Doing consultancy for the government, I agree with your assessment. Yet, it is fairly unrelated to what DOGE is doing.
1. Streamlining and simplification is good. Trimming can come with harsh cuts. But what we witness is arbitrary destruction. Otherwise Musk wouldn't try to reinstate nuclear inspectors they just fired.
2. Efficiency is not the goal. Neutralization of governmental power is. And with less governmental power, corporate power will fill the gaps.
3. Ideology is the driving engine. Talking points of "Anti Woke/DEI" or "no work from home" sounds appealing one half of the people, but carries no substance beyond it. In fact, these terms are misused and retooled as weapons (such as getting rid of "woke" generals).
4. If you want more efficiency, you must make investments. No company or state entity has ever become more efficient just by cutting cost. Slashing budgets only cost you more money in the medium/long run.
5. Transparency is good. It holds people accountable and allows for better decisions. But one of the few purposes of these acts seem to bring are to bring chaos. In chaos, the stronger will win. It is the opposite of transparency.
„ If we forget low level stuff, civilization will fall apart since we won't be able to keep vital software running.“
I argue the other way around. There is too mich complexity involved with using low level systems to model high level processes. We use the wrong tools and often model our system in a way which mimics the initial dataflow instead of discovering our domain and have a higher level understanding.
Complexity kills. And we must do everything in our power ti keep complexity to its minimum and avoid accidental complexity.
> And we must do everything in our power to keep complexity to its minimum and avoid accidental complexity.
We aren't avoiding nor minimising complexity (by being at higher levels) but merely being ignorant of it, which is okay, too; until the abstractions leak: For example, folks working in hpc / cybersecurity have no such luxury.
You are right, I should have been more accurate in my depiction. Inherently technological problems require low level-technological solutions. There is no way around that.
But most complexity I see arrives from just moving data from A to B to automate everyday bureaucratic tasks or enable data analysis. And the needless complexity I encounter in such systems is just mind boggling.
Currently I am working on a government system which captures tasks for long running procedures such as approving power plants. And the way the devs are treating this system is borderline criminal, acting as if this is just another CRUD app without any structure or architecture.
The idea that abstractions have to leak is a myth. We don't need fewer abstractions, just better ones. Abstractions that don't require obscuring the low-level details (e.g. typeclass/trait systems instead of interface/impl ones) help too.
I really hate the inclusion of a "FastException" and "UnsafeUtils" class.
Many developers will consistently make the wrong choice thinking their complex (but cold) execution path needs to be extra sleek and fast. But the reckoning comes during debugging (most likely by somebody else) where you have extra levels of indirection and non-expected violations of typically default behavior.
This is an old suggestion. You don't have the slightest idea what kind of rabbit holes this will lead into. This has been discussed time and time again.
The much better approach is to keep it as-is but make Exceptions composable:
switch( this.networkOperation() )
case throws IOException ex -> "invalid"
case String expected -> return expected;
case Object obj -> throws new IllegalArgumentException(obj);
You get the best of both worlds. The caller is forced to handle expected errors at call-site (aka, where you have the most information). But you can still delegate the error to a higher level, such as Controllers where the error gets turned into a "500 Server Error".
The problem really only is that you are currently forced into creating a new try-catch block. If that goes away, you are essentially dealing with sum-types. This will be more elegant than heralded languages such as Go where you slavishly write "err != nil" statements at every turn.
"You don't have the slightest idea what kind of rabbit holes this will lead into."
Instead of making assumptions about what I know or don't know about programming language theory and type systems, could you list these rabbit holes?
Java inspired languages like Kotlin, Scala and C# all considered checked exceptions and all decided to drop them and I've never heard users of any of these language express any wish to re-introduce them. I've used all three professionally and I have no idea what "rabbit holes" you're talking about?
In fact there isn't a single widely used language besides Java that feature checked exceptions. Arguably Eiffel had them but that's seriously stretching the definition of "widely used".
> In fact there isn't a single widely used language besides Java that feature checked exceptions.
Not in Java's form, but I'd argue Rust's Result type basically achieves the same effect but with less syntax. A function call can return an error variant, and the caller must handle the case (even if that's just propagating it up with `?`), as opposed to letting it silently flow up the call stack (which is more like a Rust panic).
