Yes, because even to hint at how we might climb out of a local-maximum optimization valley is the act of a raving lunatic.

There's a pretty serious difference between arguing for reduced abstraction in software (which can be quite reasonable, and is probably more like what the author actually envisions) and arguing for no abstraction in software. The latter comes across as ignorance of the purpose of layers of abstraction.

The author points to Alan Kay's anecdote about a simple, standardized way for formatting data on cards in 1961 and then immediately turns around and uses it to argue that standardized formats do not improve interoperability. Sounds hypocritical to me.

The user you are replying to is the author.

I'd quote from the Unix Haters' Handbook http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/handbook.html

> "I liken starting one's computing career with Unix, say as an undergraduate, to being born in East Africa. It is intolerably hot, your body is covered with lice and flies, you are malnourished and you suffer from numerous curable diseases. But, as far as young East Africans can tell, this is simply the natural condition and they live within it. By the time they find out differently, it is too late. They already think that the writing of shell scripts is a natural act."

> Ken Pier, Xerox PARC

but while that jab illustrates the Everything Is Fine; Nothing Can Be Done mentality in computing very clearly, it's probably unfairly disrespectful to East African people.