Oh god he's trotting out the Knuth quote. "Premature optimization is the root of all evil."

I'm not going to ask a field of internet strangers to watch a two hour history lesson by Casey Muratori that ends in a fucking Ginger Bill interview, but that quote did have a context. A complex, nuanced context, where the least damaging summary I can give is "this was based on studying a bunch of really tiny programs that were each basically just a main loop and some setup/teardown." Really closer to things we'd think of as function-scale today. The statistics from that study do not generalize to post-1980 software very well.

But you don't need me to tell you that, to know that the parade of charlatans who have borrowed this quote over my lifetime are the kind of people to blame for the Windows 12 task bar being a React application.

Okay, so the warping-sides demo is cool, if a bit funny to see using OS X as the starting point. This could easily be an optional KDE effect plugin that people with wide monitors would enjoy turning on, and find useful. I'm even chill with the idea that virtual desktops are a bit opaque for people outside the technorati.

I do find it a tell that the exact phrase he uses is "most consumers."

In a software context, I think part of the Star Trek utopia we should be striving for (and a sign we've achieved it) is putting a wooden stake through the heart of the word "consumer."

@nobody I hadn't considered that, and I do have some TRON nostalgia for "user", but hot damn do you make a good point, and "operator" does slap. Imma let that marinate in my brain for the next couple days.

@MaddieM4

🙈 'fraid I'm not sure which "TRON" you're referring to, I'm a bit uncultured

But I doubt it's anything inherent about the word, I guess we must've tainted it over the past 3-4 decades? It's kind of likea miniature of the situation with, say, "negro" or "black": it's arguably not by-construction deragatory, but is made so through centuries of deragatory or dehumanizing usage.

@MaddieM4 ...tainted by the joint effort of the corporate and the sysadmin cultures

@nobody @MaddieM4 "Which TRON"?

There is only one TRON. The sequels are ... not worth considering.

I also have big nostalgia for TRON and "I fight for the users" -- and that was before I'd ever touched a computer.

Operator is a good word. I don't know if I want to replace "user" with it, but it's a good word choice.

@jzb @nobody @MaddieM4

There is only one TRON

Yup!

(We are talking about the Japanese operating system, right?)