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