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Ask HN: What would be the single piece of advice you'd give a non-programmer?

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Re: Ask HN: What would be the single piece of advice you'd give a non-programmer?

#41

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #25
appstorelottery wrote: post #19

IMHO programming comes down to understanding logic, breaking down many-step problems into their smallest elements and being able to express a process in a flow or state chart. There is an old saying "behave yourself or I'll replace you with a very small script", which I assume comes from the Unix world. ZSH and shells are surprisingly powerful in this respect. Perhaps consider automation technologies like Zapier and…

+1 here for "breaking down many-step problems into their smallest element". If you can do this, then the technology to solve each element is much easier to determine, and it'll also be easier to ask (Google, ChatGPT, coworkers) more specific questions that provide more specific answers.

According to Gall's law, breaking things down to simple elements is not only the best way, but the only way.

"A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system."

Re: Ask HN: What would be the single piece of advice you'd give a non-programmer?

#42

Post by jrumbut »

eternityforest wrote: post #35
jrumbut wrote: post #14

Truth be told I think non-programmers are the experts on using technology. When I have a problem I reach for code, the real power users are the ones who don't have that option.

The interesting thing is they are not building things up from first principles, or making new tools, they're using exactly what they have, as is, and developing a process around it that they can teach and share. Programmers rarely do that. A programmer sharing something means developing it enough to put in the App Store, or convincing you to run their scary shell script. A non-programmer takes 3 existing things, uses…

I do think more of them would work from first principles if more (non-programmer focused) programs exposed a set of principles and allowed users to operate on them using their own logic and imagination.

Excel and some image editors do that, and people make pretty cool stuff with them.

Re: Ask HN: What would be the single piece of advice you'd give a non-programmer?

#43

Post by Gyrantula2 »

ggm wrote: post #6

Excel is a functional programming environment which works at scale. Yes, we hate it. Yes, date handling is a mess. If you learn how to drive excel you can do almost anything.

I learned to code thanks to Excel.

One day I discovered "Record Macro". That was handy to automate some simple tasks. Then I discovered I could make a clickable button, that would activate one of my macros. That was great. Then I discovered I could double-click (iirc) the button and there, in front of my eyes, was the code. A whole world opened up to me.

I made gigantic programs. Thousands of lines of code. Horrific code. I didn't understand variables or arrays but I had cells and columns! Imagine that.

I became the automation guru at my job. God I hope those Excel files no longer exist. I would die of embarrassment. I built automation tools in my own time. In Excel, of course. Before long I was making enough to quit my day job. Thanks, Excel.

Re: Ask HN: What would be the single piece of advice you'd give a non-programmer?

#44

Post by juancn »

There's no magic involved (even though it sometimes feels like there is).

Everything is understandable and usually has a rather mundane explanation about why it is the way it is, so don't be scared.

If someone understood how it works, then you can too. You may be missing some information, but that's about it.

Re: Ask HN: What would be the single piece of advice you'd give a non-programmer?

#45

Post by pintxo »

strontian wrote: post #12
pintxo wrote: post #9

Invest time into learning to get the most out of your (software) tools: keyboard shortcuts, text styles, automation. It will pay off very quickly.

Any specific examples you like for automation?

The obvious is VBA for office, hard to kill. Else Photoshop comes to mind

Re: Ask HN: What would be the single piece of advice you'd give a non-programmer?

#46

Post by spiffytech »

riffraff wrote: post #23
ggm wrote: post #6

Excel is a functional programming environment which works at scale. Yes, we hate it. Yes, date handling is a mess. If you learn how to drive excel you can do almost anything.

What would be the proper resources to learn how to use excel (or Google sheets or other spreadsheet)? I feel the major issue with excel (and other stuff such as CSS) is that one learns by cobbling things together and never through a formal process. This means you end up inventing things that kinda work but you often don't use the tool the way it was intended.

Joel Spolsky gave a famous talk with a rot of tips, "You stuck at Excel": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c

Re: Ask HN: What would be the single piece of advice you'd give a non-programmer?

#47

Post by syndicatedjelly »

gherkinnn wrote: post #31

Don't. If they insist, point out that all the tech in the world still leaves you with 51% human interaction. And that is the most pleasurable part.

Can you elaborate more? Are you recommending that non-programmers shouldn’t getting better at tech?

Re: Ask HN: What would be the single piece of advice you'd give a non-programmer?

#48

Post by rpmisms »

eternityforest wrote: post #38
rpmisms wrote: post #13

Start thinking about how data moves. This is the simple first-principles trick that lets me understand things. What data is moving where? How is it moving? If you want to get better at using technology, not just understanding it, I can give you a tip as a UI dev. Just ask yourself: "what would an overpaid designer named Ramona assume about the average user of this app". Unfortunately, most things have been enshittifi…

Ramona seems to do a better job that the vast majority of programmers... modern tech tends to be a joy to use unless you're expecting a blank canvas to do things your specific way, which is not what most people want from an app. Any enshittification I see is strictly in non UI stuff, like vendor lockin and subscription models.

A lot of it is sales-side, but so many good tools could literally be a single page with a form, not multi-minute flows. Everything is a sales pitch, not useful.

Re: Ask HN: What would be the single piece of advice you'd give a non-programmer?

#50

Post by riffraff »

spiffytech wrote: post #46
riffraff wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be the proper resources to learn how to use excel (or Google sheets or other spreadsheet)? I feel the major issue with excel (and other stuff such as CSS) is that one learns by cobbling things together and never through a formal process. This means you end up inventing things that kinda work but you often don't use the tool the way it was intended.

Joel Spolsky gave a famous talk with a rot of tips, "You stuck at Excel": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c

thanks!
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