21–30 of 39 posts
If you put something out there, you should be flattered that people take enough interest to tinker with it.
The author has inadvertantly stumbled upon a part of hacker culture with wide-ranging implications, that is almost never discussed—and that is that people expect that you publish code because you want it to be changed , and not simply read . This stems from a deeply-rooted tradition in programming of not reading a codebase until you have a problem with it that you must fix . People don't "read for pleasure" in the pr…
And it is surprising how much you can learn from reading code, the most humbling thing I learned from reading other people's code is that I'm not nearly as good a programmer as I thought I was.
I haven't read a program yet that didn't teach me something.
Reading programs is hard work though, it can tire you out pretty quickly, especially in the stage before things start clicking in to place and you can start to predict what's coming next based on the parts that you've already grokked.
The author has inadvertantly stumbled upon a part of hacker culture with wide-ranging implications, that is almost never discussed—and that is that people expect that you publish code because you want it to be changed , and not simply read . This stems from a deeply-rooted tradition in programming of not reading a codebase until you have a problem with it that you must fix . People don't "read for pleasure" in the pr…
I read code to learn, not just to fix. And it is surprising how much you can learn from reading code, the most humbling thing I learned from reading other people's code is that I'm not nearly as good a programmer as I thought I was. I haven't read a program yet that didn't teach me something. Reading programs is hard work though, it can tire you out pretty quickly, especially in the stage before things start clicking…
It's also work no one knows you did; unlike reading a book or a blog post, you can't really reference or quote a codebase to prove you know what you're talking about, because you can't expect the people you're talking to to have read the same exact lines.
I don't really understand the author's aversion to other people adding their own contributions and creativity. How exactly is it harming him? He can retain control of the original -- it's not like anyone is forcing him to accept contributions. And indeed unless he explicitly allows it they can't even distribute an updated version of his project. If you put something out there, you should be flattered that people take…
Arrogance comes in all kinds of forms.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read code to learn, not just to fix. And it is surprising how much you can learn from reading code, the most humbling thing I learned from reading other people's code is that I'm not nearly as good a programmer as I thought I was. I haven't read a program yet that didn't teach me something. Reading programs is hard work though, it can tire you out pretty quickly, especially in the stage before things start clicking…
I'm definitely not saying it's not a good idea to read code—it's just something that almost nobody does, because, as you've said, it's very hard work; much harder than having the "story of the code" told to you in a book or a blog post. It's also work no one knows you did; unlike reading a book or a blog post, you can't really reference or quote a codebase to prove you know what you're talking about, because you can'…
The author has inadvertantly stumbled upon a part of hacker culture with wide-ranging implications, that is almost never discussed—and that is that people expect that you publish code because you want it to be changed , and not simply read . This stems from a deeply-rooted tradition in programming of not reading a codebase until you have a problem with it that you must fix . People don't "read for pleasure" in the pr…
However, when it comes to code I think it's best to make known your intentions for it because code generally has a practical function beyond its artistic value as a creation, and as a result people may want to alter it.
The last of which is only visible in the source code as a sort of pun: http://www.vispo.com/bp/download/FirstScreeningBybpNichol.tx... - scroll to the very end (lines 3900 through 4000). The REM command is Apple Basic for "REMark" or a comment line.
More info and updated ports of his code can be found here: http://www.vispo.com/bp/introduction.htm - the notion of translation (either between languages or architectures), and not yet breached by the original thread, should make for some polemical discussion.