site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3950 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 23, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Infrastructure stuff (like fiddling with repos and dependencies) is boring and frustrating. No one likes that stuff. But if everything is working smoothly and you can just focus on actual coding for an extended period of time then it’s fun.

My experience is that programming is like 98% fiddling with infrastructure stuff though…

What?

You set up the development environment, repositories and libraries once and don't have to deal with any of that until a non-trivial change / upgrade comes up in a year or two.

No?

It's a one-off thing unless the projects you are working with take no more than 2-3 days to finish.

If you are programming professionally (or on large projects), you might work on the same codebase for years on end.

Depends on what you’re doing.

If you’re doing a bunch of short projects in a row, possibly all using different languages and different frameworks etc, then yeah you’ll feel like you’re spending most of your time doing setup.

On bigger, longer-lived projects, there will be longer stretches of time where the infrastructure “just works” and you can focus on the code.

Ahh that's an interesting point, and does make a lot of sense. Perhaps I just haven't gone deep enough in the past to appreciate the nice side of things. Good to know.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats