Here’s Jonathan Blow’s take on everything turning into a distributed system: “It’s a disaster.” cc @Ian Bicking @Charlie Roberts

Can you give a link to this presentation?

Sorry, it’s close enough above that I figured it would be obvious: https://futureofcoding.slack.com/archives/C5T9GPWFL/p1558233613455500

Oh, right. I've actually already added this to my "watch later". Not sure how I made that disconnect, but thanks :)

Everything already is a distributed system, right down to the chip level 😉

Should everyone know what is happening on the CPU?

The key word is “widespread”. Let’s not strawman the argument 🙂

Oh I didn't mean to. Let me rephrase. Should the knowledge of what is happening in the CPU be widespread? Across what group? All programmers? Or a specific segment?

Yeah, that’s a good question. My immediate reaction? Segments are notional ideas. There’s probably some criticality ratio waiting to be discovered. The minimum density of truly knowledgeable “dopants” necessary to transmit knowledge to the next generation well enough to be sustainable over time. But what groups those people belong to mostly don’t matter. If we can make it work for some segment that we choose to call ‘system programmers’ that’s fine.

@Kartik Agaram did you get the wrong Charlie? I really appreciate Johnathan Blow as a guy who always has an interesting take, but I usually disagree with his premises. His premise here that software is getting worse is absolute bullshit. Windows 10 is another issue, but I don't think my Windows 7 machine BSOD'd once in its 5 year lifetime...compare that to Win95/98. I've never seen Gmail fail in coming on 15 years of use. It's true that SV hype-VC companies create terrible software, but the people who write good stuff are still around. Unfortunately, Mr.Blow seems to have the common opinion games engineers have that distributed and web computing is full of slack-jawed yokels working with keyboards that only have CTRL+C+V keys. Finding some common ground with JB, I do think that average talent per engineer in the industry is declining--I interpret part of this slack's goal is researching how "normal people" can contribute effectively to software.

Hopefully I didn’t get the wrong Charlie. I meant to tag the author of https://futureofcoding.slack.com/archives/C5T9GPWFL/p1557434052245400.

@shalabh it's a good to ask whether should know what's happening on the CPU. Depending on the task, good answers range from "absolutely" to "it's nice to have a feel" to "for all I know there it's a bunch of tiny hamsters." Is knowledge of CPU function remotely analogous to reading and writing? Skill with the CPU strikes me as moe like the skill of typesetting (I mean for a printing press). Are writing and typesetting skills with any overlap?

I’ve never seen Gmail fail in coming on 15 years of use.

“Fail” seems like a pretty low bar, though. I think Gmail does plenty that its authors find desirable but I as a user find undesirable. In particular, the way the Gmail monoculture makes it impossible for anyone to run a small-scale email server is absolutely contributing to the downfall of civilization. The fact that kids these days can’t program on the metal of their computers is absolutely contributing to the downfall of civilization. I don’t know if everyone must do it, but the fact that it’s increasingly impossible for anyone to do it feels existential. A windows PC today is the open platform compared to the media consumption platforms Android or iOS. How did it come to this? He mentions in passing that drawing a pixel on screen is incredibly difficult. On the BBC Micro you typed out one command at the keyboard and it drew a line on the screen — on top of your code. The benefits of that level of immediacy are impossible to overstate.