Having taught for about 15 years, your feeling that pedagogy, as taught in most professional development sessions, is quackery, is not wrong. There are so many hucksters writing books and doing seminars.
What does age have to do with understanding any of this? He has been developing new, and refining old theories, over decades. It's ridiculous to expect someone to stop purely because of age, or to think they need your protection from discussing their views.
The US has forced prison labor. We can talk about how bad the Chinese government is, but their economy is not built on forced labor anymore than the US is built on prison labor.
About two years ago, I left 15 years of teaching to go back to software. I got started teaching when an elementary school teacher I knew asked if I wanted to volunteer a few times a week. It was mostly reading and math in small groups. I loved it.
Most fun at a rave I've ever had was at this castle. The guy built it free climbing the whole time and was in conflict with the government over how he got the rocks, which he mostly pulled from riverbeds on public land.
Another out there spot is in Lucas, Kansas. That guy was also fiercely anti-government.
As someone who isn't rich, but has taken extensive time off work, I love not working. The last 18 month break I took may have been the happiest I've ever been. I'll never be rich, because I'm not motivated by money, but I've never been bored or rudderless.
The HN community seems split between people who want simple products that do one thing well, and others that want continual feature churn and additions. What was Google Docs need exactly to be better? It seems to work perfectly for the targeted users.
I enjoy learning and teaching. In my spare time I build, or often half build things, and then write about aspects of the process. For the longest time I didn't even share my blog with people. I recently started sharing one particular series and I've gotten a number of comments on "why?" or "why not just use X library instead of building it from scratch?" Doing something just because seems lost on some people.
It's not possible to escape death, and all timelines will feel short when it comes to their end. Reducing the suffering of life, whether mental or physical, seems a more achievable pursuit. To die without cancer, dementia, chronic pain or the so many other ailments would be amazing.
That was a rhetorical question in the article. It's immediately followed by:
> ..Okay yeah that's actually a pretty good reason not to use it. I can't get into lisps for the same reason. I'm not going to begrudge anybody who avoids a tool because it's ugly.
I think there's a lot to unpack here. Teaching someone how to write a for loop is easy and can done in a straightforward way, but teaching them when it's best to use, and getting them to under why, is different. Even further, getting them evaluate novel situations, apply it correctly and be able to communicate why they did it that way is another thing.
At what point would you say they've actually acquired the skill?