Advice From An Old Programmer • Hacker News Board

Re: Advice From An Old Programmer

#11

Post by simonsarris » Thu, Jun 16, 2011, 7:47 PM UTC

> Programming as an intellectual activity is the only art form that allows you to create interactive art.

What about oral storytelling? Or just (re)telling jokes? Improv and related performing arts? Stage magicians? Mimes? Community murals?

Re: Advice From An Old Programmer

#12

Post by MaysonL » Thu, Jun 16, 2011, 7:48 PM UTC

zwieback wrote: post #9

Some good points buried among juvenile posturing, I guess the "old" part must be irony. Would you take programming language advice from someone who has learned the language in "a day or a week"? I realize the point is the language doesn't really matter but statements like that and the general tenor of the post don't inspire me.

As an old programmer myself, who has learned many languages over the years, and written programs for pay in most of them, learning languages in a day or week is not at all unusual, or difficult. Especially after learning assembly for a few different machines, with widely different instruction set architectures.

Re: Advice From An Old Programmer

#13

Post by mclin » Thu, Jun 16, 2011, 7:50 PM UTC

> People who can code in the world of technology companies are a dime a dozen and get no respect. People who can code in biology, medicine, government, sociology, physics, history, and mathematics are respected and can do amazing things to advance those disciplines.

Totally

Re: Advice From An Old Programmer

#14

Post by dolvlo » Thu, Jun 16, 2011, 7:51 PM UTC

zwieback wrote: post #9

Some good points buried among juvenile posturing, I guess the "old" part must be irony. Would you take programming language advice from someone who has learned the language in "a day or a week"? I realize the point is the language doesn't really matter but statements like that and the general tenor of the post don't inspire me.

When you get to the point where you understand that all programming languages are just implementations of turing machines (some more limited than others), and have much experience with a few languages, I'd say yes, you can give quite good advice regardless of the language, even if you've never once used it.

Re: Advice From An Old Programmer

#15

Post by dolvlo » Thu, Jun 16, 2011, 7:52 PM UTC

mclin wrote: post #13

> People who can code in the world of technology companies are a dime a dozen and get no respect. People who can code in biology, medicine, government, sociology, physics, history, and mathematics are respected and can do amazing things to advance those disciplines. Totally

I disagree. People who code in the world of technology companies get respect, and quite a lot of it. Getting paid for your work is a form of respect.

Re: Advice From An Old Programmer

#16

Post by fjordan » Thu, Jun 16, 2011, 7:55 PM UTC

chashaz wrote: post #6

jeggers5 wrote: post #2

This is a fantastic piece of writing. Was actually very inspired by it.

I totally agree, it's quite an inspiring article. My dad suggests that I take over his business which I might but I'm still sticking to programming as a career. May be I won't be earning a lot of $$$ but atleast I'll be doing something that I totally enjoy.

You should learn to apply your knowledge of programming to his business.

I find that that when knowledge of programming and software systems is combined with business, one has the potential to create a highly profitable autonomous system which only requires the initial investment of time (and hard work, of course).

Re: Advice From An Old Programmer

#17

Post by rhdoenges » Thu, Jun 16, 2011, 7:57 PM UTC

For all his faults, Zed Shaw is really a great personality to have in the programming world. He loves to code, but doesn't get caught up in the minutia and cargo-culting.

Re: Advice From An Old Programmer

#18

Post by pnathan » Thu, Jun 16, 2011, 8:01 PM UTC

zwieback wrote: post #9

Some good points buried among juvenile posturing, I guess the "old" part must be irony. Would you take programming language advice from someone who has learned the language in "a day or a week"? I realize the point is the language doesn't really matter but statements like that and the general tenor of the post don't inspire me.

No, most languages are isomorphic up to semantics. the outliers today are the logic languages, the HM typed languages and the macro languages.

javascript, qbasic, java, c++, c, c#, ruby, python, perl, they are all very similar, some with their knobs exposed, some without, some with bad environments, some with better, some with closures, some without.

Once you grok the inner similarity of software, it's just not very interesting to learn new languages.

Re: Advice From An Old Programmer

#19

Post by CrLf » Thu, Jun 16, 2011, 8:03 PM UTC

rdouble wrote: post #7

People who can code in the world of technology companies are a dime a dozen and get no respect. People who can code in biology, medicine, government, sociology, physics, history, and mathematics are respected and can do amazing things to advance those disciplines. This is a nice sentiment but as someone who has been a programmer for biology and medical research, it's not true. It's just like any other mediocre progra…

I think you missed the point. It's not about being a programmer working those fields. It's about using programming to help you in those fields, about programming not being the primary occupation.

Re: Advice From An Old Programmer

#20

Post by stephencelis » Thu, Jun 16, 2011, 8:05 PM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #11

> Programming as an intellectual activity is the only art form that allows you to create interactive art. What about oral storytelling? Or just (re)telling jokes? Improv and related performing arts? Stage magicians? Mimes? Community murals?

While the same thoughts crossed my mind, I think he probably meant art in the age of mechanical reproduction.

Still, programming affords a combination of the widest reach and lowest barrier to entry: it rarely requires the artist, performer(s), or specific location(s) to be consumed as a medium.