forked from cadey/xesite
70 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
70 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
---
|
||
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.
|