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Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work?

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Re: Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work?

#71

Post by heisenbit »

There are several aspects I see

- Writing 30KLOC yourself is a real lot

- Maybe it is too much? Try at times to refactor to make it denser

- Good libraries come from re-use. Either a genius came up with something reusable from scratch or someone got better at solving a problem until a piece emerged that was worth sharing.

- Good libraries come from discussion and exchange of ideas. There is a lead but there are contributors too.

- There is a difference between apps and frameworks. The code and not the app is the product and customers are devs. Has implications e.g. how to do marketing.

- Are you made for this? Some solve problems really fast and good enough, then move on. Some others solve problems really well and stick with problems for a long time. Both types have value. Look at your life outside coding for clues.

Re: Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work?

#72

Post by syngrog66 »

this rings as very fake and/or blatantly self-promotional. I wish HN had less of this type of post. I feel like a certain percentage of HN posters have learned how to push enough of the buttons of the rest of you to make it a net win for them. just nauseating.

And now come the downvotes, because I know I am effectively "not allowed" to express this kind of opinion without penalty -- yet I don't care, let's burn it up.

Re: Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work?

#73

Post by tastyface »

syngrog66 wrote: post #72

this rings as very fake and/or blatantly self-promotional. I wish HN had less of this type of post. I feel like a certain percentage of HN posters have learned how to push enough of the buttons of the rest of you to make it a net win for them. just nauseating. And now come the downvotes, because I know I am effectively "not allowed" to express this kind of opinion without penalty -- yet I don't care, let's burn it up…

Self-promotional for what? I have no affiliation with any of the frameworks or apps I mentioned, and I'm getting exactly the kind of advice I was hoping for.

Re: Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work?

#74

Post by codecamper »

First off, you can spend a lot of time adding amazing features that are never used.

Second, many successful products weren't all that complex. (though I'm not sure if these days still exist)

Third, realize that most stuff that gets created disappears into the infinity of time & just gets replaced with other stuff.

Fourth... do you love your grandparents? (or parents, or friends) I hope you still have them. If so, then be sure you call them on their birthdays & on holidays. Maybe even send a card. Spend as much time with them as possible. They are truly the most important things to your life. The rest is just icing.

Re: Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work?

#75

Post by enraged_camel »

lostcolony wrote: post #54

So one thing I don't see a lot of responses calling out, that I think is worth calling out, is what you see is how long the -code- took. You don't see how long the design took. You assume it started when the code did, but that may not actually be the case. These other developers may have had this idea in the back of their mind for months, chewing it over, thinking about how they'd approach something, doing research i…

Furthermore, there is no way of knowing whether the code you see is version 1 or version 10. Maybe they hammered away at local copies for months before finally figuring out the optimal design.

Re: Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work?

#76

Post by marmaduke »

I think the first few years of programming are the most difficult. You have to go through this process of building and throwing away. Only with that experience you learn to anticipate things should be put together. That makes thing go more quickly.

Re: Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work?

#78

Post by hellofunk »

> The code is generally messy and horrible, rife with race conditions and barely holding together in parts.

It's very good that you've had the experience of writing bad code, and recognizing that. It will make you expect more from yourself next time. And the process repeats. After many iterations you will be much better. And also more nimble. Writing 1000 lines is a lot for someone who has never done that before, but natural for someone who has a million lines under their belt.

Re: Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work?

#80

Post by eeZah7Ux »

psyc wrote: post #57
altitudinous wrote: post #30

I am in my late 40's, I have been coding since I began uni in 1987, I have a Computer Science degree. When I got out there 25+ years ago I was all about doing things the best way, code reuse, refactor etc to get things just right. Most younger devs are. It took so much time getting the environments perfect, unit tests, etc. The customer paid for that, my managers must have been tearing their hair out watching us faff…

I'm about your age, and I agree with everything here. My "process" is thinking through problems thoroughly and being careful. I used to be able to find whole teams full of people who worked like this, and during that time I worked on at least 5 outrageously successful, stable products, with no automated tests and no process other than test it manually and check it in. Eventually, time moved on and (mostly younger) pe…

> My "process" is thinking through problems thoroughly and being careful.

I'm saddened by how thinking has become strangely uncommon. I've seen many teams where people either type code or have quick chats where they decide what to do on a whim.

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