>>>By that logic, driving on the right side of the road in the US vs driving on the left in the UK is "pop culture"
Well, if using the definition of pop culture described in this article, pop culture evolves. Where countries drive on the road can be related more to how programming languages define blocks of code. C-like languages use curly braces to define blocks. This can be related to how since medieval times, horses rode on the left side of the road. More modern languages use different ways to define blocks of code. For example, Python uses tabbing and whitespace, Ruby uses the `end` keyword.
Continuing to use the traffic analogy, you don't have to use cruise control while driving on a long stretch of highway, but it's a lot easier to, and everyone else does. In the article, raganwald is talking about how coding conventions and techniques evolve over time. The analogy about driving in the UK vs the US is more equivalent to the syntactic rules of the specific language you are working with; it's the law which side of the road to drive on. You'll get penalized if you do otherwise. Using or not using cruise control is your choice, and so are naming conventions in different languages. Conventions evolve, even when the specific "laws" of the languages don't change as quickly, or at all.
Well, if using the definition of pop culture described in this article, pop culture evolves. Where countries drive on the road can be related more to how programming languages define blocks of code. C-like languages use curly braces to define blocks. This can be related to how since medieval times, horses rode on the left side of the road. More modern languages use different ways to define blocks of code. For example, Python uses tabbing and whitespace, Ruby uses the `end` keyword.
Continuing to use the traffic analogy, you don't have to use cruise control while driving on a long stretch of highway, but it's a lot easier to, and everyone else does. In the article, raganwald is talking about how coding conventions and techniques evolve over time. The analogy about driving in the UK vs the US is more equivalent to the syntactic rules of the specific language you are working with; it's the law which side of the road to drive on. You'll get penalized if you do otherwise. Using or not using cruise control is your choice, and so are naming conventions in different languages. Conventions evolve, even when the specific "laws" of the languages don't change as quickly, or at all.