Zed Shaw has another awesome rant at http://vimeo.com/43380467. I agree with much of what he says about both the web and OO. I don’t see the causal connection though: they both suck, but it is probably just a coincidence. However the best part of the talk was when he invoked the voice in the back of your head whispering “bulllshhhiiittt”. That nails what programming is like for me. Most of what we have to deal with is just so wrong wrong wrong. Having to get stuff done despite the deep wrongness of it all leads to textbook cognitive dissonance. I have always been slightly amazed by the people who seem so happy and satisfied with programming. I suspect that it ultimately comes down to personality differences. I also suspect that it is a hyper-sensitivity to wrongness that drives misfits and rebels ranging from Steve Jobs to the Unabomber. Does anyone else feel the wrongness of programming?
Update: the other thing I like about Zed’s talk is that it aligns perfectly with my research direction. Decades of listening to that whispering voice have driven me to develop a post-object language. I think the best way to demonstrate this language is by reinventing the web. So I am traveling the same path as Zed but in the opposite direction.