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Why does programming suck?

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Re: Why does programming suck?

#51

Post by Udo »

spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #47
Udo wrote: post #33

This article more than anything underscores my feeling that there are too many people in programming who should not be doing it in the first place. It's a skilled profession, but it's increasingly dominated by people who despise the craft aspect of it. This results in both, suckage and bloat on the one end, and unrealistic expectations on the other. > Hiring developers is an extremely difficult task. Learning to prog…

Learning Programming is not "ridiculously difficult" my first language in a UK School at 14 was a Cutdown Machine Code CECIL. And this was in the CSE stream which was for the less able children.

That's the word choice made in the article, it's not mine. I agree with you, I've been programming since I was a child, too. Learning is hard, and it never stops, but that is not a problematic aspect at all as long as you enjoy doing it.

Re: Why does programming suck?

#52

Post by lucozade »

ghodss wrote: post #21

One of the premises of this article - that "competing standards" exist primarily because of political reasons or shallow decision making - demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of software engineering. Sure, some engineers (especially junior ones) enjoy reinventing the wheel more than using something that already exists to solve users' problems. We all like to trick ourselves into thinking we're unique snowflak…

Indeed. Sometimes things are complicated/messy because we're stupid or lazy or ignorant.

But sometimes things are complicated/messy because we're trying to solve complex problems.

That's not to say that there isn't a simple solution to a particular problem nor that we should strive to find it.

But to assume that there are always simple solutions to complex problems is itself a form of ignorance.

Re: Why does programming suck?

#53

Post by lolo_ »

estefan wrote: post #44
lolo_ wrote: post #37

I see this kind of article posted regularly, and it has been for at least the past decade (if not longer.) Worse, it's often accompanied with 'but profession X is so much better and they are all certified and do things properly unlike us awful cowboys!'. In the worst case you get the whole 'in the future everyone will program and programmers will become totally redundant'. I have a feeling the developers writing thes…

> In the worst case you get the whole 'in the future everyone will program and programmers will become totally redundant'. Yeah, not going to happen because not everyone can think in the level of detail required to program. Some people just think programming is like waving a magic wand, but when you keep asking them "so, what should it do if this happens? What about if that happens?" they slowly start to understand..…

Yeah this is exactly what I mean by a certain kind of logical thinking. It's made worse by these tasks seeming a lot more simple than they actually are, before you even think about accidental complexity.

What's frustrating is when programmers mistake inherent complexity for the accidental kind and therefore label the whole enterprise a terrible mess.

In fact overall I think this distracts from ACTUAL accidental complexity since if you think programming is generally terrible you'll probably not be too interested in some small details of that :)

Re: Why does programming suck?

#54

Post by rl3 »

acqq wrote: post #27
rl3 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much. One ideal might be for a flow chart to come alive and actually be the structure of your application itself, rather than just a reference or an aid. I suppose that while visual programming excels at conveying topology and structure, it can be weak at a low level due to the tedium involved. Traditional code is arguably better suited for low-level grunt work, at least for most people. A hybrid solution migh…

This is the most famous big attempt for visual approach up to now (first time standardized 1997), and the recent (2013) results are: http://oro.open.ac.uk/35805/8/UML%20in%20practice%208.pdf "Even if UML is viewed as the ‘de facto’ standard, it is by no means universally adopted. The majority of those interviewed simply do not use UML, and those who do use it tend to do so selectively and often informally." "They als…

While I'm not terribly familiar with UML, I was under the impression that it's primarily a modeling language, not necessarily a visual programming implement.

As far as I'm aware, most visual programming today is actually implemented in the form of node-based editors, which gained popularity in the film and visual effects industries well over a decade ago.

The best modern examples I can think of are probably Nuke[0] and UE4's Blueprint[1] system.

[0] https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/nuke/

[1] https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Blueprints/E...

Re: Why does programming suck?

#55

Post by lausobo »

acqq wrote: post #16
icambron wrote: post #15

Here's the thing: everything sucks. Every industry, profession, even hobby is full of seemingly arbitrary limitations, poor tooling, quirky hacks you have to work around, little bits of required know-how that seem ancillary to the central goals. Ask your friends in other engineering disciplines, politics and public policy of all kinds, finance, medicine, and energy. Everything sucks because the world is complicated a…

> leads to fool's errands like this: >> It’s time to kill the aimless, bottom-up, ad-hoc incrementalism in programming in favor of purposeful, top-bottom and planned innovation. Agree. Let the author put his money where his mouth is first, then we can discuss where he's right. He wants programming to be "easier." Well everybody wants everything easier. It's easy to have just one thing easy scarifying other dependenci…

> Agree. Let the author put his money where his mouth is first, then we can discuss where he's right.

