First page of google for Jonathan Edwards produces a 17th century philosopher and a singer. Adding "Jonathan Edwards programming" produces Subtext, which has a UI straight out of 1994 and no releases. So ... He's a not terribly well known academic yawning about how programming needs to be more academic?
I'm not claiming he's an Super Well Known Guy, but that it's trivially easy to figure out the non-programmer ad hom is inaccurate.
> First page of google for Jonathan Edwards produces a 17th century philosopher and a singer.
Because all real programmers are on the first page of Google when you search for their name.
It's also worth noting the historical Jonathan Edwards is a pretty important figure in American history. The First Great Awakening set the tone for American religion; it's standard material in any high school History class. And if there's one person you teach about from that period, it's Edwards. In fact, I would be somewhat surprised if most Americans don't recognize the name. So being out-ranked by him isn't exactly unexpected
Right. So even if you haven't heard the name before, some very simple google searching turns up the fact that he isn't a non-programmer.
And even without that, you could flip through his prior blog posts and figure out that non-programmer isn't an accurate description.
> yawning about how programming needs to be more academic?
I mean, the article says basically the exact opposite of this?
> Honestly, I have no idea who he is.
Yeah, I don't know who most of the world's programmers are. So they must not be real programmers (well, unless googling their name turns up their github account? But self-hosted projects don't count!).
But in 10 seconds of Google you figured out that non-programmer probably isn't a great description. And in a few more you might've figured out he's a fellow at MIT's CSAIL, which isn't particularly well-known for hiring programming-illiterate people.
My point was that it's usually a good idea to actually research the author of a piece before firing off the ad homs.
Honestly, I have no idea who he is.