Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Advice From An Old Programmer

learnpythonthehardway.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 230 posts

Re: Advice From An Old Programmer

#71

Post by brooksbp »

> At the time that I wrote this book I knew about 20 programming languages and could learn new ones in about a day to a week depending on how weird they were.

Funny. I've been programming quite a bit too and feel comfortable in a handful of languages. Knowing what's happening in the compiler and in the hardware or vm (runtime) is a different story. Being able to understand what programs do no matter what language they're written in is also a different story. We all know 20 different languages.

Re: Advice From An Old Programmer

#73

Post by gaius »

dolvlo wrote: post #14
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.

There's a phrase for this fallacy: Turing tarpit

Re: Advice From An Old Programmer

#74

Post by roadnottaken »

rdouble wrote: post #45
timr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 programming job, but your office is a folding table under a decommissioned fume hood." It depends on your level of domain knowledge. I saw a lot of programmers start into the world of biology seeking "interesting jobs", but with no background in the field. What they don…

I agree with this, but I guess I don't know who he thinks needs this advice. I assumed his advice was for the programmer lackey who wishes they had a more interesting job. I would assume a biophysics PhD in this day and age probably already has been exposed to programming, maybe even in Python. I mean, my sister has an MPH and she had to take SAS programming courses, and she graduated 8 years ago. It's 2011, not 1979…

Not true in biology, at least. You're correct that most people realize that computers are important, but most biologists can barely use a mouse, frankly. Being able to code doesn't make you a great scientist, but it's one more tool in your arsenal that you can use to attack scientific problems, and it's a fairly rare one in many fields of biology.

Re: Advice From An Old Programmer

#75

Post by F_J_H »

gaius wrote: post #56
programminggeek wrote: post #4

You know, half the reason Zed Shaw is so well known is not just that he is a prolific coder, but that he is quite an excellent writer as well. Well done Zed. I always appreciate what you write.

Well, other than that he's completely mistaken about the career advice he offers here. I'd be very curious to know if he's ever been the highly-respected programmer in a science lab, or personally knows anyone who is. My science friends tell me the job doesn't exist; any code that needs writing, a grad student will do it sufficiently well (on top of their lab work) for no more money.

I’m not brave enough to speak in extremes/absolutes like "completely wrong" on a topic like this.

My experience aligns with his advice. As a finance student, I was selected for a research project because of my database/SQL knowledge, which got me mention in the Journal of Finance when my prof. was published, and which later paid unexpected dividends. Later, knowing to code in a finance/analyst job ultimately positioned me for a startup that has left me much better off financially than if I had stayed in my job. I also have a friend in the pharma research field that did very well because he could write code.

(Note that it’s not always the money that is the pay off. Sometimes it is an opportunity that leads to other opportunities that would have never been open to you had you not been able to code, as in my case. )

So, in my experience his advice has proven to be right on.

Re: Advice From An Old Programmer

#76

Post by ssmoot »

ww520 wrote: post #67
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…

Programming plus domain knowledge is the killer combination. Programmers (or IT) got no respect from "business" people (finance, biologists, doctors, etc). They don't understand the difficulty of programming and think you are replaceable commodity. But if you have the domain knowledge and the programming skill, you can turn the field upside down. Automate the jobs done by "business" people and commoditize them.

> Programmers (or IT) got no respect from "business" people (finance, biologists, doctors, etc). They don't understand the difficulty of programming and think you are replaceable commodity.

The inverse is also (probably even more-so IME) true.

> But if you have the domain knowledge and the programming skill, you can turn the field upside down. Automate the jobs done by "business" people and commoditize them.

Case in point. ;-)

Re: Advice From An Old Programmer

#77

Post by roadnottaken »

bh42222 wrote: post #66
glassx wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! It's not about being "the lab's IT guy", writing content management systems for a pharmaceutical company, or parsing medical records. This is just another boring programming job. Some real life examples. I know a social science university teacher whose undergrads are dabbling in statistical and field data-entry software, and it is getting them into amazing projects. Another example: a friend, comp-sci grad,…

They're social scientists/linguists undergrads first, programmers second, but programming plays a vital role in their academic career. This is only because of the sad state of education where programming is this incredibly rare black magic that less than 1% of the people in your field know. (Mathematicians and Physicists obviously excluded.) But this is changing, it has not been the case in physics since for ever, an…

when everybody is trained with at least a basic ability to program, then your super advantage is gone

Yes, but like Math, not everybody can be trained in it. People either get math or they don't. Everybody has to take calculus to become a scientist or a doctor but most people never really get it and forget it shortly after taking the classes. I imagine the same will happen with programming: there will be a few required classes for a basic science education, but it will be lost on most people. Broader exposure will be good, but it won't magically give all scientists the ability to code.

Re: Advice From An Old Programmer

#78

Post by donall »

georgieporgie wrote: post #39
a3camero wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Effecting = Doing Affecting = Being done to You effect change and change affects you. Something was done to your decisions so the right word is "affected".

There are a lot of non-native-English HN participants, and I think this sort of language pedantry 1) accomplishes nothing, as OP will likely still use the wrong word, and 2) discourages those who lack confidence in their language skills from posting what may be very insightful comments.

I actually found a3camero's post informative! I am a native English speaker and I have never had any trouble differentiating between "effect" and "affect", but had never seen it written down as a rule. One of the fascinating things about language is that we "know" an awful lot of grammar rules without actually being able to explain how they work. Another example is the Spanish verbs "ser" and "estar", which both translate as "to be". As a (bilingual) native speaker of Spanish, I use them correctly, but it wasn't until I was in college and trying to help a friend with his Spanish class that I came across the rule that governs their use.

I think it's very easy to mistake "informative" for pedantic. In this case, the OP made it clear that he was unsure whether the word was correct and a3camero offered not just a correction, but a succinct explanation. I wish people would correct my grammar like that more often.

Re: Advice From An Old Programmer

#79

Post by gaius »

F_J_H wrote: post #75
gaius wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, other than that he's completely mistaken about the career advice he offers here. I'd be very curious to know if he's ever been the highly-respected programmer in a science lab, or personally knows anyone who is. My science friends tell me the job doesn't exist; any code that needs writing, a grad student will do it sufficiently well (on top of their lab work) for no more money.

I’m not brave enough to speak in extremes/absolutes like "completely wrong" on a topic like this. My experience aligns with his advice. As a finance student, I was selected for a research project because of my database/SQL knowledge, which got me mention in the Journal of Finance when my prof. was published, and which later paid unexpected dividends. Later, knowing to code in a finance/analyst job ultimately position…

But was he a pharmacist that could code, or a programmer who showed up one day and said, hey, need any programs?

Re: Advice From An Old Programmer

#80

Post by delpinoman »

I agree that it's more important to have some additional domain knowledge than to be some superprogrammer. I'm not the best programmer but I have some (human) language learning knowledge and thus could set up my own business at http://www.chinese-course.com/ Best thing you can do as a programmer is be your own boss.
Post reply on HN