Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is “data scientist” the new “programmer”?

blogs.harvard.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 246 posts

Re: Is “data scientist” the new “programmer”?

#151

Post by watwut »

thidr0 wrote: post #41

Something about this article strikes me as a thinly-veiled complaint about poorly designed object-oriented systems. Take, for example this comment by the author: >Even if the money were half of what today’s coder gets paid it might still be a better job because one is spared the tedium of looking at millions of lines of Java that do almost nothing! What all those millions of lines of code are is abstractions, decoupl…

Personally, I am increasingly convinced that a lot of this hate comes from programmers with weak abstract thinking who simply cant do it. Instead of admitting that there is learning cure involved, they will claim the system is bad and everyone else is bad. Compounding factor is difficulty dealing with system that was written by different people who holded different opinions.

Yes, there are badly designed large system. No large system is perfect. However, there are also reasonably designed large systems, including in Java and Java is used in such system for a reason. It is more challenging to write large system. Yes, it is harder when parts of system are written in style that was considered best practice few years ago but was abandoned since then.

If you are spending a lot of time looking at millions of lines of Java that do almost nothing, them you likely dont really know what it what and need to read up more. At least that is my experience.

Re: Is “data scientist” the new “programmer”?

#152

Post by gbersac »

PeterisP wrote: post #140
portal_narlish wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sometimes wonder if programmers instinctively overcomplicate things in interest of collective job security. Some of the stuff I've seen in (particularly awful) Java code bases is perplexing to the point where it seems intentional.

It's more likely the natural entropy of code - it's easy to add stuff to a system in a way that makes it more messy; and if the system already is a big mess, then it's much harder to do non-messy additions and the bigger mess it is, the harder it is to start cleaning it up.

This is the real answer !

Re: Is “data scientist” the new “programmer”?

#153

Post by sgt101 »

alkonaut wrote: post #150

I thought data scientist was closer to doing the work of a statistician than a progrrammer. Visualizing data, and analyzing data. Programming becomes part of it by necessity. Data science is also a much sexier term than statistics, just like "Machine learning" and "Artificiall intelligence" is a lot sexier than, say, "Regression". As someone funnier than me put it: "A data scientist is just a statistician with a mac"…

I prefer : What's a data scientist -> a scientist"

It doesn't capture the whole, but it's a powerful way of thinking about what the profession should really be trying to be.

Re: Is “data scientist” the new “programmer”?

#154

Post by gaius »

portal_narlish wrote: post #135
skybrian wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of today's software is built on millions of lines of code. This isn't much of a problem when it's hidden away behind a good abstraction. Being written in another language forces the API to be documented well enough so you don't need to go deeper: "native code", "kernel code", "part of the browser". Crappy million-line Java apps are generally crappy not due to raw line count but rather due to leaky abstractions an…

I sometimes wonder if programmers instinctively overcomplicate things in interest of collective job security. Some of the stuff I've seen in (particularly awful) Java code bases is perplexing to the point where it seems intentional.

programmers instinctively overcomplicate things in interest of collective job security

It’s more likely boredom. Cranking out yet another CRUD app is more fun if you do it in a weird way. And a new “skill” for your resume.

Re: Is “data scientist” the new “programmer”?

#155

Post by throwaway2048 »

gnulinux wrote: post #92
booleandilemma wrote: post #33

Sure, we’ve stolen the term “engineer” for long enough, let’s bother the scientists now.

Why is software engineering not a valid engineering? I worked on both software and hardware engineering and general principles seem to be the same. You deal with complexity and simplify it by making abstractions. You make calculations to make sure your project is feasible. It's not like EE and Aerospace engineering are literally the same field but there are some principles shared in those fields, and with software en…

When software engineers stop disclaiming all liability for their products failing, we can talk about them like we talk about engineers (sidenote: some are already take responsibility)

Re: Is “data scientist” the new “programmer”?

#157

Post by alvis »

3chelon wrote: post #156

I've interviewed a few "data scientists". Some of them were pretty arrogant. Their idea of a "close to the metal" language was Numerical Python. I don't think these guys are going to be writing the next generation of OS anytime soon.

Never. I'm a data scientist myself and know many other so-called data scientists. But coming from an engineering background, I pretty much agree with you. & interestingly, all of the ppl I know who claim they want to write an OS one day are all data scientist. Seriously! They don't even know what's unit testing!!!

Re: Is “data scientist” the new “programmer”?

#158

Post by serversystem »

alvis wrote: post #157
3chelon wrote: post #156

I've interviewed a few "data scientists". Some of them were pretty arrogant. Their idea of a "close to the metal" language was Numerical Python. I don't think these guys are going to be writing the next generation of OS anytime soon.

Never. I'm a data scientist myself and know many other so-called data scientists. But coming from an engineering background, I pretty much agree with you. & interestingly, all of the ppl I know who claim they want to write an OS one day are all data scientist. Seriously! They don't even know what's unit testing!!!

Why would data scientists aspire to write an OS? Sounds puzzling.

Re: Is “data scientist” the new “programmer”?

#159

Post by 3chelon »

serversystem wrote: post #158
alvis wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never. I'm a data scientist myself and know many other so-called data scientists. But coming from an engineering background, I pretty much agree with you. & interestingly, all of the ppl I know who claim they want to write an OS one day are all data scientist. Seriously! They don't even know what's unit testing!!!

Why would data scientists aspire to write an OS? Sounds puzzling.

I was talking from the viewpoint of the OP who was asking if data scientists were replacing programmers.

Re: Is “data scientist” the new “programmer”?

#160

Post by yorwba »

3chelon wrote: post #159
serversystem wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would data scientists aspire to write an OS? Sounds puzzling.

I was talking from the viewpoint of the OP who was asking if data scientists were replacing programmers.

The OP is explicitly about the kind of programming work where "An entire interesting application may fit in one file.", which doesn't tend to apply to OS's nowadays.
Post reply on HN