i suspect it's more about lua being a really nice, embeddable scripting language. there's a reason game companies all* use it for content developer scripting languages.
language preferences aside, sometimes it's all about the right tool for the job.
* not literally _all_ of them, but lots and lots and lots.
i mean, what's the layman's description of a rabi cycle? anyone? if someone can lay on me a description my very smart, but non-techy wife would understand, i'll be happy to update the wikipedia entry.
seems like all you have to do is explain quantum physics to a layman first. then (apparently) how a two-state quantum system interacts with an oscillatory driving field and what that has to do with that original layman's explanation of quantum physics.
It's tempting to dismiss lay explanations as impossible when you're assuming the laymen needs a full and complete understanding of every implication. But in lay explanations, you're not graded on completeness, you're just offering a foothold so people know generally what you're talking about and one or two implications.
What are we talking about? Quantum mechanics. What's that? When things are really tiny they seem to obey unexpected rules (of physics). So quantum mechanics describes the behavior of really tiny things. What's a rabi cycle? So you have some of these really tiny things, and they're flipping between two states, like a light switch. Maybe you shine a light on them to get them excited, and when they're excited in a certain way, they flip back and forth between these two states.
What does that get us? Maybe it helps us make lasers that have effects that are more focused than we would expect given diffraction limits--that's the limit of how focused light can get based on the properties of the lens you're using.
There's nothing in that article that the layman can use to predict anything, i.e., the reader will not be able to answer any questions afterwards that aren't directly addressed in the original article. That's a sign that those sorts of explanations give the feeling of understanding, but don't actually impart knowledge.
If someone writes "there's a war in Syria", then the reader can accurately predict that there will be an above-average number of bombed out buildings, and probably lots of refugees on the border. But if someone writes "Rabi oscillations are when very tiny things flip back and forth", there are no non-trivial questions the reader can answer. The reason is that the reader knows roughly what "war" is and what a country is and that "Syria" is a country. But when you tell them tiny things are flipping...all they know is that tiny things are flipping. (Ask "do you think you can catch the tiny thing on it's edge part way through it's flip?" Or "Do the tiny things flip faster or slower than sound waves?" The reader will have no idea.)
while this process feels like it's hitting the sweet spot for finding out who can write brilliant code, that's half or less of the battle in hiring people. personally (and as a hiring manager), i feel like a majority of the hiring process is dependent (obviously) on the environment you're hiring into.
hiring for that small startup? you'll want multi-hat wearing people first, brilliant programmers second.
hiring for a large enterprise team? you'll want to hire for "plays well with others" first, and brilliant programmers second.
that's not to say you should hire schleps, for sure. they should at least be competent programmers. i guess what i'm saying is (despite how it sounds), hiring someone who can program brilliantly is important, but not as important as hiring someone who can navigate your company's software-making requirements successfully.
firing the brilliant engineer who thinks he's more talented than everyone else in the small company so he keeps demanding to be put in charge? yup, that's a thing. firing the brilliant engineer who fights tooth-and-nail over some inconsequential feature the product team wants to change? that's a thing too. assigning a brilliant engineer to crap, meaningless work because no one else on the team wants to work with them? yuppers -- seen it.
in any organization, you are either the only one in charge or you're following someone else's orders -- both of which require different aspects around working well with others.
it feels like it's starting to get shaken out. the whole mega-popular digital book thing is enabling wider distribution of formats like novellas.
heck, even sanderson is getting in on the gig with all of his recent success with the shorter novels like "the emperor's soul" or "legion" -- which are both fantastic, btw.
near the beginning of your startup, you need multi-hat-wearing-swiss-army-knives for developers. once you get traction and growth, you need to bring in vertical expertise.
as a parent, the places these buttons would need to be for me are already child-proofed. if it's sitting next to where i keep my laundry detergent, that space is already child-proofed. if it's under the sink next to my bottle of 409, it's already child-proofed.
this actually reminds me a bit of the amazon echo in that it is completely and totally household dependent.
i have an echo and think it's completely amazing. my friend, basically has siri in his pocket and doesn't understand my crazy-love. the difference is that he's a single guy with his own apartment who always has his phone or computer within reach. i'm not.
my house is a family of four (me, the beautiful wife, a couple pre-teen boys) with a large common area filled with lots of traffic and commotion. the kids don't have phones. my wife and i have phones and computers, but they're not always in reach. whether she's making everyone's lunches in the morning, i'm playing munchkin with the boys, she's helping them with homework, i'm washing dishes after dinner, etc. -- it's rarely convenient (not to mention the poor social etiquette around the dinner table) to whip out a phone and do any 60-seconds-or-more task. with a family, you are kind of forced to be fully engaged most of the time.
this means we use the heck out of the amazon echo for the shopping list (also the music player, weather check, and timers for the boys) out of pure, unadulterated convenience.
in a busy household, it may sound cliche, but it's EXTREMELY convenient to just say "alexa, add sandwich bags to the shopping list" and the like while you're elbow-deep into putting away leftovers.
but having a free, physical button that magically reorders trash bags or detergent or paper towels placed in the very location where you would consume such things? magical!
because, again, in a busy household there are about a thousand other things you need to get to by the time you notice "oh, we're almost out of toilet paper" and inevitably, you'll catch yourself standing in costco next week trying to remember all the things you were almost out of.
and these are just the benefits to me -- for tide? this seems like a huge opportunity for brand lock-in and is probably even a joint venture between them and amazon.
> but having a free, physical button that magically reorders trash bags or detergent or paper towels placed in the very location where you would consume such things? magical!
I don't get it. I keep tens of such things in my kitchen alone (paper towels, napkins, dish sponges, aluminum foil, plastic wrap, etc, etc). Does anyone really want a bank of these buttons lined up inside each cabinet? Wouldn't it be about 1000x more convenient to just have an app for this with all my Dash buttons running on the little computer that's always within arm's reach?
i would certainly rather have a small bank of interchangeable buttons for the 1/2 dozen items below my sink (dishwasher pods, 408, windex, sponges, trash bags, dish soap) than having to (with wet hands) find my phone/app/screen/button/click. those, of course, would be different than the small bank of buttons near the shelf in the garage. which would be different than the small bank of buttons in the laundry room.
would it make the inside of the sink cabinet door nicer-looking to have an app in my pocket? probably. also, this isn't a zero-sum thing. we can have both!
We'll have to agree to disagree then. I don't want a bank of buttons anywhere. Do you really want 30 different devices to set up and then worry about whether they've lost the connection to your wifi or run out of battery life or had their contacts corroded by your ever-soggy button presses?
I'd like an app with a lineup of Amazon Dash consumables. If my hands are filthy or wet I'll try to keep a single intention in my head for 30 seconds until that's no longer the case. And if I don't feel like doing that I can just write a note on a pad.
Luckily along with the buttons they're putting out an API for doing exactly that (https://www.amazon.com/oc/dash-replenishment-service). I wouldn't be surprised if some apps pop up soon that do exactly what you described. The buttons are just easier to market to the general population.
language preferences aside, sometimes it's all about the right tool for the job.
* not literally _all_ of them, but lots and lots and lots.