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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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    1. 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.

      4 replies 11 retweets 88 likes
      Show this thread
    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
      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.

      5:47 PM - 24 Oct 2018
      • 2 Likes
      • Joël Sepulveda Franusic Omar Rizwan
      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. George Singer‏ @georgewsinger Oct 25
          Replying to @backus @rsnous

          "Worse is better" only happens when competing products are both 10x better than the existing alternative. Name a single 10x product that failed to take over the world (but which didn't merely get out competed by another 10x, but incrementally worse product).

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. George Singer‏ @georgewsinger Oct 25
          Replying to @georgewsinger @backus @rsnous

          Examples: Beta vs. VHS, Lisp vs. C, Windows vs. Unix, and so forth. The winning product is often incrementally worse than the losing product ("worse is better"), but both the winner and the loser were breakthrough products in comparison to what they were replacing.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        4. George Singer‏ @georgewsinger Oct 25
          Replying to @georgewsinger @backus @rsnous

          The delusion of "worse is better" is falsely believing your losing product is 10x better than the winning product. Example: While both C and LISP were 10x better than assembly, LISP was/is only incrementally better than C (and therefore was not enough to overpower it).

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        5. George Singer‏ @georgewsinger Oct 25
          Replying to @georgewsinger @backus @rsnous

          When you are competing with incremental technology, whether or not you win is determined more by the happenstance of market forces/circumstance than by merit.

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
        6. End of conversation

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