Double Dash

I've become disillusioned. Open source is ugly; IDEs are ugly; big data is ugly. The only UI that brings me joy is my double-dash syntax. Only files are a way to communicate to a command line program that reads files with .-- extensions. If you want to change the mode that the program is running in, then you have to append to a .-- file that was given to the program at invocation. Every -- in a .-- file starts a command, no matter where it occurs. If a -- occurs before a command gets all the arguments it expects, then the interrupted command fails. Anything not matching the argument format is ignored. Stop trying to make computers more like people. Just find a common denominator. One command opens one window. Multiple instances of that command can share, or own, files given to the command on its command line. Only files are given on a command's command line; command line arguments that are not files are ignored. Obviously, simultaneous commands can share files, so I do need pthreads to read files as they are appended to. No other overhead is necessary. Everything else is innovation. Stop reinventing the wheel. No matter how profitable reinvention is, and how unprofitable true invention is, just express.

Innovation

Innovation is not a football in the battle between libertarian and socialist. Innovation is the field. Let’s give libertarians some intellectual credit, and assume they know that what socialists refer to as innovation comes from government and universities. Libertarians have as many words for profit as escimoes have for snow, and to a libertarian, innovation is a form of profit. They may quibble that innovation is a source of profit, but just as snow is a source of ice, it is all profit to a libertarian. When libertarians argue for less government, they are arguing for less of what socialists call innovation. Both libertarians and socialists have a point. Government gave us fracking as well as internet. Big government is imperialist, because building up alternatives before tearing down traditions accumulates advantage. Let the ideologues argue over more or less; the future is what kind. Until government stops being timid and greedy, and starts destroying as well as feeding corporations, we will stay on the current track to climate breakdown.