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A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

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Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#91

Post by a_shovel »

a_shovel wrote: post #19

I think the lesson to take from these lists is that covering every edge case for many real-world situations becomes asymptotically difficult. You can get 95% with no effort at all, 99% with a bit of thought, 99.9% with some effort, 99.99% with a smart design, some research, and a lot of effort, and anything further requires making it your full-time job indefinitely. It gets thornier when it comes to personal things l…

Looking back at this, yeah, I agree with the criticism that the last line is overly harsh. I try to be lenient to people with unconscious bias, and this doesn't help with that.

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#92

Post by Izkata »

stormbrew wrote: post #60
bko wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Frankly, even inside of medicine it's usually not terribly relevant, and is often a poor proxy for the information they really want out of it. Sex is incredibly important inside medicine. It's probably the most important distinguishing characteristic when determining how to diagnose and treat someone (maybe weight is more). Here are a few examples: - 99% of breast cancer occurs in women - any diseases affecting the…

Yep, called the kneejerk. These are statistical differences. If you want to know if they apply to an individual you need to know more. A checkbox on a form is not sufficient. If you're usefully aggregating data for some purpose, say for a study, then go off ask all the relevant indicators you want. If it's an intake form for an eye doctor appointment, it won't tell you dick all. If a patient came in for a breast exam…

Those statistical differences are used to more quickly reduce the search space of symptoms when the cause is unknown. So yeah, they are still important, even for individuals.

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#93

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #74
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bias in this is whatever belief system one might have to say "ASCII is good enough". Or whatever level of ignorance to believe that ASCII is good enough without understanding that it cannot be. Etc.

> The bias in this is whatever belief system one might have to say "ASCII is good enough". Could there also be bias in the statement "ASCII is not good enough."?

I wouldn't call it bias. You can make a claim "I know my use-cases so well that I can guarantee that ASCII will cover it". I'd call that foolishness, not bias.

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#95

Post by a_shovel »

bko wrote: post #80
stormbrew wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, called the kneejerk. These are statistical differences. If you want to know if they apply to an individual you need to know more. A checkbox on a form is not sufficient. If you're usefully aggregating data for some purpose, say for a study, then go off ask all the relevant indicators you want. If it's an intake form for an eye doctor appointment, it won't tell you dick all. If a patient came in for a breast exam…

> If it's an intake form for an eye doctor appointment, it won't tell you dick all. Where are you getting your information? Results: Sex and sex hormones influence the lacrimal system, eyelids and blinking, corneal anatomy and disease, aqueous humor dynamics and glaucoma, crystalline lens and cataract, uveitis and retinal disease, ocular circulation, and optic nerve anatomy and disease. Systemic conditions, particula…

Skimmed the paper on Scihub. It looks like it's mostly a review of other studies that either show statistical correlations or are about hormone levels. I.e. it directly supports their point that sex is just being used as a proxy for the thing that you really want to know. (And most of it seems irrelevant for someone with healthy eyes getting a new pair of glasses.)

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#96

Post by silvestrov »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #67
silvestrov wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you have never tried sorting or searching. Where in the alphabet does "ö" or "aa" go? Well, it depends on the language AND the word. Is ø the same as ø? Unicode can encode it in 2 different ways, so you need to normalize all encoding before comparing. Is ø the same as o when searching? For Americans it is, for others not.

But how is it a personal bias if I never run into these technical issues to deal with in the first place?

You have never sorted any texts? Never made a list of names?

Never implemented a search function?

These aspects can easily creep into an app without you even noticing. Saying "I haven't seem them" is not proof for them not being there.

E.g. web servers had some surprise security bugs because they didn't think about overly long utf-8 codes.

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#97

Post by CoastalCoder »

slg wrote: post #87
CoastalCoder wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If when you find out you missed it you start to defend why it's fine to not include it (not to admit you should, but maybe you don't have time/it isn't worth the cost), that's the point it's bigoted. > > It's the difference between making a mistake, and getting defensive that it wasn't a mistake. I think that definition is pretty good, but it also reveals something about the popular usage of the term "bigot". IIUC,…

You are skipping over the last two words in the definition. It isn't just holding to their own opinions. It is holding to their "opinions and prejudices ". Of the two stances "I want to be referred to by the pronouns of my choosing" and "I want to refer to you be the pronouns I dictate for you" only one of those would qualify as prejudice and therfore that is the stance that qualifies as bigoted.

I wonder if we're assuming different definitions of "prejudices".

What I mean is having reached a conclusion without consideration of all the relevant details. I.e., deciding a matter prematurely. I think this lines up pretty well with the MW definition [0].

I don't see how that's related to the particular opposing stances in your example. Can you elaborate?

[0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prejudice

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#98

Post by hashmush »

silvestrov wrote: post #96
RobertRoberts wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how is it a personal bias if I never run into these technical issues to deal with in the first place?

You have never sorted any texts? Never made a list of names? Never implemented a search function? These aspects can easily creep into an app without you even noticing. Saying "I haven't seem them" is not proof for them not being there. E.g. web servers had some surprise security bugs because they didn't think about overly long utf-8 codes.

The default Android keyboard (Google keyboard) had/has an issue like this. It really likes to auto-complete a to å and ä even though the keys are at opposite ends of the (Swedish) keyboard. If I wanted to write "här" (here) instead of "har" (have/has) I would've used ä...

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#99

Post by michaelcampbell »

ballenf wrote: post #17

Here's one I haven't seen on a list: When you onboard to a new company, they will automatically give you access to whatever systems you need to do your job. or It will be automatic or easy to get access to all the systems you need to do your job.

Also related:

When you onboard to a new company, there will be a list of the systems you'll need to do your job.

Once you know what tools you need, you'll have training, and documentation on them. This is especially true for internally written tools.

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#100

Post by michaelcampbell »

allears wrote: post #31

Most of these lists (at least the ones I scanned through) are simply assertions, with no explanations, examples, or links. This is less than useful, and makes me doubt their veracity.

Most of them read more like things you might imagine someone to have thought, once.
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