> How does one "move the art forward" without understanding the landscape first?
Practice data structures, make complex algorithms described in books (most of which are free, and the rest are maximum $35), code a small program for an embedded controller for once to see how the sausage is made first-hand, participate in different kinds of open-source. There are plenty of ways outside of "the world needs one more LISP interpreter".
> Just because something "is known" to humanity doesn't mean it's known by every individual presently.
Sadly. I wish I belonged to another species where this assertion was not true. Sigh.
> Viewed this way, how many people in the world, presently, have sufficient knowledge to "move the art forward"? How many have the means? I'd put it at a few hundred. Maybe you're one of them?
Me? Absolutely not, I am 43 and at this point I am severely burned out. I had so many ideas and ambitions but working for the man for 22 years has crushed me. Maybe if I get a bag of money in the upper 7 digits I'll be able to reignite my tinkering spirit but we don't live in fairly land and this is not happening so nope. You're looking at one more person who was crushed by the free market forces.
That being said, you have people working on e.g. the Rust compiler or OCaml in general. Likely a bunch of geniuses and I love it that they are actually funded and are keeping up the good fight. Gives me some hope.
> maybe you could assist them by sharing your experience?
Yes, that's the best idea really: education. But as we all know (1) younger people never listen to advice, and (2) I probably never found the right audience (though thinking of it I am starting to see some lectures popping up lately in my city again, maybe I should try to go). I've been told I am excellent mentor (as recently as 3 months ago) but my health and time constraints prevent me from doing it more.
But how do you educate people to be unhappy with the status quo? I seriously don't know. The human brain is kind of like this: "Hey I am not hungry, I have where to sleep and most of my basic needs are covered, I guess the world is perfect and I don't need to change anything at all anywhere". Observed it thousands of times in my life and I am bitter about it to this day, likely to my grave.
> But maybe we need to play more efficiently?
Yep, I would not be against some central "authority" website / app that distributes "play" tasks to whoever is willing to do them (obviously with plenty of repetition and redundancy, you can't have 10 people agree to tackle on 10 different tasks and then they never show up again). And this does not remove choice, you can still present people with like 50 choices and they surely will identify with at least one of them.
All this free energy, wasted all the time. [sighs deeply] I wish we had more structure and direction is what I am saying all along.
Practice data structures, make complex algorithms described in books (most of which are free, and the rest are maximum $35), code a small program for an embedded controller for once to see how the sausage is made first-hand, participate in different kinds of open-source. There are plenty of ways outside of "the world needs one more LISP interpreter".
> Just because something "is known" to humanity doesn't mean it's known by every individual presently.
Sadly. I wish I belonged to another species where this assertion was not true. Sigh.
> Viewed this way, how many people in the world, presently, have sufficient knowledge to "move the art forward"? How many have the means? I'd put it at a few hundred. Maybe you're one of them?
Me? Absolutely not, I am 43 and at this point I am severely burned out. I had so many ideas and ambitions but working for the man for 22 years has crushed me. Maybe if I get a bag of money in the upper 7 digits I'll be able to reignite my tinkering spirit but we don't live in fairly land and this is not happening so nope. You're looking at one more person who was crushed by the free market forces.
That being said, you have people working on e.g. the Rust compiler or OCaml in general. Likely a bunch of geniuses and I love it that they are actually funded and are keeping up the good fight. Gives me some hope.
> maybe you could assist them by sharing your experience?
Yes, that's the best idea really: education. But as we all know (1) younger people never listen to advice, and (2) I probably never found the right audience (though thinking of it I am starting to see some lectures popping up lately in my city again, maybe I should try to go). I've been told I am excellent mentor (as recently as 3 months ago) but my health and time constraints prevent me from doing it more.
But how do you educate people to be unhappy with the status quo? I seriously don't know. The human brain is kind of like this: "Hey I am not hungry, I have where to sleep and most of my basic needs are covered, I guess the world is perfect and I don't need to change anything at all anywhere". Observed it thousands of times in my life and I am bitter about it to this day, likely to my grave.
> But maybe we need to play more efficiently?
Yep, I would not be against some central "authority" website / app that distributes "play" tasks to whoever is willing to do them (obviously with plenty of repetition and redundancy, you can't have 10 people agree to tackle on 10 different tasks and then they never show up again). And this does not remove choice, you can still present people with like 50 choices and they surely will identify with at least one of them.
All this free energy, wasted all the time. [sighs deeply] I wish we had more structure and direction is what I am saying all along.