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We are done with “Hacking”

cacm.acm.org

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Re: We are done with “Hacking”

#51

Post by bor0 »

wilsonnb3 wrote: post #45
bor0 wrote: post #14

> Programmers do not need to write much code anymore; all they need to do in most cases is wire together already available components. As if this stops you from re-inventing the wheel in attempt to understand more. Understanding things is what distinguishes programmers. I had exactly the same discussion with one of my friends that wants to become a programmer. His argument was that programming is not fun at all becau…

I agree with your friend, for the most part. Most days I feel more like a combination of a preschool teacher and a switchboard operator than a computer scientist. I'm not really sure how your first paragraph is a counter-argument to your friend. Reinventing the wheel to learn is just busywork. Reinventing the wheel because you need the wheel and don't have one available is fun. Unfortunately the wheel is always avail…

Let's agree that re-inventing the wheel makes one more experienced, and also that it helps understanding things better. I believe that this distinction is what makes one a good/true programmer, compared to just lego play.

Edit: Also, I disagree that re-inventing the wheel is just busywork. Compare a programmer that just uses .sort() and another one that uses .sort() and implemented his own sort (disregarding the fact that he is not using his own sort) and really understands the math behind it. Which one would you rely on?

Re: We are done with “Hacking”

#52

Post by needlepont »

paulie_a wrote: post #41
calahad wrote: post #31

"Programmers do not need to write much code anymore; all they need to do in most cases is wire together already available components." As a general statement, I feel like this is objectively false. Just look at how much code gets added to Github daily.

I'll take it a step further, the author is an idiot. I am a huge proponent of using existing libraries and plugins but it actually takes real code to make it function. Again this person is an idiot and clearly shouldn't be writing code or articles.

He is pointing to a phenomenon I have witnessed which is copy-pasta and a mediocre understanding of the domain is enough to pass as a programmer these days.

Re: We are done with “Hacking”

#53

Post by drunkpotato »

kough wrote: post #21

No mention here yet so I'll recommend: if you think this idea might have merit and would like to read the relevant literature, check out Deming's The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market [0]. Here's the abstract: > The labor market increasingly rewards social skills. Between 1980 and 2012, jobs re- quiring high levels of social interaction grew by nearly 12 percentage points as a share of the U.S.…

This seems to be the sterile academic description of the phenomenon of bullshit jobs[0].

[0]. https://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

Re: We are done with “Hacking”

#54

Post by bor0 »

bor0 wrote: post #51
wilsonnb3 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your friend, for the most part. Most days I feel more like a combination of a preschool teacher and a switchboard operator than a computer scientist. I'm not really sure how your first paragraph is a counter-argument to your friend. Reinventing the wheel to learn is just busywork. Reinventing the wheel because you need the wheel and don't have one available is fun. Unfortunately the wheel is always avail…

Let's agree that re-inventing the wheel makes one more experienced, and also that it helps understanding things better. I believe that this distinction is what makes one a good/true programmer, compared to just lego play. Edit: Also, I disagree that re-inventing the wheel is just busywork. Compare a programmer that just uses .sort() and another one that uses .sort() and implemented his own sort (disregarding the fact…

Hacking for sure is different nowadays, but that does not stop anyone from learning and understanding more.

Re: We are done with “Hacking”

#55

Post by P_I_Staker »

paulie_a wrote: post #41
calahad wrote: post #31

"Programmers do not need to write much code anymore; all they need to do in most cases is wire together already available components." As a general statement, I feel like this is objectively false. Just look at how much code gets added to Github daily.

I'll take it a step further, the author is an idiot. I am a huge proponent of using existing libraries and plugins but it actually takes real code to make it function. Again this person is an idiot and clearly shouldn't be writing code or articles.

Yikes, harsh. I mostly agree though. I thought this article was silly and couldn't even finish it. I'm not really sure what his point was. Since the conception of software engineering as a discipline, maintainability and code reuse has been highly desirable. It's just taken a while for it to sink in for some people. Re-using code simply means you write different code instead of wasting your time; but you're still writing code.

