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Ask HN: Is average code getting worse?

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Re: Ask HN: Is average code getting worse?

#71

Post by taf2 »

potta_coffee wrote: post #69
junon wrote: post #50

I'm in the camp that would answer "yes" to your question. For me, it went like this: - The nerds did their nerd shit in the garage. Nobody saw them. - Then the nerds figured out how to revamp many business processes with computers. - Then those businesses needed more of that, so they started hiring other nerds. - Not too many nerds existed because they're nerds and who wants to be a nerd? So therefore demand was high…

How is it that the smartest and most effective programmer that I've worked with was a boot camp grad? How is it that I've worked with programmers that have master's degrees from reputable universities that simply can't code? I think it's true that salaries definitely have had an effect, but there's also the fact that the industry has grown exponentially, and the employees have to come from somewhere. Make the pool bi…

So in the late 90s in computer science 90% id say where their just to cash in.. code camp or university the idea that a lot of people enter a field when the gold is plentiful is not new... the only thing I think that is true is there is no good code or bad code there is only code...

Re: Ask HN: Is average code getting worse?

#72

Post by vivab0rg »

junon wrote: post #61
ronaldj wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a younger developer I used to believe things like this. There are tons of roles and different levels to fill. People come from all sorts of backgrounds. You shouldn't discount folks for following a different path. A passionate and curious developer can learn C, C++, Rust if/when they need to. I would also argue that in the front end world frameworks have vastly improved code quality and developer experienc…

I've been in the Node.js world for 10, and web dev world for almost 20, years now. There are now hundreds of build systems, most of which copy the other ones but still aren't compatible with each other. There are hundreds of frameworks spewing out security issues all over the ecosystem. React and Vue don't enforce anything and certainly aren't the most stable of the selection of frameworks that exist. At least for Re…

I've also been into web dev for 20 years, Node for 5. This is exactly how I feel.

Re: Ask HN: Is average code getting worse?

#73

Post by muzani »

junon wrote: post #50

I'm in the camp that would answer "yes" to your question. For me, it went like this: - The nerds did their nerd shit in the garage. Nobody saw them. - Then the nerds figured out how to revamp many business processes with computers. - Then those businesses needed more of that, so they started hiring other nerds. - Not too many nerds existed because they're nerds and who wants to be a nerd? So therefore demand was high…

I taught for code camps. I think there's truth to this. Teaching programming is a lot like math. Ideally, you teach them how to follow things logically. But due to time constraints, you just give them a bunch of exercises, especially the ones that help them land jobs. Today it's probably harder to land a job than do the job, so why not optimize for that? It's hard to be able to code, so why not teach them to code and hope the passion clicks once they can build things?

But I suppose it doesn't work that way. These guys were not meant to shortcut people who have a Masters and get into Uber. It's surprising that my average 2-3 month bootcamp student makes a higher income than someone with an actual degree. I'd love to find a way to fix this, but I don't have the resources to, and most people who do don't want to give up the money.

Re: Ask HN: Is average code getting worse?

#74

Post by muzani »

yumraj wrote: post #57
junon wrote: post #50

I'm in the camp that would answer "yes" to your question. For me, it went like this: - The nerds did their nerd shit in the garage. Nobody saw them. - Then the nerds figured out how to revamp many business processes with computers. - Then those businesses needed more of that, so they started hiring other nerds. - Not too many nerds existed because they're nerds and who wants to be a nerd? So therefore demand was high…

Yes, absolutely that is one, probably major factor. But that those people could even get there and do that was caused by the rise of frameworks and GC languages. A person no longer needed to: 1. understand how things worked, in many cases you could just do some tutorials and start producing things that kinda worked but underneath were a pile of garbage 2. No longer needed to worry about memory or optimization so wrot…

Honestly, I love dealing with Android because it cuts close to the operating system and is one of the few mainstream jobs where you don't deal with frameworks. You deal with the mess that is the Android file system, for example, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing, but at least it's fun.

One of the benefits is we can swap in external code that "does everything", but in a poor manner, yet it works well enough to suit business purposes. And later on you can surgically remove it and replace it with an optimized home-built version.

Re: Ask HN: Is average code getting worse?

#75

Post by asdjlkadsjklads »

muzani wrote: post #73
junon wrote: post #50

I'm in the camp that would answer "yes" to your question. For me, it went like this: - The nerds did their nerd shit in the garage. Nobody saw them. - Then the nerds figured out how to revamp many business processes with computers. - Then those businesses needed more of that, so they started hiring other nerds. - Not too many nerds existed because they're nerds and who wants to be a nerd? So therefore demand was high…

I taught for code camps. I think there's truth to this. Teaching programming is a lot like math. Ideally, you teach them how to follow things logically. But due to time constraints, you just give them a bunch of exercises, especially the ones that help them land jobs. Today it's probably harder to land a job than do the job, so why not optimize for that? It's hard to be able to code, so why not teach them to code and…

heh, makes me want to go to a code camp now. I've got ~7 years professional(?), ~11 years hobby, experience at two medium sized companies. Spent my years reinventing a ton of things, and know a fair amount of oddities on how to get things done. Combine that with a passion for idiomatic, standards, maintainable code and .. i think i'd be a decent hire.

