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Programming: Doing it more vs. doing it better

kevinmartinjose.com

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Re: Programming: Doing it more vs. doing it better

#51

Post by networkimprov »

externalreality wrote: post #38

Programming is simple. Domains and interfaces are difficult. People over engineer stuff. People like to think they found the key to hidden wisdom. I believe I just summed up 90% of the difficulty with programming. Just for the record procedural programming and functional programming are the only two styles of programming to me that make sense. Procedural because its how the machine model works and functional because…

Over-engineering drives up LoC counts, so there's (perhaps implict) incentive to engage in it -- either you or your colleagues perceive greater productivity.

Re OOP, it provides a method to model what you term a "domain".

Re: Programming: Doing it more vs. doing it better

#52

Post by hhs »

pm90 wrote: post #35
hhs wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting view. I'm learning, with about 8 months worth of knowledge and experience, and this is useful. Did you notice any skills/traits in those people who were "unbelievable" in those 3 years? For instance, did they do "test driven development"? Also, did they keep good log habits?

I think OP has provided good context. But I will try to answer the question you _really_ seem to be asking: unfortunately there is no shortcut. There are things you can do that will, like the author said, give you faster feedback and thus let you get better _if_ you use that feedback. You might write a lot of code and read a lot of code and internalize good patterns. Eventually you will have enough experience and the…

This is very helpful. Your points make me think of the need for immersing in the experience and intently considering not only the 'what' but also the 'why' of actions, as well as alternative approaches to solve problems.

It also makes me think of the importance of stepping back, questioning the scope of "design choices" available, and anticipating things other "than simply the assigned task", possibly for some long-term aim, as you write. This is neat, thanks.

Re: Programming: Doing it more vs. doing it better

#53

Post by lifeisstillgood »

Please stop thinking there are 10x programmers - or perhaps stop thinking it means 10x better.

It is simply 10x more valuable. And that depends on the organisation you work for, the state of the code base and so on.

Look at it this way - sports stars are regularly 10x, 100x more valuable to their team management than A.N.Other professional player. Take football (soccer) - Ronaldo is a waaaay better player than I am easily 100x, but take the newest signing in league 3 or whatever it is - can Ronaldo run 10x as much, is he 10x as likely to put in a penalty or a free kick? No. it's probably not even a question of twice as likely - it's percentages better.

It's just that those percentages matter when the cup is on the line. I am sure that Baseball statistics probably show this - the spread from top of the league to bottom is unlikely to be 10x more runs scored

So more and more it's worth remembering that the value provided to an organisation (and remember that's what you can charge for) is based not on your intrinsic qualities but what you can do for them in their current state.

Re: Programming: Doing it more vs. doing it better

#54

Post by lifeisstillgood »

jfoutz wrote: post #49
mroche wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The person with decades of practice have faced and failed at a dozen core cs problems. They’ll probably fail, but they can explain their state at any given moment. This is a pretty critical point in my opinion, but it also depends on the individuals drive. I personally put a distinction between programmer/scripter and computer scientist. One knows how to write code to get stuff done, the other knows some much deepe…

i'm confident i've hit an NP complete problem once. I don't remember the nitty gritty details, but it had something to do with optimal rendering of boxes on a screen. kinda like bin packing. I've been asked a few times, but this one stands out. usually, my spidey sense kicks in, and i inform my manager what they're asking is hard, like multiple people for years with no guarantee of success hard. Mostly, they cut the…

And this. Your value to the organisation for recognising a problem, arguing for a low cost solution and having the reputation to be believed is way larger than even a PhD researcher in the area who could have delivered an improved solution.

By the way, packing problems are 70% optimal by putting the largest in first and keep going till the next largest won't fit. (It's like the old fart description - I cannot quote the source but the spider sense remembers the shape of the problem)

Re: Programming: Doing it more vs. doing it better

#55

Post by SamReidHughes »

jjeaff wrote: post #47
segmondy wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone programming for 3 yrs is not a beginner, There are people programming at 3 yrs that are experts and will run circles around you and your 38 years. Some people really have the talent and put in the work to get good. In 2019, the mentorship is available via means of books, blogs, MOOC, youtube videos, conferences. What some folks can achieve in 3 yrs these days is really unbelievable. P/S, I have been hacking a…

I call BS. Of course there are extreme outliers, like savants who are composing sonatas at age 3, but programming is a different animal. Sure, someone with 3 years experience could easily be better in some narrow way, but any programmer worth anything after 30 years experience has forgotten more than a 3 year coder could have possibly learned if he was literally reading white papers all day long for those 3 years and…

It depends on what kind of software you're developing. But ultimately there will be other people to whom the 3 year veteran is a smart newbie.

