Fuck you apple

[grumbler]

But it's fairly common knowledge that the world is very much a "what have you done for me recently" kind of place.  Whenever someone passes away it gets far more attention when they are in the height of their career than if  their acheivements were decades in the past. 

Quite so, which is why people who crave celebrity status like Jobs will always seem more important to those who don't pay a lot of attention to the details.

And - Jobs did have a tremendous influence on how I'm using the very computer in front of me.  Not only because I'm using a mouse, but because I'm using an entire computer that sits on my desk.  Without Jobs and the PC revolution, I might very well be working on a dumb terminal attached to a mainframe. 

I suspect that not even you would be sticking with Apple if they hadn't had Jobs and still just offered terminals attached to mainframes.

Personal computers existed before Jobs and his impact was more on appearance than function.  While Macs do some things better than PCs (and vice-versa) there is nothign a Mac does that a PC cannot.

And you can say "well if it wasn't Jobs, it would have been someone else", but, you could say the same thing about Ritchie as well.

Without Ritchie it would have been someone who did things differently and may not have sought widespread applicability as a matter of aesthetics.  Jobs influenced a brand; Ritchie influenced an industry.

Jobs had the bigger ego and sought fame, and so is remembered; Ritchie didn't and so isn't.  That's the way the world is.  Al Capone is more famous than Eliot Ness.

[grumbler]

I'm not saying Jobs wasn't important, just that the likelyhood of another jobs coming along is far greater than another Ritchie coming along.

Sorta true; I think the odds of another Jobs in terms of the genius is low, but the odds of someone filling Job's slot is greater than that of someone filling Ritchie's slot.

My argument is more that Job's genius wasn't as important as Ritchie's though it was as genuine.

[Razgovory]

Some people are better businessmen then others.  Look at Edison and Tesla.  Edison died rich and famous, Tesla died poor and unknown.

[Grey Fox]

Tesla was assassinated.

[The Minsky Moment]

Originality is overrated.  Most useful contributions to human society involve copying something that someone else has done but finding a way to apply the technique or technology in a more practical way that has real mass impact.  The ancients came up with the concept of the steam engines, and working prototypes were built in the Rennaissance, but it wasn't until the Industrial Revolution that the technology was harnassed and applied in a way to have a mass impact.  that is why we remember James Watt but not Newcomen or the obscure pre-moderns that did pioneering work.

[Martinus]

Personal computers existed before Jobs and his impact was more on appearance than function.

Uhm yes, that's the fucking point. A Zegna suit fulfills the same purpose as a burlap sack. A Manolo Blahnik shoe fulfills the same purpose as a wooden clog. Yet noone sane claims that there is no difference between them (or that the difference is functionality only).

In fact, the aesthetics plays an important part as to why people choose Apple products, so discounting this as inconsequential is rather silly. The genius of Jobs was the realization that computers and computer-like products can be a status symbol/accessory/functional art work as much as a car, a pair of shoes, clothes or furniture can be.

I think Jobs is so hated (in addition to being so loved) because he took computers out of the dank, drab caves of computer nerds and gave it to the lofty, flighty show rooms of the artists and super models. Ritchie was a dwarf, Jobs was an elf. The twain shall never meet or see eye to eye.

[Razgovory]

That only works if you are gay.

[PDH]

Vecna suit?

[garbon]

Personal computers existed before Jobs and his impact was more on appearance than function.

Uhm yes, that's the fucking point. A Zegna suit fulfills the same purpose as a burlap sack. A Manolo Blahnik shoe fulfills the same purpose as a wooden clog. Yet noone sane claims that there is no difference between them (or that the difference is functionality only).

In fact, the aesthetics plays an important part as to why people choose Apple products, so discounting this as inconsequential is rather silly. The genius of Jobs was the realization that computers and computer-like products can be a status symbol/accessory/functional art work as much as a car, a pair of shoes, clothes or furniture can be.

I think Jobs is so hated (in addition to being so loved) because he took computers out of the dank, drab caves of computer nerds and gave it to the lofty, flighty show rooms of the artists and super models. Ritchie was a dwarf, Jobs was an elf. The twain shall never meet or see eye to eye.

So Jobs is an amazing inventor because he created an aesthetically pleasant version?

While people recognize the difference between a manolo and a wooden clog (the difference in shape is easy to see when presented with both), I'm not sure most would call Manolo a great inventor.

[Admiral Yi]

Velcro suit?

[frunk]

I'm certainly not trying to minimize Ritchie's influence.

But it's fairly common knowledge that the world is very much a "what have you done for me recently" kind of place.  Whenever someone passes away it gets far more attention when they are in the height of their career than if  their acheivements were decades in the past.

I don't see why we should encourage that, and highlighting the important achievements of Ritchie is worth the time.

And - Jobs did have a tremendous influence on how I'm using the very computer in front of me.  Not only because I'm using a mouse, but because I'm using an entire computer that sits on my desk.  Without Jobs and the PC revolution, I might very well be working on a dumb terminal attached to a mainframe.

And you can say "well if it wasn't Jobs, it would have been someone else", but, you could say the same thing about Ritchie as well.

I'm not disagreeing with any of this, and I certainly didn't bring up the "someone else" argument.  Ritchie's contributions are tougher to see and easier to ignore, which only makes it more important that they are brought up.  If they aren't raised now they probably won't be later.

[Admiral Yi]

Was C really that much of a breakthrough?  I ask out of ignorance.

[Razgovory]

Vecna suit?

Just a hat and a glove.

[frunk]

Some of the important syntactic elements of C existed in some form in other languages, although C was the first to combine them together and strip out a lot of the uglier control and whitespace requirements.  Other processing and syntax elements it originated.  It doesn't stray too far from Assembly, at least compared to more modern languages, but is significantly easier to program in.  From the start C was implemented on different platforms as well, meaning that it is portable and reusable.

The long lasting influence of C, apart from its continued direct use, is other programming languages that use the same or similar syntax (Java, C++, C#, Python, JavaScript and many others).  Between them C flavor syntax accounts for probably 99% of the programming that gets done.  Sometimes C is still used as an intermediary language for portability.

[Barrister]

But it's fairly common knowledge that the world is very much a "what have you done for me recently" kind of place.  Whenever someone passes away it gets far more attention when they are in the height of their career than if  their acheivements were decades in the past. 

Quite so, which is why people who crave celebrity status like Jobs will always seem more important to those who don't pay a lot of attention to the details.

And - Jobs did have a tremendous influence on how I'm using the very computer in front of me.  Not only because I'm using a mouse, but because I'm using an entire computer that sits on my desk.  Without Jobs and the PC revolution, I might very well be working on a dumb terminal attached to a mainframe. 

I suspect that not even you would be sticking with Apple if they hadn't had Jobs and still just offered terminals attached to mainframes.

Personal computers existed before Jobs and his impact was more on appearance than function.  While Macs do some things better than PCs (and vice-versa) there is nothign a Mac does that a PC cannot.

You're getting blind-sided by focusing on Macs.  Macs are wonderful, and popularized the GUI, but yes by 1984 the personal computer was common, and the Mac was just another personal computer.

But go back to the Apple I and Apple II in the late 70s.  The personal computer existed only as a hobby, and required you to asseble it yourself (down to soldering the circuitboard).  It was Jobs and Woz who sold the first true personal computer.  When IBM came along with the IBM PC the Apple II (and a few others) had been around for several years.

Apple never made dumb terminals.  Their entire raison d'être was the personal computer.

Beyond that - did Jobs crave attention?  Perhaps.  He certainly was the public face of Apple (even if he fiercely protected his personal privacy).