Maybe OT: A metaphor for static typing?

[James Britt]

I came across an article on the New York Times Web site (yes, pitiful
registration required, though bugmenot will save the day) on traffic
flow and road design [0].

I found this part quite interesting:

<quote>
To make communities safer and more appealing, Mr. Monderman argues, you
should first remove the traditional paraphernalia of their roads - the
traffic lights and speed signs; the signs exhorting drivers to stop,
slow down and merge; the center lines separating lanes from one another;
even the speed bumps, speed-limit signs, bicycle lanes and pedestrian
crossings. In his view, it is only when the road is made more dangerous,
when drivers stop looking at signs and start looking at other people,
that driving becomes safer.

"All those signs are saying to cars, 'This is your space, and we have
organized your behavior so that as long as you behave this way, nothing
can happen to you,' " Mr. Monderman said. "That is the wrong story."
</quote>


James

[0]
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/22/international/europe/22monderman.html?oref=login&ex=1264136400

 

[trans.]

Int Ahead!

String X-ing

No Floating

;-)

 

[Francis Hwang]

I think one useful word here is "mindfulness". This sort of approach to
traffic design (I think I read about it in the New Yorker) basically
says that the actions of conscious drivers is far more effective in
preventing traffic injuries than any rigid mechanical system you could
design. Incidentally, this would appear to be the reason that,
statistically speaking, SUVs aren't nearly as safe as people assume
they are. Sure, an SUV is like a tank, but SUV drivers tend to pay a
lot less attention to the road than people driving tiny cars. Or, heck,
my good friend who rides a fixed-gear bicycle with no breaks.

I do think it applies to the static vs. dynamic typing debate ... a lot
of static typing advocates seem to argue that using static typing will
save them (or their untrustworthy co-workers) from making dumb
mistakes. I might respond that, in the long term, it's worth it to
train yourself not to make dumb mistakes.

To continue the digression, I suspect there's something of this
aesthetic in design of many (older) East Asian tools. Japanese books
used to be bound without any adhesive. And instead of having a fork and
knife for stabbing and cutting food, diners use chopsticks instead.
Roland Barthes wrote about this in Empire of Signs:

"... the instrument never pierces, cuts, or slits, never wounds but
only selects, turns, shifts. For the chopsticks ... in order to divide,
must separate, part, peck, instead of cutting and piercing, in the
manner of our implements; they never violate the foodstuff: either they
gradually unravel it (in the case of vegetables) or else prod it into
separate pieces (in the case of fish, eels), thereby rediscovering the
natural fissures of the substance ...

"... chopsticks are the converse of our knife (and of its predatory
substitute, the fork): they are the alimentary instrument which refuses
to cut, to pierce, to mutilate, to trip ... by chopsticks, food becomes
no longer a prey to which one does violence ... but a substance
harmoniously transferred ..."

I came across an article on the New York Times Web site (yes, pitiful
registration required, though bugmenot will save the day) on traffic
flow and road design [0].

I found this part quite interesting:

<quote>
To make communities safer and more appealing, Mr. Monderman argues,
you should first remove the traditional paraphernalia of their roads -
the traffic lights and speed signs; the signs exhorting drivers to
stop, slow down and merge; the center lines separating lanes from one
another; even the speed bumps, speed-limit signs, bicycle lanes and
pedestrian crossings. In his view, it is only when the road is made
more dangerous, when drivers stop looking at signs and start looking
at other people, that driving becomes safer.

"All those signs are saying to cars, 'This is your space, and we have
organized your behavior so that as long as you behave this way,
nothing can happen to you,' " Mr. Monderman said. "That is the wrong
story."
</quote>


James

[0]
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/22/international/europe/
22monderman.html?oref=login&ex=1264136400

Francis Hwang
http://fhwang.net/

 

[Nicholas Van Weerdenburg]

This is a very cool concept. I think it also gets into concepts of
flow [1], and why many people talk about Ruby being fun and fitting
their psychology.

I was once taught by a wizened old programmer "if you write a program
and don't expect it to work when you type 'run', you've gone about it
wrong". The key here is "expect", which is, I think, is an effect of
mindfulness. Of course, you don't expect it to always run, but most of
the time.

Nick
--
Nicholas Van Weerdenburg

[1] "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...002-7440233-2715238?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

I think one useful word here is "mindfulness". This sort of approach to
traffic design (I think I read about it in the New Yorker) basically
says that the actions of conscious drivers is far more effective in
preventing traffic injuries than any rigid mechanical system you could
design. Incidentally, this would appear to be the reason that,
statistically speaking, SUVs aren't nearly as safe as people assume
they are. Sure, an SUV is like a tank, but SUV drivers tend to pay a
lot less attention to the road than people driving tiny cars. Or, heck,
my good friend who rides a fixed-gear bicycle with no breaks.

I do think it applies to the static vs. dynamic typing debate ... a lot
of static typing advocates seem to argue that using static typing will
save them (or their untrustworthy co-workers) from making dumb
mistakes. I might respond that, in the long term, it's worth it to
train yourself not to make dumb mistakes.

To continue the digression, I suspect there's something of this
aesthetic in design of many (older) East Asian tools. Japanese books
used to be bound without any adhesive. And instead of having a fork and
knife for stabbing and cutting food, diners use chopsticks instead.
Roland Barthes wrote about this in Empire of Signs:

"... the instrument never pierces, cuts, or slits, never wounds but
only selects, turns, shifts. For the chopsticks ... in order to divide,
must separate, part, peck, instead of cutting and piercing, in the
manner of our implements; they never violate the foodstuff: either they
gradually unravel it (in the case of vegetables) or else prod it into
separate pieces (in the case of fish, eels), thereby rediscovering the
natural fissures of the substance ...

"... chopsticks are the converse of our knife (and of its predatory
substitute, the fork): they are the alimentary instrument which refuses
to cut, to pierce, to mutilate, to trip ... by chopsticks, food becomes
no longer a prey to which one does violence ... but a substance
harmoniously transferred ..."

I came across an article on the New York Times Web site (yes, pitiful
registration required, though bugmenot will save the day) on traffic
flow and road design [0].

I found this part quite interesting:

<quote>
To make communities safer and more appealing, Mr. Monderman argues,
you should first remove the traditional paraphernalia of their roads -
the traffic lights and speed signs; the signs exhorting drivers to
stop, slow down and merge; the center lines separating lanes from one
another; even the speed bumps, speed-limit signs, bicycle lanes and
pedestrian crossings. In his view, it is only when the road is made
more dangerous, when drivers stop looking at signs and start looking
at other people, that driving becomes safer.

"All those signs are saying to cars, 'This is your space, and we have
organized your behavior so that as long as you behave this way,
nothing can happen to you,' " Mr. Monderman said. "That is the wrong
story."
</quote>


James

[0]
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/22/international/europe/
22monderman.html?oref=login&ex=1264136400

Francis Hwang
http://fhwang.net/