The Zeitgeist

[update! Figures Apple would make me eat my words — they just released MacOS X 10.5.3 at about 1:30PM ET. Did they do it just so Delicious Library users would get the full benefit of the graphics speedups? I hope so ]

Yay! My favorite library application is now even better — Wil Shipley and his band of amazing OS X developers just released Delicious Library 2.0. With eager anticipation my mouse flew to the download link. I quickly popped it into my Applications folder and double-clicked its silky smooth bar-code scanner icon and … found that Wil & Co. are so far ahead of the rest of us that they released the software from the future where 10.5.3 is generally available:

Okay, truth be told I am an Apple developer too (and have been since the 1979 and for the Macintosh since the ADC formal Apple Developer program started in 1983) — I have the 10.5.3 seeds (I don’t run them on my main machine however).. and everyday users who are going to be downloading Delicious 2.0 in droves certainly don’t have 10.5.3 yet. And, unless Apple is planning on a surprise software update that includes all sorts of stuff I am pretty sure will be part of or at least related to product announcements, they won’t get it until just before or after the start of WWDC on June 9th. Hopefully this won’t generate lots of support headaches for them given that it will, inevitably, confuse the hell out of a lot of users.

This little support faux-pas not withstanding, Delicious2.0 is a work of art. In my development fantasies I hope one day to have the UI design chops of Wil Shipley.

Gustavo Duarte, a programmer and blogger in Colorado wrote a very provocative article recently entitled Language Dabbling Considered Harmful where he reasons on why working, professional programmers should, more or less, stick to the languages where they have been successful and not try to get involved with new languages that come around:

Learning new programming languages is often a waste of time for professional programmers. It may be a fun waste of time (i.e., a hobby), but it’s a waste nonetheless. If you do it for pleasure, then great, but profit is scarce. Pointing this out among good programmers is heresy: even the pragmatic programmers, whose teachings are by and large excellent, suggest we should learn one new programming language every year. That’s rubbish.
— Gustavo Duarte

In response, I suggest two great quotes, the first comes from Computer Security World in 1977:

“Within an EDP Center, programming languages should be standardized. If it’s COBOL, PL-1, or FORTRAN, so be it. And the bright young mavericks with their ALGOL, PASCAL and god-knows-what-else will just have to conform.”
— John M. Carroll in Computer Security, 1977

Amazingly, Carroll is now a Professor of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State. I’ll bet he’s sorry he ever uttered those words. They seem so incredibly narrow minded in light of what we know about IT as a profession, don’t they..? Imagine what the world would be like if anyone had listened to him….

The second quote is by H.G. Wells :

New and stirring things are belittled because if they are not belittled, the humiliating question arises: ‘Why then are you not taking part in them?’

Together, these two quotes define the polar extremes of computer science, IT as a profession and the gestalt of the Internet itself: One wants to stop the world because change (and new ideas) can be hard and doesn’t always lead to a new and better result; the other wonders why someone would ever be swayed by people who belittle those who dare to try to invent a potentially better future.

Duarte seems like a smart guy; but he’s really off in the weeds on his general thesis. As professionals in IT (as well it should be with professionals in any area) we adapt or we die. I know which side I’m on…