Why I Love Coding (2012) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I Love Coding (2012)

#121

Post by progmetaldev » Mon, May 10, 2021, 9:01 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #106

megamix wrote: post #27

Coding at work sucks. Coding at home is great as a hobby.

> Coding at work sucks. Coding at home is great as a hobby. Curious why you think that is. I think the difference is that coding under unreasonable deadlines (and then getting blamed when the quality produced under the unreasonable deadline is low) is what sucks.

This is my experience. I enjoy coding at home and at work, but I'm on a team that understands deadlines and that quality of code has real meaning (assuming nobody is aiming for academic or algorithmic perfection).

Re: Why I Love Coding (2012)

#122

Post by yourapostasy » Tue, May 11, 2021, 9:28 AM UTC

sombremesa wrote: post #90

jack-bodine wrote: post #9

There really is a special kind of satisfaction when you see something you wrote actually work. I remember the first time I made a sprite move around the screen with arrow keys, I probably moved that guy around for several minutes just out of pride. I'm sure we all have similar memories.

> There really is a special kind of satisfaction when you see something you wrote actually work. I think your second sentence is actually the key here - first time. If you do something day in day out for 20 years there’s no surprise if it works. Thankfully, there’s plenty of room in the domain of programming for someone to go from seasoned expert to absolute beginner and experience the joy all over again.

> If you do something day in day out for 20 years there’s no surprise if it works.

The Japanese inter-related concepts of Kaizen, Muri, Muda, Mura, Hansei, and Ikigai are relevant here, I believe. Except for the most mundane, immediately-automatable "something", I have always found an area for improvement and thus, delight. Though Feynman commented there is plenty of room at the bottom about the physical world, considering his life history I believe he would also concur about the cognitive world.

Re: Why I Love Coding (2012)

#123

Post by sombremesa » Tue, May 11, 2021, 4:27 PM UTC

yourapostasy wrote: post #122

sombremesa wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There really is a special kind of satisfaction when you see something you wrote actually work. I think your second sentence is actually the key here - first time. If you do something day in day out for 20 years there’s no surprise if it works. Thankfully, there’s plenty of room in the domain of programming for someone to go from seasoned expert to absolute beginner and experience the joy all over again.

> If you do something day in day out for 20 years there’s no surprise if it works. The Japanese inter-related concepts of Kaizen, Muri, Muda, Mura, Hansei, and Ikigai are relevant here, I believe. Except for the most mundane, immediately-automatable "something", I have always found an area for improvement and thus, delight. Though Feynman commented there is plenty of room at the bottom about the physical world, consi…

Kaizen, Ikigai, and Hansei might be classified as ideologies, but Muri, Muda, and Mura are just normal words that seem to have been wrangled into ideology status by some Western institutes...it's like if I took the word 'unnecessary' or 'consistency' and called it an ideology. Just...why?

I'm sure if I asked my caucasian wife she'd say something about exoticism.

Re: Why I Love Coding (2012)

#124

Post by collyw » Wed, May 12, 2021, 11:10 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #58

collyw wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely I get the opposite. I come up with an elegant solution to a problem, but the previous dev has architect things in such a way won't work. Rinse repeat a few times until you have something that will work, but is not elegant at all. I feel like the people going before me are the "ninja coders" I see in job ads. With all my years of experience I come up with various ways to solve a problem, but these guys are…

I come up with an elegant solution to a problem, but the previous dev has architect things in such a way won't work. Finding an elegant solution to a problem in isolation is usually quite easy because you can ignore all the edges that make it hard. Finding an elegant solution to something within the constraints of where the problem actually lies is what separates great developers from the rest of us.

Elegant solutions and considering all edge cases are not mutually exclusive. I see where you are coming from, but not all of the pieces of crap code are there to cover edge cases, just that the previous developer was a bit crap.

Re: Why I Love Coding (2012)

#125

Post by yourapostasy » Sat, May 15, 2021, 9:50 AM UTC

sombremesa wrote: post #123

yourapostasy wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you do something day in day out for 20 years there’s no surprise if it works. The Japanese inter-related concepts of Kaizen, Muri, Muda, Mura, Hansei, and Ikigai are relevant here, I believe. Except for the most mundane, immediately-automatable "something", I have always found an area for improvement and thus, delight. Though Feynman commented there is plenty of room at the bottom about the physical world, consi…

Kaizen, Ikigai, and Hansei might be classified as ideologies, but Muri, Muda, and Mura are just normal words that seem to have been wrangled into ideology status by some Western institutes...it's like if I took the word 'unnecessary' or 'consistency' and called it an ideology. Just...why? I'm sure if I asked my caucasian wife she'd say something about exoticism.

Thank you, good and fair points.

I liken the more pedestrian words to the words I use to get myself to the gym. Instead of muttering "perseverance", I mumble "find a way". I pick the pedestrian words when they resonate with me in some contexts, and the five dollar words when they resonate more.

I believe there is beauty, wonder, and endless improvement within attention to detail to be found in honing the same craft repeatedly over the years. There Is Plenty Of Room at the Bottom. Jiro Dreams of Sushi is one of my favorite movies that touches upon this.