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Ask HN: As a developer what are your aha moments?

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Re: Ask HN: As a developer what are your aha moments?

#171

Post by jiriro »

ChicagoDave wrote: post #157
attil-io wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 6. Relational Databases are an operational anti-pattern Could you please expand on this? What is wrong with Relational Databases and what would be the "correct" pattern?

The keyword in my statement is _operational_. Relational databases are excellent for analytics and reporting. But in an operational system with well-defined boundaries, it's more than likely that only portions of the larger system are required for any transactional behavior. In a modern architecture, you could simply write all transactions to an event store (write only) and use CQRS and a relational cache store for r…

Could you please elaborate/navigate to some theory/resources? What is Domain-Driven Design? What are the “bound contexts”?

Re: Ask HN: As a developer what are your aha moments?

#173

Post by thorin »

kleiba wrote: post #166
thorin wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After watching the first few weeks of Handmade Hero [1] I realised my idea of hard work and dedication was different to a lot of people I was trying to emulate. Doing this as a spare time, free project and the amount of knowledge and experience on-show was incredible [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee3EtYb8d1o

I really enjoyed watching that series too for a while, although it was sometimes moving along a bit too slowly for my taste. I also hear it's not really going anywhere even after a few years in the making now (?!). One thing I always find amusing about such endeavours is the discrepancy in the level of difficulty when presenting their contents. Often you see (or read) them explaining programming concepts on a kind of…

Or as the kids say "that escalated quickly!"

No surprised it didn't really go anywhere, but an excellent resource if you have the time.

Re: Ask HN: As a developer what are your aha moments?

#174

Post by blazeWayne »

Megalepozy wrote: post #120

Finding Anki after 17 years of programming and commiting to insert every new data into it and practice it daily. For me there is no other way of learning anymore and it serve as my real memory. Basically it give me the confidence that something that I learn now will be known years later.

Can you share a real example? How do you use it? What tools do you employ?

Re: Ask HN: As a developer what are your aha moments?

#175

Post by ChicagoDave »

jiriro wrote: post #171
ChicagoDave wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The keyword in my statement is _operational_. Relational databases are excellent for analytics and reporting. But in an operational system with well-defined boundaries, it's more than likely that only portions of the larger system are required for any transactional behavior. In a modern architecture, you could simply write all transactions to an event store (write only) and use CQRS and a relational cache store for r…

Could you please elaborate/navigate to some theory/resources? What is Domain-Driven Design? What are the “bound contexts”?

Google it. Eric Evans wrote a book 15 years ago. It’s kind of a big deal.

Re: Ask HN: As a developer what are your aha moments?

#176

Post by philholden76 »

Not really an 'aha' moment, more of a dawning realisation as I gained experience.

When starting out as a developer, I think there is a tendency to see the particular language/framework/syntax that you're using being all-important.

Over time, and with experience, you realise that the language and syntax are just the "fine detail" of how you solve problems as a software developer: as your understanding deepens, it's as if a kind of abstraction happens in your brain, because you stop thinking so much about the fine details of language and syntax, and start to worry about things like managing complexity and optimising design etc.

And at that point, the realisation for me was that I can apply that experience to any language/syntax/framework, which frees me up to pick the best way of solving any particular problem, and to not be stuck in a rut with any particular technology.

An added benefit is that a lot of the debate over stuff like "language X is better than Y", or "this code style is correct and that one is wrong" become unimportant, because you're thinking at a level that's not limited by specifics.

Re: Ask HN: As a developer what are your aha moments?

#177

Post by EastSmith »

hirundo wrote: post #37

When I learned about the repl. For me 90% of debugging is about figuring out how to break at the crucial line and then shining the repl light on it. 75% of writing new code is about trying stuff in the repl and then stepping through the code in the repl and testing everything. For me that quick feedback loop makes coding as fun as gaming.

That is my Aha moment too, but I have generalized to: Never start real work, until you can set a breakpoint in your IDE, where you can try things in the console.

I know there are people that can write code for couple of days without running it (seen this with some java colleagues I've had), and then it all almost always works when run, but I am just not that kind of developer.

Re: Ask HN: As a developer what are your aha moments?

#178

Post by dinkleberg »

Finally understanding the appeal of static typed languages after doing a project in Go using Goland.

I always thought I loved the freedom of python and JavaScript (and I still do to some extent, you’ll have to take Django from my cold dead hands). But the power of static type becomes super clear when you’re using a great IDE.

I can hit a hot key when hovering over any function and it’ll show me the docs and take me to the full page if I want. Hitting another hotkey it’ll auto fill parameter options. It’ll auto import the libraries I need. It’ll complain if I’m using the wrong type.

It gives me so much more confidence that the code I’m writing will actually work. It’s slightly more of a pain to write, no doubt about that, but the payoff is huge.

I was burnt by java in the past and can’t stand how every project seems to end up like this https://github.com/EnterpriseQualityCoding/FizzBuzzEnterpris.... But Go has shown it doesn’t have to be like that.

Re: Ask HN: As a developer what are your aha moments?

#179

Post by JoeAltmaier »

dinkleberg wrote: post #178

Finally understanding the appeal of static typed languages after doing a project in Go using Goland. I always thought I loved the freedom of python and JavaScript (and I still do to some extent, you’ll have to take Django from my cold dead hands). But the power of static type becomes super clear when you’re using a great IDE. I can hit a hot key when hovering over any function and it’ll show me the docs and take me t…

Whoa I was with you up to the last line. Static typed languages have been around for decades. Go is a very, very recent addition. It hasn't shown squat.

Re: Ask HN: As a developer what are your aha moments?

#180

Post by josgraha »

my aha moment as a developer

- I would learn some technology to a point where it does what I want

- I take what I learned to some new technology but find myself doing things from what I learned in other technologies

- this puts me in a strange loop where reality wasn't lining up with my expectations or I would do things that were more work than necessary because of learned habits

- the aha moment was when i started learning the theory of the thing I was working with

* it was key to getting out of this rut

* turns out this applies to any theory from abstractions all the way down to computational theory, type theory, automata theory, software analysis theory, hey if i ever get there maybe even software synthesis

in a nutshell i would summarize this aha moment as "you can keep doing the same old tricks and eat the cost or you can always dig deeper and see what costs can be avoided."

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