• 0 Posts
  • 134 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 10th, 2023

help-circle



  • Oracle has a product called Oracle Policy Automation (OPA) that it sells as “you can write the rules in plain English in MS Word documents, you don’t need developers”. I worked for an insurance organization where the business side bought OPA without consulting IT, hoping they wouldn’t have to deal with developers. It totally failed because it doesn’t matter that they get to write “plain English” in Word documents. They still lack the structured, formal thinking to deal with anything except the happiest of happy paths.

    The important difference between a developer and a non-developer isn’t the ability to understand the syntax of a programming language. It’s the willingness and ability to formalize and crystallize requirements and think about all the edge cases. As an architect/programmer when I talk to the business side, they get bored and lose interest from all my questions about what they actually want.


  • IntelliJ is an all-out full IDE in the tradition of the old Visual Studio or Borland IDE:s, so it makes sense there. Zed is ostensibly a text editor in the same niche as VS Code, vim and Sublime, where I expect to be able to just open a single file and edit it without any bigger investment.

    I typically have both an IDE and a text editor installed, for different use cases. But Zed can never replace IntelliJ and because of this design choice it can’t replace VS Code/vim/Notepad++ either.









  • I don’t think it’s a big deal where you start. The latest iteration of Riven will likely be the most accessible and that’s probably what matters most if you’re just starting out.

    Much of the appeal (for me at least) is that the storyline is a Tolkien-like epic story spanning thousands of years. Myst takes place before Riven, and if you wanted to consume it in chronological order you would start by reading the books (which are surprisingly good). But it’s fine to go back and “fill in the blanks” if you play in a different order. It’s like reading The Hobbit after you read The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

    Also note that Riven and Riven 2024 are the same story so there’s no need to play both of them. Same with Myst, just pick the most modern iteration of it. The versions that allow you to move and look around freely take away a lot of frustration with trying to make out what the world looks like and finding clues.