On Friday, 16 May 2014 at 13:21:22 UTC, Etienne wrote:
> On 2014-05-16 9:12 AM, Chris wrote:
>>
>> I don't trust product / company centric software. It will lock you in or
>> lock you out.
>
> Google doesn't have a reputation of creating company centric software. SPDY was adopted by other browsers as well. If steam picks up on Dart, it could very well be adopted even by IE14 if that browser doesn't go the Netscape way ;)

You're kidding, aren't you. How can anything developed by a company become a real standard, catering for what developers need? The thread about Go not featuring generics is a good example. Look at what happened to Java. Market shares, strategic thinking, these all play into it, and don't forget the BIG EGOS you usually find among those who run those huge companies. Do you think that all decisions are made based on sound empirical evidence? Yeah, right.

On 2014-05-16 9:45 AM, Chris wrote:
> You're kidding, aren't you. How can anything developed by a company
> become a real standard, catering for what developers need? The thread
> about Go not featuring generics is a good example. Look at what happened
> to Java. Market shares, strategic thinking, these all play into it, and
> don't forget the BIG EGOS you usually find among those who run those
> huge companies. Do you think that all decisions are made based on sound
> empirical evidence? Yeah, right.

You know the C programming language was pushed forward by AT&T right? And you know Google's SPDY is part of the HTML2 draft? I don't know what your opinions on the big corporate machines are, but some really smart software engineers and pioneers are being employed there with revolutionary ideas.

On 2014-05-16 9:52 AM, Etienne wrote:
> SPDY is part of the HTML2 draft

My bad I meant HTTP 2 ;)

On Friday, 16 May 2014 at 12:55:30 UTC, Wyatt wrote:
> Even if I _were_ a Chrome user, I'd have precisely zero interest in a browser monoculture.  To wit, [P]NaCl and Dart effectively don't exist in my world.

Dart compiles to JS, but drops support for IE9 after this summer… so it isn't a mono culture, but you do depend on Google strategic planning by using Dart.

> ASM.js is only slightly better in this regard because it at least _runs_ on other browsers.

Yes, that's a good quality. You also have Google Closure which is type annotated JS that does optimization/minification.

On Friday, 16 May 2014 at 13:52:37 UTC, Etienne wrote:
> On 2014-05-16 9:45 AM, Chris wrote:
>> You're kidding, aren't you. How can anything developed by a company
>> become a real standard, catering for what developers need? The thread
>> about Go not featuring generics is a good example. Look at what happened
>> to Java. Market shares, strategic thinking, these all play into it, and
>> don't forget the BIG EGOS you usually find among those who run those
>> huge companies. Do you think that all decisions are made based on sound
>> empirical evidence? Yeah, right.
>
> You know the C programming language was pushed forward by AT&T right? And you know Google's SPDY is part of the HTML2 draft? I don't know what your opinions on the big corporate machines are, but some really smart software engineers and pioneers are being employed there with revolutionary ideas.

C isn't the best programming language. Only because something is everywhere, doesn't mean it's good (Windows comes to mind, and other big brands). As to the revolutionary ideas, are they really revolutionary or do they serve some corporate interest? Are there better ideas that will never be put into practice because they don't serve or even go against corporate interest? Is D still a small player because it is too community-oriented? (I hope this will never change!)

Mind you, how many of the big "be all end all"-technologies that have been hyped over the years are really good (including community base projects)? JS, Java, Ajax, PHP, Ruby, iOS, Android ...? With good I mean really good, not omnipresent.

On 2014-05-16 10:15 AM, Chris wrote:
> C isn't the best programming language. Only because something is
> everywhere, doesn't mean it's good (Windows comes to mind, and other big
> brands). As to the revolutionary ideas, are they really revolutionary or
> do they serve some corporate interest? Are there better ideas that will
> never be put into practice because they don't serve or even go against
> corporate interest? Is D still a small player because it is too
> community-oriented? (I hope this will never change!)
>
> Mind you, how many of the big "be all end all"-technologies that have
> been hyped over the years are really good (including community base
> projects)? JS, Java, Ajax, PHP, Ruby, iOS, Android ...? With good I mean
> really good, not omnipresent.

I'll have to go with: If it managed to serve corporate interest, that's because you were satisfied by it and suggested to others to "vote with their money". The company name is merely there to take that cash and re-distribute it to whom deserves it. I doubt the smartest person in the world could produce a microprocessor chip from sand without help

On Friday, 16 May 2014 at 14:20:36 UTC, Etienne wrote:
> On 2014-05-16 10:15 AM, Chris wrote:
>> C isn't the best programming language. Only because something is
>> everywhere, doesn't mean it's good (Windows comes to mind, and other big
>> brands). As to the revolutionary ideas, are they really revolutionary or
>> do they serve some corporate interest? Are there better ideas that will
>> never be put into practice because they don't serve or even go against
>> corporate interest? Is D still a small player because it is too
>> community-oriented? (I hope this will never change!)
>>
>> Mind you, how many of the big "be all end all"-technologies that have
>> been hyped over the years are really good (including community base
>> projects)? JS, Java, Ajax, PHP, Ruby, iOS, Android ...? With good I mean
>> really good, not omnipresent.
>
> I'll have to go with: If it managed to serve corporate interest, that's because you were satisfied by it and suggested to others to "vote with their money".

... or because nobody ever had a real choice (Windows comes to mind again). Talking about creating monopolies, cartels and the like. This goes for everything, not just software. Do people learn English, because they think it is a beautiful language or because they have to, if they want to access a global market? Does the omnipresence of English mean that it's the best language ever (Bien sûr!) and that's why people "vote" for it? Isn't it sometimes just choosing the lesser evil instead of being able to choose something really good?

> The company name is merely there to take that cash and re-distribute it to whom deserves it. I doubt the smartest person in the world could produce a microprocessor chip from sand without help

On 2014-05-16 10:41 AM, Chris wrote:
> Isn't it sometimes just choosing the lesser evil instead of being able
> to choose something really good?

Alright, so you can try and make something really good and see if it can satisfy 95% of the world's offices as much. Even with infinite funds and teammates, chances are you'll quickly end up admiring that "dreadful Microsoft"'s employees for putting up with that shit and making something good out of it.. whatever the salary. Companies don't make humans miserable; humans make humans miserable. Hatred for humans because they serve other humans under a banner is just plain ignorance

On Friday, 16 May 2014 at 14:46:43 UTC, Etienne wrote:
> On 2014-05-16 10:41 AM, Chris wrote:
>> Isn't it sometimes just choosing the lesser evil instead of being able
>> to choose something really good?
>
> Alright, so you can try and make something really good and see if it can satisfy 95% of the world's offices as much. Even with infinite funds and teammates, chances are you'll quickly end up admiring that "dreadful Microsoft"'s employees for putting up with that shit and making something good out of it.. whatever the salary.

> Companies don't make humans miserable; humans make humans miserable.

And companies are run by humans, if I'm not completely mistaken. It's not the army that kills people, it's the humans in the army that kill other humans. Stoutly reasoned!

> Hatred for humans because they serve other humans under a banner is just plain ignorance

Who's talking about hatred? Being skeptical doesn't involve hatred. The thing is that the best engineers cannot put their ideas into practice, if the company rejects it for whatever reason (there are so many, partly highly ridiculous, reasons why good ideas have been rejected, one could write a book about it). And yes, if humans serve under a banner, you have the right to criticize them, because they accept the banner and what it stands for. The fact that we all have to serve somebody to put food on our tables, doesn't mean it is right.

On 2014-05-16 10:57 AM, Chris wrote:
>
> And companies are run by humans, if I'm not completely mistaken. It's
> not the army that kills people, it's the humans in the army that kill
> other humans. Stoutly reasoned!
>
>> Hatred for humans because they serve other humans under a banner is
>> just plain ignorance
>
> Who's talking about hatred? Being skeptical doesn't involve hatred. The
> thing is that the best engineers cannot put their ideas into practice,
> if the company rejects it for whatever reason (there are so many, partly
> highly ridiculous, reasons why good ideas have been rejected, one could
> write a book about it). And yes, if humans serve under a banner, you
> have the right to criticize them, because they accept the banner and
> what it stands for. The fact that we all have to serve somebody to put
> food on our tables, doesn't mean it is right.

I think we're both right, just arguing about the risks of both extremities of the evilness scale in companies. They can be really good, and really bad. Break down those too big to fail more power to the people etc. etc.