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Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'
51–60 of 246 posts
Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'
#52This is sad, not so much because of the lack of code coming from this world class programmer, but because coding is such fun, and Torvalds isn't having fun programming, else he'd be doing it. I'm closing in on forty years of coding and still get a kick out of it. I'd still be doing it if I weren't getting paid for it. But my skills are at best, uh, modest compared to Linus. I'd think that doing a thing so much better…
In a way though, he's still coding, just at a different level of abstraction.
Metaphorically, he used to generate bricks himself, then add them to his castle. Now people bring him bricks and he choses the ones he likes and which to discard. So at the end of the day, perhaps this is still a castle of his design. meh?
Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'
#53This is sad, not so much because of the lack of code coming from this world class programmer, but because coding is such fun, and Torvalds isn't having fun programming, else he'd be doing it. I'm closing in on forty years of coding and still get a kick out of it. I'd still be doing it if I weren't getting paid for it. But my skills are at best, uh, modest compared to Linus. I'd think that doing a thing so much better…
In a way though, he's still coding, just at a different level of abstraction. Metaphorically, he used to generate bricks himself, then add them to his castle. Now people bring him bricks and he choses the ones he likes and which to discard. So at the end of the day, perhaps this is still a castle of his design. meh?
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Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'
#54> commit messages to me are almost as important as the code change itself This is high on my list of code craftsmanship points. It's very difficult to explain to young programmers who have never worked on an old code base how valuable this is when done well. In fact, often you hear complaints about how a code base "is crap", but more often than not I'd wager this is just a result of the context at the time not being…
This so, so much.
Too many people think that commit message is to explain HOW you did something. Unless you did something extremely clever (and in any commercial project, 99% of clever solutions are wrong - simple is the king), it should need more than few words.
WHY you did it this way is the most important part. Given known and understood set of constrains, a lot of engineers will come up with similar solution, or at least understand it. And you can’t work effectively on something you don’t understand.
Not having this context is reason for so many rewrites. Developer thinks a solution is supper crappy, goes to rewrite it, with grand vision. Only to learn along the way about all the edge cases and reasons for hacks.
Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'
#55> commit messages to me are almost as important as the code change itself This is high on my list of code craftsmanship points. It's very difficult to explain to young programmers who have never worked on an old code base how valuable this is when done well. In fact, often you hear complaints about how a code base "is crap", but more often than not I'd wager this is just a result of the context at the time not being…
Yeah, but 99% of projects aren't anywhere close to long lived. Most products fail to launch. Most products that launch shutter within a few years. Having a code base survive long enough in close enough to its original state for a commit message to be meaningful a year later is unlikely outside of a few cases.
Also, this is all predicated on the business case for the software being well understood that it could be written out beforehand by a entry level engineer. Which is not a situation I've seen outside of a processor design house. Otherwise, your thinking for this or that choice will be built on shifting sand anyway.
Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'
#56Website will not let me edit with the back button on safari, had to close the tab to escape. Why do so many sites do that?
On Firefox Mobile (Android) simply nothing happens.
When that happens I long click the back button and select HN from there manually. This always seems to work.
Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'
#57> commit messages to me are almost as important as the code change itself This is high on my list of code craftsmanship points. It's very difficult to explain to young programmers who have never worked on an old code base how valuable this is when done well. In fact, often you hear complaints about how a code base "is crap", but more often than not I'd wager this is just a result of the context at the time not being…
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Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'
#58When you are on your second rewrite, wondering why the new codebase already has as much tech debt as the previous, it's because you don't have a Linus. Better engineers might help, but what really matters is a better filter, one that has final say on the commits and the release date.
"Good programmers write good code; great programmers "borrow" good code; best programmers remove good code." – Mike Gancarz, "The UNIX Philosophy", mutatis mutandis.
Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'
#59> commit messages to me are almost as important as the code change itself This is high on my list of code craftsmanship points. It's very difficult to explain to young programmers who have never worked on an old code base how valuable this is when done well. In fact, often you hear complaints about how a code base "is crap", but more often than not I'd wager this is just a result of the context at the time not being…
Another thing those juniors are seldom good at, is knowing how to refactor an existing old code base. Which is not surprising, as everything they worked on during education is new code. Knowing how to change a code base from one abstraction to another is a skill that often take many years and lots of mistakes to learn.
Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where can one learn the art of excellent commit messages and when to rebase, etc?
This is a good start: https://chris.beams.io/posts/git-commit/