Live data from Hacker News

Skills Poor Programmers Lack

justinmeiners.github.io

31–40 of 211 posts

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#31

This article says more to me that the author(s) are inexperienced themselves rather than shed any light on the practice of software development. I'm imagining some recent boot camp graduates attempting to conflate their months of programming experience into something more than that. "Hey old dudes in company I just joined, I found some things I think are basic so I'm going to write an article to indirectly shame you…

I have a feeling you felt hurt on those points?

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#32
post #28

This article says more to me that the author(s) are inexperienced themselves rather than shed any light on the practice of software development. I'm imagining some recent boot camp graduates attempting to conflate their months of programming experience into something more than that. "Hey old dudes in company I just joined, I found some things I think are basic so I'm going to write an article to indirectly shame you…

I don't think these accusations are fair. The author has been programming since at least 2009, and is degreed in math. They also wrote the "think in math write in code article" that people here seemed to like quite a bit last week.

Programming in academia has very little to do with software in general, maybe that's the disconnect.

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#33

This article says more to me that the author(s) are inexperienced themselves rather than shed any light on the practice of software development. I'm imagining some recent boot camp graduates attempting to conflate their months of programming experience into something more than that. "Hey old dudes in company I just joined, I found some things I think are basic so I'm going to write an article to indirectly shame you…

Eh, I won't be that harsh. The author is clearly getting experienced in software development. I actually like ambitious engineers who write from their own perspective. Most engineers (1) are fairly go-along to get-along types -- team-oriented folks. Someone with the interest and communication skills to improve things should be encouraged and (if needed) mentored.

(1) Most engineers we notice could be blowhards. They tend to be a minority of any particular engineering community.

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#34

This article says more to me that the author(s) are inexperienced themselves rather than shed any light on the practice of software development. I'm imagining some recent boot camp graduates attempting to conflate their months of programming experience into something more than that. "Hey old dudes in company I just joined, I found some things I think are basic so I'm going to write an article to indirectly shame you…

I have a feeling you felt hurt on those points?

Not even close

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#35

This article says more to me that the author(s) are inexperienced themselves rather than shed any light on the practice of software development. I'm imagining some recent boot camp graduates attempting to conflate their months of programming experience into something more than that. "Hey old dudes in company I just joined, I found some things I think are basic so I'm going to write an article to indirectly shame you…

[deleted]

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#36

> You may have seen code which misunderstands how expressions work: > if isDelivered and isNotified: isDone = True else: isDone = false; > Instead of: > isDone = isDelivered and isNotified Are people actually finding code like this in professional work or is this just an example? I'm self-taught and know I've got some gaps, but this example is so fundamental I find it shocking.

I've seen variations of it. Usually along the lines of

   let isBoolean = false
   if (booleanComparisonOrComputation) {
     isBoolean = true
   }

   ...

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#37

This article says more to me that the author(s) are inexperienced themselves rather than shed any light on the practice of software development. I'm imagining some recent boot camp graduates attempting to conflate their months of programming experience into something more than that. "Hey old dudes in company I just joined, I found some things I think are basic so I'm going to write an article to indirectly shame you…

This comment is classic bulverism. You need to explain how the author is wrong to have a valid argument.

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#38
post #27

Kinda frustrating that an article calling out where programmers fall short was a non-responsive document that was almost unreadable on mobile. Mildly ironic?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739

I’d argue that it’s quite on topic being a post about the skills developers lack. It seems this developer doesn’t regard a11y as an important skill, which is unfortunate or perhaps just an oversight.

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#39
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's usually a sign of overly aggressive linters and static analyzers. They probably got a "no magic numbers" diagnostic. The solution to this problem is to add some sort of `NOLINT` comment to that line or, if possible, the comment that turns off that particular check. Then you link to the design document describing what "arr" is and how its interface involves accessing indices 0 and 1. Or you could wrap "arr" up…

We had no linters enforcing the "no magic constants" convention. If we did, I'd question the sanity of the engineer who added that linter. The reason we got code like this was because of outsourced contractors cargo-culting something they saw elsewhere.

Well, maybe it's cargo culted from a place with such a linter. Or ornery peer reviewers who think their job is to be a human linter.

Correcting this sort of stuff is the job of a senior engineer, though. If it's extremely frustrating, I'd become independently wealthy or stay away from technical leadership positions.

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#40
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, yes, I saw stuff like this in Big Blue Company's source control. At a different company, I found stuff like: ZERO_INDEX = 0 ONE_INDEX = 1 return arr[ZERO_INDEX]

That's usually a sign of overly aggressive linters and static analyzers. They probably got a "no magic numbers" diagnostic. The solution to this problem is to add some sort of `NOLINT` comment to that line or, if possible, the comment that turns off that particular check. Then you link to the design document describing what "arr" is and how its interface involves accessing indices 0 and 1. Or you could wrap "arr" up…

Yeah, linters that make "you should usually do X" into "you MUST ALWAYS do X" cause a lot of terrible code.
Post reply on HN