If you haven’t read his old stuff, you should. Don’t worry if it takes a while; I’m still chewing through the material. He has a lot of smart things to say, whether or not they are news to you.
That’s not a particularly useful criterion; it takes you right back to Dominus’ Why I hate advocacy. And, you know, the statement isn’t even completely accurate…
You post to use.perl. I read everyone at use.perl.
An announcement is more effective if you give a bit of context. Otherwise, you're just preaching to the choir. Don't presume everyone who reads your announcement knows everything you do... otherwise, why would you be making the announcement?
It's like the slashdot posts that say "New version of Hipster now available! This is exciting!" And I go, "what the hell is Hipster?". Bad announce. Sigh.
Wikipedia is surprisingly complete as of late. Almost everything that I've gone to wikipedia for, I've seen something interesting, and yes, it's been surprising, but it's also started setting the bar for "worth knowing".
It's like the slashdot posts that say "New version of Hipster now available! This is exciting!" And I go, "what the hell is Hipster?". Bad announce. Sigh.
I did that about AJAX for about three months. I hate it when a new term springs up and people use it like anyone who doesn't know it is just not in the "in-crowd." It's so high-school.
-- J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
Steve Yegge is a new term to me. Like I said before, if you already knew who it was, this was a sane announcement. But that's presuming quite a bit about your audience, and undermines the difference you might be making.
He's a guy who worked at Amazon (he moved on to a startup), tries to learn stuff, and got in the habit of expressing his opinions over wine. A lot of people like his opinions, or at least find them worth reading. The list of people who think they are interesting includes me, Aristotle, and Dominus.
For the record, I find myself in agreement with his basic complaints about Perl (if not about Larry Wall). If I cared more about programming language aesthetics, I'd have left Perl long ago because of this. But
Unless I missed something, he now works at Google, not for a startup.
The reason I just disregard anything he thinks about Perl is that he poisons the well by characterising those who like list flattening as Perl zombies. That crosses the line from reasonable criticism to pure partisanship, which I couldn’t care less about.
His ad hominem attacks against Larry just seal the matter.
For whomever these names are known figures, the list of people who find his writings interesting further includes Ryan Tomayko, Bill de hÓra, Tim Bray and Sam Ruby.
Who is Steve Yegge? (Score:2)
Re:Who is Steve Yegge? (Score:1)
*boggle*
I don’t have a Wikipedia entry either. Why are you reading my journal?
Re:Who is Steve Yegge? (Score:2)
Re:Who is Steve Yegge? (Score:1)
That’s not a particularly useful criterion; it takes you right back to Dominus’ Why I hate advocacy. And, you know, the statement isn’t even completely accurate…
Re:Who is Steve Yegge? (Score:2)
An announcement is more effective if you give a bit of context. Otherwise, you're just preaching to the choir. Don't presume everyone who reads your announcement knows everything you do... otherwise, why would you be making the announcement?
It's like the slashdot posts that say "New version of Hipster now available! This is exciting!" And I go, "what the hell is Hipster?". Bad announce. Sigh.
Re:Who is Steve Yegge? (Score:1)
Conceded. Your response wasn’t the best way to communicate that, though; it would have come across as much more neutral without the Wikipedia clause.
Re:Who is Steve Yegge? (Score:2)
Re:Who is Steve Yegge? (Score:2)
It's like the slashdot posts that say "New version of Hipster now available! This is exciting!" And I go, "what the hell is Hipster?". Bad announce. Sigh.
I did that about AJAX for about three months. I hate it when a new term springs up and people use it like anyone who doesn't know it is just not in the "in-crowd." It's so high-school.
J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
Re:Who is Steve Yegge? (Score:1)
Except for, “Steve Yegge” is not a “new term” that didn’t “spring up”…
Re:Who is Steve Yegge? (Score:2)
Didn't intend to imply that. I was spiralling off-topic into discussing the way terms spring up on slashdot.
J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
Re:Who is Steve Yegge? (Score:1)
Ah, okay.
Re:Who is Steve Yegge? (Score:2)
Re:Who is Steve Yegge? (Score:1)
The list of people who think they are interesting includes me, Aristotle, and Dominus.
For the record, I find myself in agreement with his basic complaints about Perl (if not about Larry Wall). If I cared more about programming language aesthetics, I'd have left Perl long ago because of this. But
Re:Who is Steve Yegge? (Score:1)
Thanks for giving Randal the good answer I couldn’t come up with since getting over my initial reaction.
Re:Who is Steve Yegge? (Score:1)
PS.:
Unless I missed something, he now works at Google, not for a startup.
The reason I just disregard anything he thinks about Perl is that he poisons the well by characterising those who like list flattening as Perl zombies. That crosses the line from reasonable criticism to pure partisanship, which I couldn’t care less about.
His ad hominem attacks against Larry just seal the matter.
Re:Who is Steve Yegge? (Score:1)
PPS. (getting long, I know):
For whomever these names are known figures, the list of people who find his writings interesting further includes Ryan Tomayko, Bill de hÓra, Tim Bray and Sam Ruby.