(Primary experience through the years in: Rust (current), Go, Python, JavaScript(Node/etc).

Yet. I don't think i'd pass a single interview. I really need to learn the fundamentals i need for those interviews. Feels like a liability at this point.

Re: Ask HN: Is average code getting worse?

#76

Post by jamil7 »

cryptica wrote: post #32
samhuk wrote: post #9

Preface: I've worked on code ranging between FORTRAN 77 to a rather nuts react, typescript, webpack,... combination. From my experiences, what I have observered first and foremost is that the problems that software is solving are getting more complex as time progresses, causing software complexity. That is often proportional to the number of bugs. Many popular FORTRAN packages out there solve a particular (or set of)…

I see TypeScript more as a bandaid patch which solves small problems but causes bigger future problems than it solves. TypeScript and its many dependencies add to the kinds of compatibility problems you allude to. I'm a strong believer that the language's type system doesn't matter that much. Statically typed or dynamically typed. It's possible to write equally good quality code in both paradigms. The key to good cod…

I feel very productive in statically typed languages like Rust and Swift but hard agree on Typescript and I’ve said it here before. It feels like the worst of both worlds, extra code and dependencies for limited type safety. The amount of times it causes some issues with compatibility or a library has missing or incorrect typings has left a bad taste in my mouth. Granted I always work on small teams or alone though.

Re: Ask HN: Is average code getting worse?

#77

Post by DarkWiiPlayer »

junon wrote: post #50

I'm in the camp that would answer "yes" to your question. For me, it went like this: - The nerds did their nerd shit in the garage. Nobody saw them. - Then the nerds figured out how to revamp many business processes with computers. - Then those businesses needed more of that, so they started hiring other nerds. - Not too many nerds existed because they're nerds and who wants to be a nerd? So therefore demand was high…

I wrote an article collecting some of my thoughts on this topic a while ago: https://dev.to/darkwiiplayer/a-rant-on-change-and-the-good-o...

In it I also complain quite a bit about the cultural shift away from "building cool stuff" to "top 10 JavaScript interview questions to memorise for 2021".

Re: Ask HN: Is average code getting worse?

#79

Post by CinematicStudio »

> There used to be a time, in the dark dark ages of history, 10 years ago or so, when I would encounter issues during the course of my work, and I could fairly confidently assume I was doing something wrong, or I just hadn’t read the manual correctly.

Hehe, I remember those days :D Yes, code has gotten A LOT worse, and right now, whenever I pick a new library, I expect it to have bugs.

A lot of people will start coding and bring in a TON of open-source libs, each with their dependencies. And then when something goes wrong, spend an insane amount of time just figuring out who's to blame. Or, just fix the symptom and continue.

Clearly, the above won't work in the long run. But who cares about that, at the current pace of business, it'll be someone else's problem in a few months? They'll get promoted or switch jobs :D

I'm on the opposite side of the spectrum: I choose VERY FEW libraries, go for mature ones, and do quite a bit of testing. For pretty much each library, I simply add an extra layer on top of it, so I don't need to deal directly with it, just in case I may want to later switch to another implementation, or perhaps do some workaround until the issue gets fixed.

And this brings me to Microsoft: the code since Windows 8 (2012) has been beyond horrible, and their direction has been, lets say, "flexible" (to read: as the wind blows). I've discovered so many CRITICAL bugs, I've had to struggle with depression for months.

> I want to rely on other code, but more and more I find that it’s safer to just assume it’ll be broken from the start.

Yes, that is definitely a safe bet. The more you rely on 3rd party libs, the more you increase the risk of (critical) bugs. The more libs you use, the higher the risk. It's a really dim picture -- but something we unfortunately need to deal with. It's the new reality, and we just need to adapt :D

Re: Ask HN: Is average code getting worse?

#80

Post by Aeolun »

asdjlkadsjklads wrote: post #75
muzani wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I taught for code camps. I think there's truth to this. Teaching programming is a lot like math. Ideally, you teach them how to follow things logically. But due to time constraints, you just give them a bunch of exercises, especially the ones that help them land jobs. Today it's probably harder to land a job than do the job, so why not optimize for that? It's hard to be able to code, so why not teach them to code and…

heh, makes me want to go to a code camp now. I've got ~7 years professional(?), ~11 years hobby, experience at two medium sized companies. Spent my years reinventing a ton of things, and know a fair amount of oddities on how to get things done. Combine that with a passion for idiomatic, standards, maintainable code and .. i think i'd be a decent hire. (Primary experience through the years in: Rust (current), Go, Pyth…

Nobody that hired me has ever been dissapointed by what they got, but there’s a ton of people that never hired me because I can’t tell them whether something is O(n) or O(n*n), just ‘faster’ and ‘slower’.

Who the hell cares what it’s called as long as it’s the fastest it’s ever going to be.

> Do you have options other than caching?

Yes, but who cares since they’re all worse (for your wallet and for speed).

I may still be a bit salty.

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