alt Hacker News> When great thinkers think about problems, they start to see patterns. They look at the problem of people sending each other word-processor files, and then they look at the problem of people sending each other spreadsheets, and they realize that there’s a general pattern: sending files. That’s one level of abstraction already. Then they go up one more level: people send files, but web browsers also “send” requests for web pages. And when you think about it, calling a method on an object is like sending a message to an object! It’s the same thing again! Those are all sending operations, so our clever thinker invents a new, higher, broader abstraction called messaging, but now it’s getting really vague and nobody really knows what they’re talking about any more.
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/04/21/dont-let-architect...
Replies
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."
Author here! I grew up reading Joel's blog and am familiar with this post. Do you have a more pointed criticism?
I agree something like "hyperlinked JSON" maybe sounds too abstract, but so does "hyperlinked HTML". But I doubt you see web as being vague? This is basically web for data.
Hi, so I generally actually agree with you and your criticisms of this blog post (in your thread with the author). I think there's something pretty true in the blog post you shared from Joel (true in that it applies to more than just the software world) and looked at some of his more recent posts.
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2022/12/19/progress-on-the-bl...
This one in particular reads similar to what this comment section is about, it looks like Joel is basically becoming an architecture astronaut himself? Not sure if that's actually an accurate understanding of what his "block protocol" is, but I'm curious to hear from you what you think of that? In the 25 years since that post, has he basically become the thing he once criticized, and is that the result of just becoming a more and more senior/thinker within the industry?