mahiwaga

If things had gone differently, I might’ve actually become a computer programmer. Although it’s questionable as to whether I would’ve survived such a decision.

So I’ve been looking at the landscape from afar.

Larry Wall discusses what’s coming up with Perl 6, and his thoughts about the course of evolution of computer languages. I never realized that Wall was a linguist, but it makes a lot of sense. Perl preserves a lot of the human language aspect of Lisp, and the way he looks at the goal of the compiler or interpreter is where my own thoughts are probably leading.

Zed Shaw burns the bridge behind him as he kicks the dust off his feet and says “fuck you” to the Rails Community. So I guess I wasn’t just imagining that Rails was unstable as hell, and almost unrunnable. Shaw hints that the future of Ruby frameworks is probably going to be Merb. Not that Rails is dead or anything, though.

It’s also not just me that thinks that PHP is not exactly elegant. But we all know that it’s usually not superior technology that dominates the industry. Hence, VHS vs Beta, Windows vs Mac OS, etc., etc.

If there are no endings, can there be beginnings?

The question foremost in my mind is: what do I want to do with my life? After 26 years of formal education, I am finally going to have to face the Real World™, and, despite everything I’ve been through, I still look at it with some apprehension.

You would think that my goals would be pretty concrete at this point, but the only real thing I’ve got on my plate is that I have a profession. Outside of that, everything is pretty much up for grabs and undefined. Where will I live? What—in exact terms—is my job going to be like? What other goals will I have?

I’ve tried to be optimistic these days. Truth be told, except for the fact that my cousin died almost a year ago, this year was actually pretty decent. I had some tough months, but nothing that was extremely excruciating. (At worst, it might’ve been moderately excruciating.) I suppose the things that I regret is that I’ve done rather poorly with keeping in touch with friends, and I’ve done rather badly with things outside of my professional life.

But, despite this attempt at optimism, I keep having this feeling that the world that I know is slowly collapsing around me. In 2002, I remember dancing on the second floor of John Barleycorn in Wrigleyville, drunk off my ass, thinking how I was living in decadence, as the Republic fell apart around me. I suppose it really isn’t a collapse. It’s more like melting. Like I’m living in a castle made out of ice, with the sun sitting directly overhead.

This year, we have the possibility of crossing a historic threshold: we’ll elect either a white woman, or a black man as President of the United States. Especially after reading Barack’s speeches, I want to be hopeful.

But I keep fearing the forces of reaction are going to fuck things up somehow. Like the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

The dollar keeps falling. The repercussions of the subprime mortgage fiasco have yet to be completely felt.

And the whole American Dream™—the whole goal of capitalism—seems to be stale and crumbling. The whole idea of having a house, getting married, having 2 cars, having 2.5 children—seems awfully self-parodic and a little insane.

But where do you go next? What is the Right Thing™ to do?

From Zed Shaw’s rant as to why the Ruby on Rails community sucks:

This is exactly what makes Rails a ghetto. A bunch of half-trained former PHP morons who never bother to sit down and really learn the computer science they were too good to study in college.

With Rails I get scrawny cock suckers with carpal tunnel syndrome talking to me like they’re gonna eat my young. Their feeble PHP infected minds can’t grasp advanced shit like objects or closures. When you combine stupid businesses with stupid people using a stupid framework based on a big fat fucking lie on a shitty platform you get the perfect storm of dumbfuck.

More quotes collated on Tech Crunch

I suppose that dull, drear apathy is preferable to suicidal depression, but I keep thinking that there’s definitely something missing from my life. The apathy, I’m sure, is merely a symptom, and not the thing itself. (And I guess I’ve become some sort of expert about what things aren’t, although I’m still pretty sucky at telling what things are.)

Which just goes to prove the maxim that sometimes the best you can really do is numb the pain. You can’t make the pain go away without getting rid of the underlying cause.

I think that I’ve always had an answer for what I wanted to do with my life. Sometimes it was simply because I was naive and ill-informed. Other times it’s because I knew that it was that socially-acceptable thing to say, and that our absurdly competitive society doesn’t look well upon ambition-less, lazy bastards.

These days, I’m drawing up a big, fat blank. A big numero zero. The veritable goose-egg.

The other day I was walking around (of all places, horror-of-horrors) Old Pasadena, and I was accosted by a Larouchean agitator, and she asked me what I thought about what was going on in the world, and I thought about it a bit. Frankly, it seems like the world is on the verge of catastrophe.

catastrophe

1540, “reversal of what is expected” (especially a fatal turning point in a drama), from Gk. katastrephein “to overturn,” from kata “down” + strephein “turn.” (from the Online Etymology Dictionary)

It’s not going to be something sudden, but it’s going to something irreversible. I feel like an era is ending. The center of power is shifting away from the U.S.

And while Barack preaches hope, I find it hard to see. I feel like the train has long left the station. We should’ve been having these conversations four years ago, should’ve been taking action to stop the juggernaut of the military-industrial complex. Instead, we’ve let them lead us into an inescapable quagmire that is destined to suck the marrow of our nation for decades, doomed to bankrupt us all.

The problem is that I feel like all the things I feel strongly about are wildly out of my control. What I need is a goal that is attainable, that has measurable milestones, and that would actually have a positive impact on the world at large.

Just a little wish, really. (Hah!)