(This is a snapshot of my old weblog. New posts and selected republished essays can be found at raganwald.com.)
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Let's be "Real Mac Users"
And when we hear of new languages, new tools, or even improvements to approaches we have discarded in the past, let's approach them with an open mind. We may find that they contain little of interest, but to an open mind, anything at all of interest is an opportunity to learn and improve.
We are far better off finding one good idea in a new tool than blogging about 999 ways it is inferior to what we already have. It takes us closer to achieving our goals.
That's what matters.
Hence the difficult situation faced by small-minded Windows users who do not get the appeal of the Mac; to admit that Mac users' strong preferences are reasonable would be to admit that they (the Windows users) are unable to perceive something that Mac users can.As goes the Mac vs. Windows debate, so goes the One True Programming Language debate.
That to concede that Mac users are reasonable wouldn't just imply that Mac OS X is in at least certain ways much better than Windows, but that Mac users in certain ways have a more refined sense of taste than Windows users, which in turn cuts way too close to implying that in certain ways Mac users are smarter, which is where things turn ugly because those certain ways are, to Mac users, the ways that really matter, and any chance at reasonable discourse evaporates because both sides feel deeply insulted by the other.--John Gruber, "And Oranges"
I'm deeply suspicious of Mac users who claim to be perfectly happy with Mac OS X. Real Mac users, to me, are people with much higher standards, impossibly high standards, and who use Macs not because they're great, but because they suck less than everything else.--John Gruber, "And Oranges"
Let's be like John's "Real Mac Users." We aren't Lisp/Ruby/Python zealots, or Agile fanatics, or AJAX aficionados. We aren't perfectly happy with our tools. We don't boast of them because we can drive all day in them and not reach the edge of our imagination. We don't swagger because we are satisfied with merely outrunning our colleagues.
We are developers with impossibly high standards and we use our tools not because they're great but because they suck less.
We are developers with impossibly high standards and we use our tools not because they're great but because they suck less.
And when we hear of new languages, new tools, or even improvements to approaches we have discarded in the past, let's approach them with an open mind. We may find that they contain little of interest, but to an open mind, anything at all of interest is an opportunity to learn and improve.
We are far better off finding one good idea in a new tool than blogging about 999 ways it is inferior to what we already have. It takes us closer to achieving our goals.
That's what matters.
Labels: passion
