Admiring an older piece of code that I've written more than last year? Rarely, unless it's just a small puzzle or self contained code.
Ask HN: Do you ever go back and admire a piece of code you wrote?
171–180 of 267 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you ever go back and admire a piece of code you wrote?
#172I don't code, but I do write. I regularly re-read my own writing to spot any problems, but sometimes just for pleasure. For example, about 18 months ago I wrote a 5 part series on how to build a direct conversion receiver for the ham radio bands from scratch. I learned tons along the way and it was really rewarding to write. Re-reading it recaptures some of that joy and reminds me that I'm a good writer, even when I…
Re: Ask HN: Do you ever go back and admire a piece of code you wrote?
#173Re: Ask HN: Do you ever go back and admire a piece of code you wrote?
#174I don't code, but I do write. I regularly re-read my own writing to spot any problems, but sometimes just for pleasure. For example, about 18 months ago I wrote a 5 part series on how to build a direct conversion receiver for the ham radio bands from scratch. I learned tons along the way and it was really rewarding to write. Re-reading it recaptures some of that joy and reminds me that I'm a good writer, even when I…
Re: Ask HN: Do you ever go back and admire a piece of code you wrote?
#175I have learned very useful tricks over time, like the ability to automate code creation to incredible levels with my own dialects of lisp that makes me hundreds of times more productive.
But when I was young I used scalable vector graphics to document everything I did, and some ideas I had are quite impressive to me today.
Re: Ask HN: Do you ever go back and admire a piece of code you wrote?
#176Re: Ask HN: Do you ever go back and admire a piece of code you wrote?
#177Re: Ask HN: Do you ever go back and admire a piece of code you wrote?
#178Re: Ask HN: Do you ever go back and admire a piece of code you wrote?
#179I've only been coding for a few years now. Often I'm sort of irked by my old code. But it is telling that from time to time I find some old simple code that was easier to read / change than I expected if only because I coded it so simply and in an iterative sort of way. There's something to be said for being simple...
Going back and being annoyed with your old code means you've improved.
Re: Ask HN: Do you ever go back and admire a piece of code you wrote?
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hehe, well if we're going here there are various go-to shell commands / filenames / hostnames I inevitably end up using at some point just for the wry smile: $ PONG=1.1.1.1; ping $PONG $ more cowbell $ cat dog | tee hee And my favourite choice of empty file: $ touch me Also I was fairly please years ago when I briefly re-aliased cd to something that could do "the right thing" (TM): $ cd ... $ cd ..../src/ etc..
I wrote a generic bash function to spin up a mongodb instance called `mongo`. I couldn't resist adding `echo "Mongo only pawn in game of life"`