So far none of the imaginary economic systems seem to work as well as capitalism when it comes to raising human living standards. These vague, low-effort criticisms are getting tiresome.
Thank you for putting in the good fight. It will take a high-profile level catastrophe akin to the Challenger Disaster for the industry to move on from the current state and formalize even basic things we've known for decades such as category theory and functional programming. And unfortunately, the results will be heavy regulation. Until then, we will just have to watch history repeat through these types of discussions. [0]
Please don't continue this thread. Whether you agree with me or not, it has devolved into personal and character insults by the other poster. You can continue the discussion with me somewhere else in the thread just not under yowlingcat. Blood has been spilled (figuratively) and tensions are extremely high.
Suffice to say, I'm not talking directly about category theory, that's one possibility of formalization (that seems quite unlikely). Other parts that have successfully made it into programming (and have changed programming for the better) including complexity theory, type theory and the Rust borrow checker. Two theories automate correctness and one is helpful in analysis of execution speed. My proposal is about one for modular organization and while category theory is a great candidate, it does have an incredibly high learning curve and to me that is why I agree with you that it is an unlikely candidate. I mean it does sort of exist already as a type checker in haskell... I'm more saying that I don't expect people to actually try to learn CT.
Either way, I believe more formality can be done and we don't have to force the entire industry to use monads and FP (FYI I prefer the style myself). If a formal theory about modular organization ever comes into vogue my guess is that it will exist more popularly as a "design pattern" in the industry rather than a programming framework or formal method. People can choose to use a pattern, or bend the rules... the main point and the crux of my entire effort is to say something along the lines of the fact that we need design patterns that provably improves "design." Without proof most of our efforts seem like steps to the side rather than forward.
If you have a reply, please place it directly under my parent post, not here.
edit:
That github link is picture perfect mirror of what I'm talking about in the industry. Thumbs up for bringing it to my attention.
The whole scandal only happened because these families paid the wrong person. Instead of paying the doorman, they paid for a disguise to sneak into the backdoor.
Homelessness - there are a lot of literally crazy people in SF (not just startup people ;), which didn’t bother me that much as a single guy, but does bother me as a husband/father.
Schools when the kids get there: public school lottery, private is $30-35k/y + donations + extras, budget $45-50k/kid/year, after horrendous taxes (worst in the country for high earners?).
Traffic can be pretty bad, parking sucks and public transit is there but not that great. Seems to be at least one crazy person on the bus whenever I take it. Muni (= bus+subway+light rail) breaks down quite a bit.
Mostly it’s the cost (everything is ridiculously expensive, not just real estate) and the homelessness.
You need to be ok with people being quite leftie and your vote generally not mattering if you’re not.
It's actually pretty easy to understand. Affordability is not and never was the priority in San Francisco. What are the priorities are things like environmental issues, keeping the police in check (making it politically impossible to enforce any norms of civilized behavior, e.g. don't use drugs outdoors in plain sight), catering to every imaginable niche in society (the city has five legally-sanctioned languages and every ballot is printed in all five), having the best food, and providing some form of health insurance to even the lowest people on the income ladder.
A lot of this policy is admirable in its intent but has the (mostly) unintended side-effect of making everything horrendously expensive. How could it be anything else...new construction in San Francisco requires years of permit approvals, solar panels on the roof, there's pretty much a ban on any non-union labor in construction, etc.
All the employers know this, so they pay salaries that make it worthwhile for people to show up. So you end up with hordes of people making $200-300K paying $100K/year in taxes and $40-50K for a babysitter for your kids because your parents or other family live halfway across the country and nobody can afford to live here on $20-30K when single rooms in a 4br place cost north of $1K/month after tax. Oh, and the schools, roads, and other infrastructure are pretty bad, too, and there's trash everywhere.
The real suckers seem to be the companies willing to pay the wages to keep this whole huge ponzi scheme going. The whole thing is a massive transfer from shareholders to local land owners, and government employees.
I'm not being cynical, this is just how it works, after living here for seven years. The city has 800K people and an operating budget of $8 billion. That's $10K/head and it's still potholes and unfunded pensions.
Except: “How could it be anything else...” - my wife is french and one thing that constantly surprises her is how little we get from our government for the taxes we pay. It is possible to make government more efficient, and not resort to the private sector (which has other problems).
