From: Robert Dober Date: 2009-04-10T17:50:17+09:00 Subject: Re: Goodbye Ruby - Hello Earth On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 6:59 AM, lasitha wrote: Right, this thread should be quite known now :). > >> [...] >> However, what can we (those who believe that their talents are in >> programming or creating systems on distributed Linux boxes etc.etc.) >> do to help? Any ideas, pointers? > > I for one would love to hear responses to that question in particular. > > In any case, my thanks to Christophe for posting, caring and taking action. Thanks for the encouragement. I have said it in a private post to Bill Kelly before, Christophe indeed has become one of the most valuable contributors to this list with his goodbye message, IMHO. He indicated some keywords which are part of answering my questions. I am particularly fascinated with this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture. Christophe mentioned patterns interesting for programming too (as they are general design patterns). I retained two concepts which I always found very fascinating, but not that easy to implement: Small and Slow. Small systems are manageable, e.g. Small Is Beautiful. And Slow systems are more likely to be thought out, easier to support by (human) nature. If one adds my personal favorite design principle, as simple as possible but not simpler (A.Einstein), we got three Esses. SSS. I also believe that Permaculture comes from farming environments but is a highly intellectual approach not denying progress or achievements but submitting it to critics (do we need this, or can we afford this). OTOH progress is even needed to solve given problems. If I understood it correctly we would live in quite a different world today if permaculture had been applied for some centuries now. Just one personal vision, what might have happened: Maybe no cell phones but more medical knowledge (but on second thoughts advanced communication technologies might having been developed as a side product of medical technologies research and due to its usefulness in a highly decentralized society). Would we have traveled to the moon? I daresay no, but the idea for space travel would exist for centuries and people would work on it, but slowly. The day the first man would step on our satellite she would see a green paradise that would resemble much more to paradise. Nuff dreaming for today. Robert -- There are some people who begin the Zoo at the beginning, called WAYIN, and walk as quickly as they can past every cage until they get to the one called WAYOUT, but the nicest people go straight to the animal they love the most, and stay there. ~ A.A. Milne (from Winnie-the-Pooh)