It's even worse than it appears..
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
On this day in 1986, a legend in baseball history started with Gary Carter and Kevin Mitchell and ended with Mookie Wilson and Bill Buckner.#
I was talking with Jeff Sandquist yesterday, a friend from long ago when he was in developer support at Microsoft. He now works at Automattic, makers of WordPress. We're both old enough to remember Filemaker and PFS:File which were user-oriented databases for the Mac and PC in the 1980s. It was a new idea then because there were no easy-to-use file management products on minicomputers, these were products for users of personal computers. I wondered it there wasn't a position for a lite version of WordPress, a user interface designed for one person, not a group. I created a prototype of what I call WordPress-for-One as part of a project to get support for the WordPress API into my codebase. It's just enough WordPress for one writer. That's the idea.#
I am adding another degree of complexity to the implementation of reading lists. Already in a programming structure that works against you at every step. The thing you have to go for is actual code that reads as clearly as pseudo-code. In JavaScript you are so far from that. Every little loop requires you to do a dance that's a pain in the ass when you're writing the code, it's 100 times worse when you're trying to find the bug that's hiding in the freaking haystack. But -- you can do it. #
Visualize a big JavaScript app#
  • I have basically had it with JavaScript. It is a write-only language. More so than any other language I've used, including some pretty old and arcane systems. I asked ChatGPT to give DALL-E instructions based on this prompt.#
    • Imagine a big safe with lots of safes within. All the safe doors are closed except on. Inside you can see a dark maze with cobwebs and doors and scary creatures -- it's JavaScript code! and it's a nighmare. There a human in there, a laborer in a devil's workshop and it's struggling to get the door on the safe closed so we don't have to look at any of the monstrosities it contains. #
  • Here are the visions it came up with.#
  • Vision 1.#
  • Vision 2.#
  • Vision 3.#
  • Vision 4.#

© copyright 1994-2023 Dave Winer.

Last update: Sunday October 29, 2023; 11:12 AM EDT.

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