And I'd argue that Rust's error handling is excellent. The programmer is always forced to acknowledge function calls which may produce an error, yet is also able to say "I don't care" without much syntactic overhead.
This doesn't seem any different from try/catch? The syntax differences are minimal.
I don't mind try/catch, but I agree that checked exceptions should be dropped. Exceptions are for exceptional situations, which are myriad and rarely need to be handled except at some upper level (return 500, show error dialog, etc).
As an Chinese expat, I have indeed heard rumors about undercovers from Chinese three letters agencies in events organized by dissentients (like falungong) and I would try my best to avoid being involved.
However I hope the collateral damage to the innocent Chinese expats can be minimized. The reason of many of those to stay outside of China are concerns about the the ruling party and the desire to keep a distance from it. (Admittly also a higher quality of life, but no longer true in many cases.)
Regardless of who you know, don't you think these claims are partly driven by, and drive, xenophobia - the same xenophobia and nationalism being applied to many things?
So? You might need to confront the possibility that these are not the evils you've been led to believe they are. It appears they may well be healthy, rational, vital traits for a people to survive and thrive. A population that actively resists or perverts these natural behaviours through xenophilia is not long for this world.
I don't need to wonder, I can see the vivid trail through history of oppression, hate, violence, and destruction of humanity and everything it builds.
> natural behaviours
Always the argument of people perpetrating evil (or nonsense): It's natural! Murder, rape, hatred ... killing your sibling or parent is natural - it's in the Bible! Starvation, disease, warfare, cheating on your partner, theft, ... every bad thing is natural.
So is every good thing, and many/most/all cultures have long said you have the moral choice, in Abrahamic religions ever since we left Eden. We have the knowledge of good and evil.
> A population that actively resists or perverts these natural behaviours through xenophilia is not long for this world.
Nothing is worse for humanity than warfare, and it's common cause is xenophobia and nationalism. The West has done very well embracing new immigrants. The USA is almost all immigrants or their decendents.
You don't have to embrace hate or these nonsense arguments. The treasures of freedom and peace and justice are at hand; you only have to take them up. They are far more capable and productive than these fears - look at the most free, most safe, most prosperous countries in the history of the world, with no peers or competition. They are all built on universal human rights - universal!
This is just ignorance and hate, fabrications that don't pass even the most basic examination, all to rationalize racist white supremacy.
If you want to identify dangers to you, don't do it by skin color. Look at the people telling you to be afraid, to hate, urging you to it. Those aren't good people, and they don't have your interests at heart. They are using you for truly bad things. No respected leader in US history or elsewhere does those things - think of Washington, Lincoln, Churchill, etc.
The only problem is you believing this nonsense. Stop and I promise, your life will be easier and all these supposed threats will vanish as soon as they leave your mind. I spend much of my life in integrated environments, with absolutely no hint of a problem. Everything is fine, until the bigots show up.
Now if we could deport bigotry, imagine how much more peace and happiness we'd have. What a waste of life it is.
> This mindset is driven by hatred of White people and ignorance of White achievement and culture.
Those are the lies people are telling you to encourage fear and hate - that someone out there hates you. I truly don't think about white people, achievement or culture, ever, and I never hear anyone discuss them, except white supremacist leaders trying to create hate and fear. You might as well say I hate people in some village in the Peruvian mountains - they aren't in my consciousness.
Now that you mention them, that's because I don't think of them as groups that exist beyond white supremacists - in my experience, it's a worldview limited to white supremacists - nor do I think that the definition of whiteness makes sense. Nobody else I know or talk to ever mentions them, or ever talks about erasing them or anyone at all.Could you give an example of what you are concerned about?
And whatever you believe or like, I hope you worship / follow / enjoy it to the fullest. My opinion is irrelevant to that. Governments are there to protect your rights, as Jefferson wrote, and I'd be outraged if anyone tried to take yours and your culture away and I'd want to protect them; I'd want our government to protect them.
Where support, love, and tolerance for others stop is when the others are parasites on freedom - when they use theirs to take freedom away others. And that's what racism and white supremacism do. Then I'm going to protect the people you attack just like I would protect you.
Of course the leaders of hate and fear have rationalizations why it's ok. Bad people always do. Tthe devil never says 'I'm the devil and these are bad things'. People are misled, seduced, and hate and fear have historically been the most common means.
