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Every time I start to fall into the conceit that I'm an exceptionally good developer, I look at things like kernels or low level hardware programming and eat a big ol' slice of humble pie.
Why? It's just a different level of detail than you're used to. It's not magic.
Every time I start to fall into the conceit that I'm an exceptionally good developer, I look at things like kernels or low level hardware programming and eat a big ol' slice of humble pie.
Why? It's just a different level of detail than you're used to. It's not magic.
I'd absolutely encourage anyone with some C background to go and write themselves a "hello world" Linux kernel module to go convince themselves of this.
Besides some scattered text files and the Linux man pages, there is this: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/ It's fairly new - started about a year ago, but there's quite a lot of stuff in there already (bootstrapped from the old XML stuff, I believe).
... That guide is actually fucking hilarious. 'However, that’s not too bad, because even the makers of GNU indent recognize the authority of K&R (the GNU people aren’t evil, they are just severely misguided in this matter)'
So much for the idea that kernel developers are super-smart programming "gods". Formatting code that way is brain-dead and Kernighan and Ritchie are false prophets. The real prophet, Allman, tells us the Truth - curly braces go on a line by themselves, aligned vertically and indented to the same level as their corresponding control structure.
Every time I start to fall into the conceit that I'm an exceptionally good developer, I look at things like kernels or low level hardware programming and eat a big ol' slice of humble pie.
Every time I start to fall into the conceit that I'm an exceptionally good developer, I look at things like kernels or low level hardware programming and eat a big ol' slice of humble pie.
Why? It's just a different level of detail than you're used to. It's not magic.
There is some room for disagreement, but I agree with most of the following. https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Da...
Kernel development, similar to algorithmic trading (incl HFT), some types of games, various embedded, actual production compilers etc requires a higher level of rigorous understanding from a variety of areas compared to the vast majority of webapps (often CRUD) and most software that IT professional work on. Kernel dev similar to other performance critical or safety critical systems has a much reduced set of tradeoffs and more numerous constraints, for one.
Of course, most applications require knowledge in disciplines such as design and domain specific knowledge that kernel development does not require, but that is besides the point. It requires a different type of thinking overall (one that is more unforgiving to lack of rigor and not as open to subjectivity cf. design) that low-level systems development/engineering and most app development are virtually unrelated disciplines outside of trivial similarities relating to them both targeting computers.
I don't say this to discourage anyone. But these reductions are unhelpful and outright condescending to those that might struggle to learn (oh it's just a slightly different domain than your JS TODO app....um no it's not.. it's harder for you to learn because it is actually harder and more complex).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
... That guide is actually fucking hilarious. 'However, that’s not too bad, because even the makers of GNU indent recognize the authority of K&R (the GNU people aren’t evil, they are just severely misguided in this matter)'
but the preferred way, as shown to us by the prophets Kernighan and Ritchie, is to put the opening brace last on the line, and put the closing brace first, thusly: So much for the idea that kernel developers are super-smart programming "gods". Formatting code that way is brain-dead and Kernighan and Ritchie are false prophets. The real prophet, Allman, tells us the Truth - curly braces go on a line by themselves, ali…
Every time I start to fall into the conceit that I'm an exceptionally good developer, I look at things like kernels or low level hardware programming and eat a big ol' slice of humble pie.
Why? It's just a different level of detail than you're used to. It's not magic.
I've got a fairly good idea of how many pieces work, but the whole thing together still puzzles me at times.
I think that it's one of the biggest achievements of the internet as a tool for progress, and it shows that good intentions and pragmatism (together with some good Linus insults as well) can go a long way