I friend of mine recently referred to Joel as "A pompous, opinionated windbag". Which raised a laugh, I must say, but it isn't really fair. Joel's writing varies between the insightful and the frankly flaky, it's true, but I think that the former predominates.
In Biculturalism, he sums up the differences between the Windows and Unix cultures with: "Unix culture values code which is useful to other programmers, while Windows culture values code which is useful to non-programmers".
He was prompted to think about this while reading Eric S. Raymond's excellent The Art of UNIX Programming. ESR can be rather flaky himself at times - he's a gun nut, for one thing, and we really don't see his point on this side of the pond. But on technical issues his judgement is superb. We already knew that he likes Python. In The Art of UNIX Programming, we see him give an overview of Python and Java, amongst other languages. He's pretty fair, I'd say, but his preference is clear.
Posted to Software development by Simon Brunning at December 17, 2003 04:14 PMDefinitely agree that ESR is a nut, more so than Joel in my opinion. But its only an opinion.
However. I do have to raise an objection to his classification of Python;
"Python is a scripting language designed for close integration with C."
Err, no it isn't, according to the website;
Python is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language.
I liked Joel's piece a lot, I think its a lot fairer, better informed and just better written than most of ESR's screed. Although you do always have to bear in mind that Joel has spent his whole working life using Microsoft tools and technologies and that this colours his world view.
Posted by: Andy Todd on December 17, 2003 04:21 PMre: JOS
in my defense, the actual quote is:
"Some of his posts are useful/interesting but mostly he's an ego-centric windbag."
Posted by: j on December 17, 2003 05:21 PMHmmm. I think I agree, Andy. Sort of. But I don't think ESR's classification is *too* far wrong. I think the term "scripting language" is meaningless and misleading, but to the extent that it means anything at all, "interpreted, interactive" is part of it. And Python *is* "designed for close integration with C" - amongst many other things.
Certainly "Python is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language" is a *better* description, though I'd want to shove "high level" in there, too.
Posted by: Simon Brunning on December 17, 2003 05:22 PMSorry if I put words into your mouth, Jay. ;-) My recollection wasn't *too* far off the mark though, I'd say.
Besides, you can be a pompous, opinionated windbag and still be *right* most of the time.
Posted by: Simon Brunning on December 17, 2003 05:28 PMi guess the only word we need to define is 'most'
;-)
I guess it's his attitude that raises my ire. A lot of people manage to be 'right' and 'humble' simultaneously.
Posted by: j on December 17, 2003 05:37 PMI can't disagree with *that*, Jay. Humble is one he hasn't really got the hang of. ;-)
Posted by: Simon Brunning on December 17, 2003 05:39 PMPerhaps worth noting: I read Joel's postings whenever possible, and feel that I learn more from him than nearly any other blogger I read normally. Why? Because he is often insightful, and yet *I often disagree with him*. Reading an insightful posting and trying to articulate to myself why I think it isn't true... THAT is educational.