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Comment Re:Quality of the solution. (Score 1) 158

Right. Because people who write complex business applications should also write the compiler, OS, network drivers, and so on, in monolithic one-off projects. That's probably a better way than to break things up and have people focus on smaller-scoped, reusable components. I'm pretty sure Mao tried something like that with the whole economy.

Comment Quality of the solution. (Score 4, Insightful) 158

It comes down to the quality of the solution, versus the added headaches of managing dependencies. It's not a religious issue, but one of experience and engineering. It's also a good idea to make sure that if you're inventing something that someone else might eventually provide, you at least loosely couple it, so it can be swapped out later.

With those thoughts in mind, don't get stuck in analysis paralysis. Use judgment and move on.

Comment Re:Not well informed (Score 1) 681

To sum up: He's not saying that developers are science illiterates, but that they're not necessarily any better outside their fields than other non-experts are.

The one thing I'd respond to with regards to this assertion is that a lot of software engineers get exposed to complex systems. Any of your better troubleshooter types has had enough experience with a system of sufficient complexity to humble them against thinking they understand it all, and by extension they have a pretty good detector for when someone's making such a claim without backing it up. I think that's where you see a lot of the software people being critical of AGW extremism - there's a place for the attitude, "I recognize man's impact in this area, and I concede CO2 is likely a factor that's impacting the environment, but I'm not convinced you understand the system well enough to make meaningfully accurate predictions that should be allowed to drive policy".

It's perfectly reasonable to disagree with that kind of statement, but extremist predictions that haven't panned out have undercut the legitimacy of more respectable voices, and feed rational skepticism of predictions.

Comment Re:Ha! (Score 1) 127

Therefore, somebody wanting me to invest money has to make a considerably better case during deflation than inflation.

Not really. You just don't need to chase risky crap to get 7% returns. You can be quite comfortable taking low-risk investments running 3%, and netting greater real gains.

Comment Re:Ha! (Score 1) 127

Gresham's law is well known. That keeping money under a mattress behavior exists *because* of rampant inflation. That doesn't have *anything* to do with proving that people hoard in a stable or deflationary environment.

Comment Re:Ha! (Score 1) 127

Get over your own extraordinary ignorance. The US experienced unprecedented economic growth in the 1800s when the long-term value of the dollar was tied to gold reserves, and we had mild deflation for about 100 years (yes there were short-term deviations from the gold standard, but every inflationary period was followed by a deflationary period that returned the linkage to its prior value).

Comment Re:Ha! (Score 1, Insightful) 127

I'll give you a hint: It wouldn't be the one that's backed by a government that set up a system in which its existing currency lost 97% of its value since 1913, and is guaranteed to lose more because of stated policy going forward.

Comment Ha! (Score 2) 127

It's ironic: The existence of a completely untrustable cryptocurrency will dramatically improve the credibility of more trustworthy cryptocurrencies.

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