Let's all protect each other's freedoms. That's what it's all about. Let's get together and then we're invincible. People who want to weaken you try to split you apart.
White people are a tiny global minority, and yet everywhere we exist in numbers is currently a target of mass immigration of non-Whites. This is not an accident. Soon there will be nowhere on earth for our people to live in peace and harmony among ourselves.
You're mistaken if you think it's a virtue to ignore this. If you are White, it's disgraceful. If you have White kids, it's unconscionable.
I'm sure you realise that I could turn back all of the things you said on your own position. I see endless demonization, fear-mongering, prohibition, ostracism, censorship and lies about White nationalism than any other movement in the West. Your government hates White people. It misleads you to hate us and to fear White collectivism.
What do I care for freedom if my great grandchildren have no homeland? are despised minorities in a soulless economic zone? are freely assaulted and killed by foreign authorities? don't exist...? That's such a suicidal, nihilistic ideology.
Stronger together indeed. White unity at every opportunity.
> I'm sure you realise that I could turn back all of the things you said on your own position. I see endless demonization, fear-mongering, prohibition, ostracism, censorship and lies about White nationalism than any other movement in the West. Your government hates White people. It misleads you to hate us and to fear White collectivism.
I really don't. If you could give me some examples, it would help. Also, I don't think of 'turning back' what you say, but maybe I misunderstand you or just don't know about something.
> White people are a tiny global minority, and yet everywhere we exist in numbers is currently a target of mass immigration of non-Whites. This is not an accident.
Do you mean that someone or some group is intending to disrupt 'white' societies? Who and why?
If whites are a minority, normal demographic patterns that cause change over time would seem likely to cause the minority communities to become more integrated - just a matter of numbers
> are despised minorities in a soulless economic zone? are freely assaulted and killed by foreign authorities?
Could you share some examples of these things happening? I really don't know about it.
As just one anecdote, I've lived in places where 'white' people were a small minority, and there was no problem at all. There was no mention of or discussion of a problem.
The only discrimination I see in my experience is when other people are minorities among whites - then some white people discriminate against the minority.
> Soon there will be nowhere on earth for our people to live in peace and harmony among ourselves.
Your idea of 'our people' is, I think, one that few share. Most white-skinned people don't identify with skin color, in my experience. For example, I far more often hear people say they are part Polish, Irish, etc. I've only heard very few - white supremacists - say they only want to live with other white-skinned people.
That doesn't mean you can't have your perspective. But other people aren't attacking you - they don't even think or care about it. Twisting it into fear and hate is what evil leaders do, to get people to do evil things.
Also, you are responsible for the consequences of your words and actions (and so am I) - if people die, you have the blood on your hands. There's no excuse for it. And it's predictable that spreading hate, especially white supremacy, leads to evil results.
100% agree and this not only concerns readability. The concept of "locality" turns out to be a fairly universal concept, which applies to human processes just as much as technical ones. Side-effects are the root of all evil.
You don't see a waiter taking orders from 1 person on a table, but rather go to a table and get orders from everybody sitting there.
And as for large methods, I find that they can be broken into smaller once just fine as long as you keep them side-effect free. Give them a clear name, a clear return value and now you have a good model for the underlying problem you are solving. Looking up the actual definition is just looking at implementation details.
1. Streamlining and simplification is good. Trimming can come with harsh cuts. But what we witness is arbitrary destruction. Otherwise Musk wouldn't try to reinstate nuclear inspectors they just fired.
2. Efficiency is not the goal. Neutralization of governmental power is. And with less governmental power, corporate power will fill the gaps.
3. Ideology is the driving engine. Talking points of "Anti Woke/DEI" or "no work from home" sounds appealing one half of the people, but carries no substance beyond it. In fact, these terms are misused and retooled as weapons (such as getting rid of "woke" generals).
4. If you want more efficiency, you must make investments. No company or state entity has ever become more efficient just by cutting cost. Slashing budgets only cost you more money in the medium/long run.
5. Transparency is good. It holds people accountable and allows for better decisions. But one of the few purposes of these acts seem to bring are to bring chaos. In chaos, the stronger will win. It is the opposite of transparency.