alex chiang: web 6.0

I’ve noticed lately that I either lack time, energy, or inspiration to blog, although that doesn’t mean that I have stopped communication altogether. So here’s a bit of nerd humor from an email I wrote to an old friend of mine.

If you’re not a nerd, you probably won’t find it funny. Heck, you probably didn’t even know that computer jokes existed. But they do. Sorry for polluting your brain.

I’m convinced all CS type people need to learn two (and only two) languages — asm for your arch (which includes C, since C is essentially portable asm) + a managed language, of which you get to choose either python or ruby.

On a scale of 1-10, with 1 = translating C into $SHINY_LANGUAGE and 10 = full meta-programming, where your karmic energy convinces individual electrons to spontaneously cohere into a raw boot-strap compiler with a self-aware hook that completes the rest of interpreter in $SHINY_LANGUAGE itself; the electrons think that first step was too easy so they recohere themselves into a beautiful DSL implemented in $SHINY_LANGUAGE that captures the semantics of your domain perfectly (to the point where even physicists could write coherent programs); and for fun, start churning out code factories that in turn, generate the final elegant, MVC, fully-validating, WAI-supporting, Web 2.0 compliant code (oh, and because the templating engine in your code
factories are so powerful, you also get a Facebook app for free during the code generation (which you instantiate by walking to the fridge and opening a bottle of Kombucha)) I’m about a 4 with python and maybe a 1 in ruby.