Hunnicuttt
dmidlo.bsky.social
Hunnicuttt
@dmidlo.bsky.social
Trench-worn sysadmin, renegade software philosopher, and burnt-out craftsman who still cares too much.
I definitely came of age during the antitrust era; Part of me kinda always wondered if that's why Gates got into philanthropy. My internal take has always been: He clearly was a person who loved to byte bits more than anything. Always kinda assumed he broke away to be northstar...
April 25, 2025 at 8:18 PM
I mean from the outside it's been net amazing; the open-door policy. The pivot has been clear for that two decades too from a pure technology perspective. I'm happy to take your word that the external footprint is a window to peek through for just as long.
April 25, 2025 at 8:18 PM
This is my JAM!!!! thanks!!!!!
April 25, 2025 at 7:02 PM
It's not a smudged lens, I think, just a wider-angle one. Both the idealism and the corporate realities can be true at the same time.
April 25, 2025 at 7:00 PM
History shows that once those innovations enter the larger world, they often get shaped (or repurposed) by forces beyond the creators' original hopes, whether it's the commercialization of open standards, the Java wars, or unintended consequences like Madame Currie and the atomic bomb.
April 25, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Most innovation really does start from passionate, idealistic people who want to make things better; Jobs and Wozniak, Madame Curie, and as you pointed out, the teams behind C#, F#, PowerShell. Job's up-and-down fall from grace is poignant here....
April 25, 2025 at 7:00 PM
I hear you, and honestly, I don't think it's about cynicism at all.

It's more about recognizing the natural tension between human nature and broader socio-polictical/market forces.
April 25, 2025 at 7:00 PM
I'm just a nerd who smiles too much and finds comparative reasoning to be the best way to learn.

All that again to say, please don't take engagement as anything more than jovial. Thank you for the time on the playground together!!!
April 25, 2025 at 6:36 PM
In other words.... I find myself getting talked down to alot. I make less money than most of my peers, but I'm pretty sure I'm living a happier life than most. And I've been privileged to be a high-school flunky who's been able to play in some really fun spaces.
April 25, 2025 at 6:36 PM
a lot of folks who have 'T' or 'I' shaped skill curves raise doubts due to simply because you can't ask the human mind to live too far outside of its own lived experience.
April 25, 2025 at 6:36 PM
'Imposter Phenomenon' rather, is a superset the extends to the social strata of disbelief and isn't contingent on the competence of the 'subject' but rather the social disbelief directed toward the "subject's" capabilities.
April 25, 2025 at 6:36 PM
... There's an opposite of Dunning-Kruger that alot of folks don't know about. It's called 'Impostor Phenomenon' (not to be confused with 'Impostor Syndrome', though closely related); wherein 'Imposter Syndrome' is an internal fight in disbelief one's own capacities. ...
April 25, 2025 at 6:36 PM
in fact; I find that broad-squareshaped-depth is often offputting to some to work toward career milestones as compared to internal cross-functional capabilities. <- it's a humbling path not filled with riches or accolades when you're not motivated by more than compassion and curiosity
April 25, 2025 at 6:36 PM
it's just.... necessity... is the mother of... discovery... we'll say. and a lot of folks haven't had the necessity to develop a minimal style that allows for traversal at depth across ecosystems while still being able to revisit legacy projects in disparate systems...
April 25, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Most of these problem sets were solved and described in the 70s or before... the depth at which one can attain to is indeed limited by the problem space itself; not human capacity.... Invoke-RestMethod, as we know parses much more than RSS into nice objects natively;
April 25, 2025 at 6:36 PM
again; please don't take back-and-forth engagement as anything more the jovial camaraderie around first-principles and the joy of looking at their manifestations and pros/cons any more than you would a healthy debate about a favorite sportsball activity or team.
April 25, 2025 at 6:36 PM
truth be told; whenever it is I've found myself looking for new career opportunities.... it's an excruciatingly long process... I think largely because folks think a T-shaped skillset can't ever become a square-shaped one without sacrificing depth (or something lost more human)
April 25, 2025 at 6:36 PM
I truly am just nerding out here XD

My vantage point is one of projects-deep spread across several ecosystems where the 'right' language on a given endpoint should be chosen for that endpoint; but where both endpoints share a requisite depth and complexity to expose a usable and simple interface.
April 25, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Please don't mistake back-and-forth engagement and verbosity for disagreement, side-taking, or lack of knowledge regarding just how amazing powershell has become; nor my deep love for the innumerable man-months spent in pwsh without a single 'true' regret; with many more to come....
April 25, 2025 at 6:36 PM
I mean; I totally agree.... and no deconstruction is necessary. It doesn't take much to be turing complete, nor does it exclude the idea. One could write all the stuff using the SASS css preprocessor; and a module ecosystem is table stakes these days... which is why we don't.
April 25, 2025 at 6:36 PM
and now that the capture attempt failed, MS pivoted; open-sourced most of their IP primitives and pivoted to support more languages through web technologies.

I'm an MS fanboy... but any other company that wasn't MS would have not been able to make these moves and survive
April 25, 2025 at 12:48 PM
it still remains that we'd be leaning in C# to some degree or another... It's just not a fair comparison. Python went public in 1991; C# didn't come around until just over a decade later in 2002... C#/F#/PS were closed-source answers to capture emerging threats of Java/Python, Ruby et al...
April 25, 2025 at 12:48 PM