The real problem is that programming is for the folks I've surrounded myself with not just a job but an aesthetic. There's something in the water because we see ourselves not just as technicians but as artists or seekers. And I love that a lot. But it's distorting.

"there's something in the water at these FP things lol"

yeah. there is. it's a cocktail of egoism, pride in ones work and absolute conviction that there is a better way.

For more than some folks this is also coupled with a rationalist "and it would be obvious if you were just smart enough"; or failing that an obeisance to those who seem to have had the right intuitions before or whose bets paid off.

All of this is in service of the aesthetic objective of building the "right" consistent thing. The "martian computing" essay is a flytrap for this thinking. It's why critique is so hard. You aren't critiquing a tool, you're critiquing a PERSON's VISION of what better is.

Note that the concept of "vision" is personal, singular and atomic. It cannot be shared; It cannot be communicated without being distorted. So you get personality cults.

"simple made easy" is a fantastic example of this. who is to say what simple is? are we talking about data simplicity? control simplicity? user simplicity? we're given no metric. except Rich's judgement.

Elm is another example. Who is to say what the "right" Elm API for something is? The ecosystem maintainers who have privileged access and nobody else.

Someone more intimate with the drama than me could probably extend this critique to Scala without too much difficulty.