thesecretsquad

Putting aside this silliness of using AI to declutter AI generated noise... Can anyone explain why someone would be inclined to use this app as opposed to asking an existing AI chatbot to summarize an article? What exactly does this app add beyond that?

Coming from a C#/Java background, discovering Smalltalk was an eye-opening experience regarding supposed "legacy" programming languages. I would argue it's a more expressive language with simpler syntax (I dare say the simplest) and has had language features for decades that Java and C# have only recently added. That's how I learned newer isn't always better.

This bit of the article struck a chord with me: "The issue is institutional knowledge — when the people who wrote an application 20 years ago leave, the remaining people often don’t know the application with anything close to the same intimacy."

Code readability, testing practices, and the types of patterns employed (or really the types of anti-patterns avoided) are more important than the language used if you expect anyone to be able to maintain a system over time. These are like embedding artifacts of institutional knowledge in your code to guide future maintainers. The choice of language alone doesn't carry any institutional knowledge.

I've heard of Bridge, but had no idea how it's played. I looked it up and it's totally not what I expected. Sounds interesting. Thanks for the suggestion.

This seems to be the sentiment from others as well. I'll probably refocus efforts on finding a less isolating and arduous hobby and instead look for more social, physical, and entertaining hobbies. Thanks for your input.

Interesting suggestion, but I that would scare the crap out of him :)

> *IMHO your dad's new hobby should be to keep trying new stuff*

That's a good idea. I'm going to suggest that. Thanks

This is a good idea. Thank you.

Congrats on retiring. Thanks for the suggestions. I've added them to my list. Following your example, it sounds like maybe I should encourage my dad to seek those simpler hobbies instead of getting involved in programming, which can be quite arduous. You mentioned playing a musical instrument and I remembered my dad was a pretty good piano player years ago. He hasn't played in years, but he might be interested in picking it up again now that he has the time.

Thanks for your input. Many commenters suggest hobbies with more social aspects, and I'm thinking they (and you) are probably right. Although my dad tends to keep to himself, I think too much of that is probably not good and a solitary task like software development will only enable that. One of the things he liked about work is, as an introvert, he got his daily dose of social interaction.

Sorry to hear you've had relationship troubles with your parents. I hope things get better.

I appreciate the suggestions. I'll add them to my list.

I would love to spend more time with him. Unfortunately, right now I live 1500 miles away. But I think you might be right about the OSS. A lot of other commenters seem to share the same sentiment and I'm thinking they might also be right.

I've had several conversations with him about what he plans to do with his time after he retires and he doesn't know. He's actually said to me, "I don't know. What do you think I should do?". My dad loved his job and never really wanted to retire.

I was trying to come up with some ideas that were more than just idle consumption, like reading books or watching tv/movies because I imagine that will get old quickly. I was trying to think of less passive activities. He used to be a big pool player when he was younger and he said he might try to find some people to play pool with at a local pool hall, but he's had 48 years to do that and I think I can count on one hand the number of times he's gone out to play pool; so I'm a little skeptical that he'll do that. He's quite introverted and doesn't really look to get out much. In fact, he currently plays virtual pool online. But he only does that for about an hour a day and I don't think he'll want to fill entire days doing that. That's why I was looking for something maybe he can get involved in that he could do from home and would be both creative and challenging, e.g. open-source. I also thought doing something totally new might be fun for him.

This is good advice, of course. But my dad is very much an introvert, so he never really sought out things to do with others. He never really took up a hobby by himself either because like I said in my post, "he loved working". And I mean he loved it. He looked forward to it every day. He never imagined retiring. We asked him for years when he would retire and he would say he doesn't want to. So maybe it's unfortunate that he's in this situation, but not much can be done about that now except to figure how how to move forward.