>>36
WSLand is the perfect place for a PAL programmer who feels something is amiss to find respite and become complacent (cf. Pythonistas). They, and native WSLandians, may never feel dissatisfied enough to climb those mountains and come into a full understanding of the possibilities before them. If WSLandia weren't sitting smack in the middle of the journey, a temptation to all who enter, the pure, crazy-making unlivability of PALand could drive people up the mountain, where even not-so-good programmers could enter a culture of good thinking. With it there, those programmers dive headlong into the honeypot.
Hell is never reaching your potential. In a world where Mt. SAL was the de facto destination for everyone who wants to do better, programming would be less a process of wearying pain, and more a process of personal growth. Does it hurt sometimes? Does it leave you spent? Yes, and yes. But that hurt is a good hurt, and that's a fee paid to reimburse yourself a dozenfold. I do believe the programming world would be a better, more pleasant place, if the average programmer were not so distracted by the shiny toys around him that he never looks up, never stands up and never walks. It may not put me into a personal hell, but it does drag the world down with me in it. Hell is also being kept from working at your potential, and watching people you like flounder in a sea of mediocrity.
WSLs are here for the foreseeable future. No one can remove these distractive attractions. The best one crawling the slopes can do is shout down to anyone whose ears are keen enough to hear. “Ho, down there! The cdr's fine up here!”