Re: We are done with “Hacking”

#56

Post by slededit »

wilsonnb3 wrote: post #48
paulpauper wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have done both. It's valuable if you are a novice and need help creating a loop or an event or something like that. If I'm paying then I'm assuming you know how to do those things. Would google hire a coder who uses Stack Overflow instead of knowing how to code without it? I cannot imagine a JavaScript coder who works for Google needing Stack Overflow for JavaScript problems.

It's unreasonable to expect people to retain knowledge of every little corner of a programming language when there's an easily available reference they could use instead. "How often they need to refer to reference material" is a pretty terrible metric for measuring the abilities of a programmer.

Its not an unreasonable metric, if a round trip through Stack Overflow is in your thought loop then you will be significantly more limited than someone who doesn't need that. If you are doing something very obscure then its reasonable, but most programmers don't do obscure things on a daily basis.

Its similar to being unable to do math in your head. You can get away with always using the calculator but you'll be outperformed by someone who can do it without dropping their pencil.

Re: We are done with “Hacking”

#57

Post by awocs »

wellpast wrote: post #15

> Programmers have to know how to write maintainable code... He implies that this somehow falls into “socitech” ability, which it is not. Maintainable code is precise, well-factored code — almost pedantic — which requires an orthogonal (if not counterpointed) talent to the more “social” talents. I would go further to say that a mathematical understanding or at least inclination is required to write maintainable code.…

It is a bit hard to know what exactly he means by "socitech", but I don't think it the same as what you mean by "social". Things like writing maintainable code isn't provable, but something requires subjective considerations. Most of that knowledge doesn't come from math, but areas like systems thinking. Which is more towards social sciences.

Re: We are done with “Hacking”

#58

Post by sixstringtheory »

afandian wrote: post #47

Long shot, as this is a CACM article. Does anyone in Oxford UK want a 2ft foot worth of paper CACM editions from 2012 to 2015 in Oxford UK? I have been avoiding throwing them out but now getting round to it. Let me know.

If nobody takes them, there’s gotta be a small library somewhere that would accept them, or even one of those Little Free Libraries (if you have them there).

Re: We are done with “Hacking”

#59

Post by jcelerier »

calahad wrote: post #31

"Programmers do not need to write much code anymore; all they need to do in most cases is wire together already available components." As a general statement, I feel like this is objectively false. Just look at how much code gets added to Github daily.

> "Programmers do not need to write much code anymore; all they need to do in most cases is wire together already available components."

there are a lot of programmers which develop purely in visual environments such as LabVIEW, Max/MSP, PureData, vvvv, and others - you just don't hear them complaining on hn :p

Re: We are done with “Hacking”

#60

Post by commandlinefan »

paulpauper wrote: post #22
commandlinefan wrote: post #3

> This programming bible earned a famous comment from Bill Gates: "It took incredible discipline, and several months, for me to read it." I know he's a trillionaire and all and probably smarter than me but still - as somebody who spent a full three years reading and working through the problems in the first three books, I wonder how deep an understanding he could really have walked away with after just a few months.

I did a google search of Art of Computer Programming and see a ton of math problems. I was expecting more along the lines of actual code like assembly or machine code or something . Like actual code. How is summing an infinite series supposed to help me code better (summing the series is much easier, ill grant you that..combining ajax +css+php is hard )

It is a math heavy set, but as you go further on, there is more programming - but still nothing like the programming that you and I would do. He's focused on hyper-optimizing sorting routines, random number generators, hashmaps, and high-precision arithmetic. It's actually really fascinating stuff, and the sort of thing you just don't really see anywhere else (for example, did you know you can actually test the randomness of a random number generator?) But yes, he's more focused on the math behind computer science than the programming itself; besides his elevator simulator, I think the longest program in the entire first three volumes was his AVL tree implementation, which is still something that most of us encounter in data structures 101 nowadays.
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