blog: the gears and the gods (#94)

blog/gears-and-gods-2019-11-14.markdown

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+---
+title: The Gears and The Gods
+date: 2019-11-14
+tags:
+ - wasm
+ - philosophy
+ - gods
+---
+
+# The Gears and The Gods
+
+If there are any gods in computing, they are the authors of compilers. The
+output of compilers is treated as a Heavenly Decree, sometimes used for many
+sprints or even years after the output has been last emitted.
+
+People trust this output to be Correct. To tell the machine what to do and by
+its will it be done. The compiler is itself a factory of servitors, each bound
+by the unholy runes inscribed into it in order to make the endless sequence of
+lights change colors in the right patterns.
+
+The output of the work of the Gods is stored for later use when their might is
+needed. The work of the Gods however is a very fickle beast. Their words of
+power only make the gears turn when they are built with very specific gearing.
+
+This means that people who rely on these sacred runes have to chain themselves
+to gearing patterns. Each year new ways of tricking the gears to run faster are
+developed. The ways the gears turn can be learned to be abused however to spill
+the secrets other gears are crunching on. These gearing patterns haven’t seen
+any real fundamental design changes in decades, because you never know when the
+output of the Old Gods is needed.
+
+This means that the gears themselves are the chains that bind people to the
+past. The gears of computation. The gears made of sand we tricked into thinking
+with lightning.
+
+But now the gears show their age. The gearing on the side of the gearing on the
+side of the gearing on the side of the gearing shows its ugly head.
+
+But the Masses never question it. Even though they take hit after hit to
+performance of the gears.
+
+What there needs to be is some kind of Apocalypse, a revealing of the faults in
+the gears. Maybe then the Masses will start to question their blind loyalty and
+chains binding them to the gears. Maybe they would be able to even try other
+gear patterns. 
+
+But this is just fantasy, nobody would WILLINGLY change the gearing patterns. 
+
+Would they?
+
+But what about the experience they’ve come to expect from their old gears? Where
+they could swap out inputs to the gears with ease. Where the Output of the Gods
+of old still functions.
+
+There needs to be a Better Way to switch gearings. But this kind of solution
+isn’t conducive to how people use the gears. People use the gears they do
+because they don’t care. They just want things to work “like they expect it to”
+and ignore things that don’t feed this addiction.
+
+And THIS is why I’m such a big advocate for WebAssembly on the server. This lets
+you take the output of the Gods and store it in a way that it can be
+transparently upgraded to new sets of gearing. So that the future and the past
+can work in unison instead of being enemies. 
+
+Now, all that's left is to build a bridge. A bridge that will help to unite the
+past, the present and the future into a woven masterpiece of collaborative
+cocreation. Where the output of the gods is a weaker chain to the gears of old
+and can easily be adapted to the gears of new. Even the gears that nobody's even
+dreamed of yet.