fixes for FOSS projects i love lol 10/10 would recommend for everyone.

They can trick lightning trapped in rock into thinking. They're wizards.

But fortunately not an existentially terrifying one, unless we really are in a Charlie Stross novel without realizing it

sometimes it rocks pretty hard

my gender is a double precision floating point number (IEEE 754), and cannot reliably be compared for equality...at least without `std::numeric_limits::epsilon()` tyvm /jk

I think in Lisp everything is literally a list.

Pure Lisp, not sure that still exists except on some really old interpreters.

Yeah, I think even the first spec of Common Lisp in 1984 supported structs and hash tables. Lisp has always been very twee about its affection for lists but I don’t think it’s tried to overstuff that metaphor.

Yeah, and I've never been a big fan of LISP

"Everything in unix is a file."

unless you do game dev, then everything is a lookup table.

Can confirm

Everything is a for loop with condition logic

I feel this way about Gang of Four. There are some useful design patterns in there, but I have met too many engineers and even worked for an architect once who insisted that everything be defined in a series of GOF design patterns. Design first, then find patterns. Not the reverse.

*twitches in everything is an object*

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