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The Programming Elite, Programmers Who Read

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Re: The Programming Elite, Programmers Who Read

#11

Post by biohacker42 »

erictobia wrote: post #6

This sets the bar for an elite programmer fairly low IMHO.

If you read coding horror you are a programming GOD!

Alternatively, unless you instantly grok the crufties code only to instantly transform it into the best code ever, and then go home and do some more programming on the side, and then you're also a social butterfly who is never ever on the market and never has to stoop so low as to send out resumes to get a job - well then you're just a VB drone loser.

I myself don't know where I fit in, because while I read lots of programming and cs related stuff, I can not do the 8+2 hrs thing, and I got my last job by sending out resumes. So I must be somewhere between god and total loser.

Re: The Programming Elite, Programmers Who Read

#12

Post by tdavis »

compay wrote: post #7

" they are the kind of people who read things in order to better themselves as programmers. And that's already, you know, 5-10% of practising programmers" I find this hard to believe. I have at least 20 friends who also program and they all read online and own programming books. I'd like to know where Joel gets his statistics.

This is often a difficult statistic for programmers who do read to grasp because the only programmers you likely know are more people like you. The thing is, there aren't as many of us as we think there are.

None of the programmers I know don't read. I am told that these people exist; they work in cubicles and so forth. However, I don't know any of them. So, personally, it takes a lot of concentrated effort on my part to not take that 5-10% and bump it to, say, 50%. Because in the world I live in, that statistic is crazy low.

Re: The Programming Elite, Programmers Who Read

#13

Post by tdavis »

erictobia wrote: post #6

This sets the bar for an elite programmer fairly low IMHO.

"Elite" can have different meanings and is only relevant in context. If you have a small library of programming books you've read and you're constantly gaining new knowledge, you are "elite" compared to all the people who write bank software in Java that they learned once 5 years ago.

If someone they describe is in the top 5-10%, there are still folks in the top 4-1% and at some point it becomes ridiculously difficult to get anymore "Elite" without prodigy-like skill. I read a lot of books and am skilled in numerous computer-related areas including programming, but Linus Torvalds I am not.

Re: The Programming Elite, Programmers Who Read

#14

Post by j2d2 »

biohacker42 wrote: post #11
erictobia wrote: post #6

This sets the bar for an elite programmer fairly low IMHO.

If you read coding horror you are a programming GOD! Alternatively, unless you instantly grok the crufties code only to instantly transform it into the best code ever, and then go home and do some more programming on the side, and then you're also a social butterfly who is never ever on the market and never has to stoop so low as to send out resumes to get a job - well then you're just a VB drone loser. I myself don'…

Do any programmers actually work only 8 hours a day..? I've never seen evidence suggesting this is actually true. 10+2 seems more realistic.

Re: The Programming Elite, Programmers Who Read

#15

Post by biohacker42 »

j2d2 wrote: post #14
biohacker42 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read coding horror you are a programming GOD! Alternatively, unless you instantly grok the crufties code only to instantly transform it into the best code ever, and then go home and do some more programming on the side, and then you're also a social butterfly who is never ever on the market and never has to stoop so low as to send out resumes to get a job - well then you're just a VB drone loser. I myself don'…

Do any programmers actually work only 8 hours a day..? I've never seen evidence suggesting this is actually true. 10+2 seems more realistic.

Some don't even make it to 40hrs a week, ask DHH and crew: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/893-workplace-experiments

Re: The Programming Elite, Programmers Who Read

#16

Post by watmough »

j2d2 wrote: post #14
biohacker42 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read coding horror you are a programming GOD! Alternatively, unless you instantly grok the crufties code only to instantly transform it into the best code ever, and then go home and do some more programming on the side, and then you're also a social butterfly who is never ever on the market and never has to stoop so low as to send out resumes to get a job - well then you're just a VB drone loser. I myself don'…

Do any programmers actually work only 8 hours a day..? I've never seen evidence suggesting this is actually true. 10+2 seems more realistic.

Personally, I'm worthless after 6 hours of programming.

I'm decent for most of those six hours, and I can churn out maybe 3000 lines a month, but I tend to need a holiday afterwards.

I just quit my cubicle job to switch to iPhone programming, and it's been interesting how hard it is to knuckle down and really get started.

Re: The Programming Elite, Programmers Who Read

#17

Post by MaysonL »

j2d2 wrote: post #14
biohacker42 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read coding horror you are a programming GOD! Alternatively, unless you instantly grok the crufties code only to instantly transform it into the best code ever, and then go home and do some more programming on the side, and then you're also a social butterfly who is never ever on the market and never has to stoop so low as to send out resumes to get a job - well then you're just a VB drone loser. I myself don'…

Do any programmers actually work only 8 hours a day..? I've never seen evidence suggesting this is actually true. 10+2 seems more realistic.

I've worked as a programmer for over 30 years.

I've had two really productive periods during that time.

One of those periods I spent about 4 hours a day coding, totally focused - get to work at about 5:30 after a leisurely brunch and a 30 minute bus ride during which I planned my coding for the day, jump on a machine and pound the teletype for 4 hours or so, and go home, nearly exhausted. This was writing device driver assembler routines and image processing code.

The second period, I was implementing a prototype of a distributed OS, about 10% of a 3 inch thick spec which defined the whole thing down to the level of small procedures, with a hard 6 month deadline (which was what I had estimated the job would take). I worked steadily for that 6 months on a 40 hour schedule, and finished about two weeks before the demo was given.

I'm currently reading On Lisp and The Four-Gated City (by Doris Lessing), for whatever that's worth.

Re: The Programming Elite, Programmers Who Read

#18

Post by sofal »

briancooley wrote: post #9

>And that's already, you know, 5-10% of practising programmers. It's not the vast masses of Java monkeys who were formerly VB monkeys who were formerly COBOL monkeys who are just doing, you know, large swathes of extremely boring stuff internally somewhere. I'm certainly not above the occassional look down my nose at Java, but how do you suppose someone would move to Java from VB without reading a few books or manual…

Reading language manuals out of the pure need to survive doesn't count.

Re: The Programming Elite, Programmers Who Read

#19

Post by jrockway »

j2d2 wrote: post #14
biohacker42 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read coding horror you are a programming GOD! Alternatively, unless you instantly grok the crufties code only to instantly transform it into the best code ever, and then go home and do some more programming on the side, and then you're also a social butterfly who is never ever on the market and never has to stoop so low as to send out resumes to get a job - well then you're just a VB drone loser. I myself don'…

Do any programmers actually work only 8 hours a day..? I've never seen evidence suggesting this is actually true. 10+2 seems more realistic.

I sit at a terminal for more than 8 hours a day, but I do things other than program.

There are times when I have done productive work for 20 hours straight, but most of the time I do about 4-6 hours of work.

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