Re: Programming: Doing it more vs. doing it better

#56

Post by skrebbel »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #53

Please stop thinking there are 10x programmers - or perhaps stop thinking it means 10x better . It is simply 10x more valuable . And that depends on the organisation you work for, the state of the code base and so on. Look at it this way - sports stars are regularly 10x, 100x more valuable to their team management than A.N.Other professional player. Take football (soccer) - Ronaldo is a waaaay better player than I am…

Small percentages matter when the game is competitive. Programming is not competitive.

I agree with your argument but I think your analogy is bad.

Re: Programming: Doing it more vs. doing it better

#57

Post by wchildhn »

This is why there are so many vulnerable products in the market and engineers are tired of fixing them. People do not think before they start and they are confident enough to say that they have learned from their faults when they are actually too tired to complete the fixing process.

Re: Programming: Doing it more vs. doing it better

#58

Post by Mirioron »

jfoutz wrote: post #36
segmondy wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone programming for 3 yrs is not a beginner, There are people programming at 3 yrs that are experts and will run circles around you and your 38 years. Some people really have the talent and put in the work to get good. In 2019, the mentorship is available via means of books, blogs, MOOC, youtube videos, conferences. What some folks can achieve in 3 yrs these days is really unbelievable. P/S, I have been hacking a…

I’m a little skeptical of 3 years making an expert, but I’ll stipulate it’s certainly possible for the reasons you mentioned. I’m basically an old fart who has learned and forgotten a lot of stuff. It really depends on what you need. I think the 3 year programmer will struggle when moving out of their experience. The person with decades of practice have faced and failed at a dozen core cs problems. They’ll probably f…

I think it depends on how much time they spend programming and what they program.

1. There's a difference between 3 years of experience 4 hours a day 5 days a week and 9 hours a day 7 days a week. That's 20 hours vs 63 hours per week. Furthermore, the 63-hours-per-week person has all of that experience in the last 3 year context. A 20 hours-per-week person would take 9 years to get the same amount of experience in terms of time. Technology changes much more in 9 years than 3.

Now, 9 hours of actual programming per day is very unrealistic. It's also the case that the 9 year person has much more varied experience due to technology changing, so they end up with different skills.

2. If you work on one project/system then after a while what you often deal with is specific to that system. It might not translate well to general programming or other tasks.

I've done programming for at least 9 years, but most of it has been on and off. I would certainly consider somebody with 5 years experience to be better than me in most circumstances.

Re: Programming: Doing it more vs. doing it better

#59

Post by true_religion »

externalreality wrote: post #46
osrec wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OOP attempts to map to real objects, (and sometimes not so real objects). I know it's hated by functional purists, but it really does make it easier to think through problems. I personally don't hate it.

Functional purists are the only one's who hate it. OOP by its very nature encourages developers to make bold abstractions prematurely (where prematurely is interchangeable with unnecessarily) and subjectively. Mean while the procedural programmer (Golang) has already finished the segment of the program having written one big function. If a piece of that big function is needed elsewhere she factors it out. Most of her…

Nothing stops someone from waiting till they hit a pian point before refactoring during OOP. It's how I work.

But then again I mostly use Python and JavaScript which are multi paradigm so perhaps my mental model had evolved because of that.

Re: Programming: Doing it more vs. doing it better

#60

Post by taeric »

skrebbel wrote: post #56
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #53

Please stop thinking there are 10x programmers - or perhaps stop thinking it means 10x better . It is simply 10x more valuable . And that depends on the organisation you work for, the state of the code base and so on. Look at it this way - sports stars are regularly 10x, 100x more valuable to their team management than A.N.Other professional player. Take football (soccer) - Ronaldo is a waaaay better player than I am…

Small percentages matter when the game is competitive. Programming is not competitive. I agree with your argument but I think your analogy is bad.

Such is the life of analogies.
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