I am.

Re: Why does programming suck?

#56

Post by acqq »

rl3 wrote: post #54
acqq wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the most famous big attempt for visual approach up to now (first time standardized 1997), and the recent (2013) results are: http://oro.open.ac.uk/35805/8/UML%20in%20practice%208.pdf "Even if UML is viewed as the ‘de facto’ standard, it is by no means universally adopted. The majority of those interviewed simply do not use UML, and those who do use it tend to do so selectively and often informally." "They als…

While I'm not terribly familiar with UML, I was under the impression that it's primarily a modeling language, not necessarily a visual programming implement. As far as I'm aware, most visual programming today is actually implemented in the form of node-based editors, which gained popularity in the film and visual effects industries well over a decade ago. The best modern examples I can think of are probably Nuke[0] a…

I've tried this, some two decades ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_Software

"The development of Rose 2.0 combined a Windows-based Booch notation editor called Object System Designer (acquired from Wisconsin-based Palladio) with a new intermediate representation, and with new semantic analysis, code generation, and reverse engineering capabilities. The latter, which allowed prospective customers to analyze existing C++ code to produce "as-built" navigable class diagrams, helped overcome Rational's late re-entry into the market for object-oriented modeling tools. Rose 2.0 ran on Windows PCs and on several Unix-based workstations."

It wasn't usable, except to be used in the projects doomed to fail. Or spend a lot of money. Which is something a goal of the managers. But it still can't be named a success.

Re: Why does programming suck?

#57

Post by acqq »

lausobo wrote: post #55
acqq wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> leads to fool's errands like this: >> It’s time to kill the aimless, bottom-up, ad-hoc incrementalism in programming in favor of purposeful, top-bottom and planned innovation. Agree. Let the author put his money where his mouth is first, then we can discuss where he's right. He wants programming to be "easier." Well everybody wants everything easier. It's easy to have just one thing easy scarifying other dependenci…

> Agree. Let the author put his money where his mouth is first, then we can discuss where he's right. I am.

> I am.

Jesus! (1)

What are you going to make or you're making already to change the "suckiness" of programming? Or was your article (and the question to others) your contribution? You've got at least a lot of comments here (and a lot of disagreement too) now you have something to proceed.

1) John 8: 58 and http://hightechministries.org/Eight%20I%20Am%20of%20Jesus.pd...

Re: Why does programming suck?

#58

Post by wereHamster »

cuillevel3 wrote: post #50
wereHamster wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In pure software engineering there is much less creativity needed than most people want to admit. While the UI/UX people gather requirements and work with the client to work out how the app should look and behave, sure, they can use their imagination. But once the requirements are set then in many cases a software engineer can sit down and build the software. There is no creativity needed to decide whether to use a v…

I think you confuse creativity (to create something new) with self-actualization and visual art. Programming is a craft, often used to create things which are really boring. Coders often like their craft, they like creating things, even if the final product is not important to them on a personal level.

The result of the work is not boring (hopefully, for the sake of its users). But the process of getting there is rarely creative (in the sense of inventing something new).

Most software engineers rarely need to come up with new data structures or fancy algorithms. Most of these things are already there, we just need to know which ones to pick in a particular situation and how to glue them together.

Re: Why does programming suck?

#59

Post by rl3 »

arethuza wrote: post #42
rl3 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much. One ideal might be for a flow chart to come alive and actually be the structure of your application itself, rather than just a reference or an aid. I suppose that while visual programming excels at conveying topology and structure, it can be weak at a low level due to the tedium involved. Traditional code is arguably better suited for low-level grunt work, at least for most people. A hybrid solution migh…

I don't have a problem with generating diagrams from configuration and/or code (e.g. with Graphviz) but I'm not keen on diagrams actually being edited and used to generate stuff. However, I would say that my aversion isn't based on a fundamental problem just on my experience that "graphical" tools are often awful from a usability and practicality perspective so that the benefits never seem to clearly outweigh the sig…

>However, I would say that my aversion isn't based on a fundamental problem just on my experience that "graphical" tools are often awful from a usability and practicality perspective ...

Yeah. For any truly novel visual programming approach to succeed it'd probably require some next-level UI/UX work for sure.

Re: Why does programming suck?

#60

Post by xiaoma »

It's depressing to see how much effort was put into the presentation of this blog post compared to the effort in clarifying its ideas. The author's ideas aren't novel.

Programming isn't something that can be "solved" any more than math or writing is. There is inherent complexity in building apps and there are an infinite number that could be built. The fact that it hasn't been "solved" is no indication that we've "never asked ourself this question!"

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