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backus's profile
John Backus
John Backus
John Backus
@backus

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John Backus

@backus

Seeking alternative compression. Hopefully wrong on average. Shameless. Started @getcognito and @bloom

San Francisco, CA
Joined August 2012

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    John Backus‏ @backus Oct 24

    Tech visionaries aim for elegant ideals but 80/20 "worse is better" compromises usually takeover: • UNIX, not Symbolics Genera • Linux, not Plan 9 • JS-heavy Web 2.0, not the Semantic Web When forecasting the future, consider where adopter laziness can erode elegance.

    5:06 PM - 24 Oct 2018
    • 11 Retweets
    • 88 Likes
    • Nick Yuriy Dybskiy DrSinBin (have-YER! Candeira) Iván jbn paste_special Nick Armstrong Robert Liu
    4 replies 11 retweets 88 likes
      1. New conversation
      2. John Backus‏ @backus Oct 24

        The Poor Man's vision is the Smart Man's vision, simulated against the Lazy Man's incentives and the Unskilled Man's ability.

        1 reply 4 retweets 21 likes
        Show this thread
      3. John Backus‏ @backus Oct 24

        Blockchain subtext: when @VitalikButerin shares opinions on how blockchain may work in the future, it should update your priors more in terms of direction than end state. Ask what the “poor man’s vision” is. It’ll help you sniff out more of the end state probability distribution

        2 replies 2 retweets 11 likes
        Show this thread
      4. John Backus‏ @backus Oct 24

        Ambition and youthful idealism have a complex relationship. More likely to bite off more than you can chew if you don’t realize how big the bite is. Related: anticipating user behavior is hard. Maybe letting the market degrade design elegance is optimal. Aim for 80/20, get 60/40

        0 replies 0 retweets 5 likes
        Show this thread
      5. End of conversation
      1. New conversation
      2. Omar Rizwan‏ @rsnous Oct 24
        Replying to @backus

        Omar Rizwan Retweeted Omar Rizwan

        I'm skeptical of the "worse is better" narrative that just looks at the content of the technology, as said earlier: https://twitter.com/rsnous/status/1055158666007998464 … eg seems equally plausible that Unix won because AT&T gave it out free to universities for regulatory reasons or whatever, not its design

        Omar Rizwan added,

        Omar Rizwan @rsnous
        technologies which won because of existing power structures and not for any inherent virtue
        Show this thread
        2 replies 1 retweet 6 likes
      3. John Backus‏ @backus Oct 24
        Replying to @rsnous

        Paradigm shifts are always going to have tons of roots and deciding moments, but I think it’s hard to deny a pattern. I like the Semantic Web example because it’s actually an unrealized intention and not a product that didn’t get adoption.

        1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
      4. 4 more replies
      1. New conversation
      2. Nick‏ @nickryg Oct 24
        Replying to @backus

        seems like philosophical inertia - its cognitively easier to accept slightly better mousetraps than adapt to a radically (regardless of how much better) different solution/strategy..

        1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
      3. Bill Seitz‏ @BillSeitz Oct 24
        Replying to @nickryg @backus

        There are a number of reasons why WorseIsBetter solutions tend to win. http://webseitz.fluxent.com/wiki/WorseIsBetter …

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
      4. End of conversation
      1. New conversation
      2. Joël Sepulveda Franusic‏ @jf Oct 25
        Replying to @backus

        My hypothesis is that it's "conceptual simplicity" rather than "adopter laziness" that choses winners – UNIX/Linux/JSWeb are simpler for beginners to reason about than their alternatives.

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      3. Joël Sepulveda Franusic‏ @jf Oct 25
        Replying to @jf @backus

        Worse-is-easier-to-understand or Worse-is-based-on-things-people-already-know

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
      4. End of conversation

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