Live data from Hacker News

Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)

agileotter.blogspot.com

11–20 of 339 posts

Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)

#11

I'm confident enough to tout this number as effectively true, though I should mention that no company I work with has so far been willing to delete a whole day's work to prove or disprove this experiment yet. Long ago when I was much more tolerant, I had a boss that would review all code changes every night and delete anything he didn't like. This same boss also believed that version control was overcomplicated and d…

Crikey what a sociopath to work for. I’m sorry this happened to you.

Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)

#12
post #4

re·con·nais·sance noun military observation of a region to locate an enemy or ascertain strategic features.

Did you want to grace us with any particular relevance of this knowledge or do you just wanna keep it to yourself? Sadly, after all these years programming, I have yet to discern any real vulnerability in the US government.

I think it was meant as a parallel; historically light cavalry (explorers) and heavy cavalry (exploiters) had different ideals*, different command structures, and when possible even used different breeds of horses.

Compare the sorts of teams that do prototyping and the sorts of teams that work to a Gantt chart.

* the ideal light cav trooper was jockey-sized, highly observant, and was already a good horseman before enlisting; the ideal heavy cav trooper was imposing, obedient, and was taught just enough horsemanship to carry out orders but not so much that he could go AWOL.

Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)

#13

Developers need to learn how to think algorithmically. I still spend most of my time writing pseudocode and making diagrams (before with pen and paper, now with my iPad). It's the programmers' version of the Abraham Lincoln's quote "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

Does it really take four hours to sharpen an axe? I've never done it.

Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)

#14
post #4

re·con·nais·sance noun military observation of a region to locate an enemy or ascertain strategic features.

Did you want to grace us with any particular relevance of this knowledge or do you just wanna keep it to yourself? Sadly, after all these years programming, I have yet to discern any real vulnerability in the US government.

Just guessing/reading: it's a metaphor.

You could see the recon as the thinking from the article. The enemy and terrain are the code and various risks and effects associated with changing it.

Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)

#15

Developers need to learn how to think algorithmically. I still spend most of my time writing pseudocode and making diagrams (before with pen and paper, now with my iPad). It's the programmers' version of the Abraham Lincoln's quote "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

I don’t really know what “think algorithmically means,” but what I’d like to see as a lead engineer is for my seniors to think in terms of maintenance above all else. Nothing clever, nothing coupled, nothing DRY. It should be as dumb and durable as an AK47.

Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)

#16

Developers need to learn how to think algorithmically. I still spend most of my time writing pseudocode and making diagrams (before with pen and paper, now with my iPad). It's the programmers' version of the Abraham Lincoln's quote "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

Do you have any resources for this? especially for the adhd kind - I end up going down rabbit holes in the planning part. How do you deal with information overload and overwhelm OR the exploration exploitation dilemma?

Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)

#18

Developers need to learn how to think algorithmically. I still spend most of my time writing pseudocode and making diagrams (before with pen and paper, now with my iPad). It's the programmers' version of the Abraham Lincoln's quote "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

Does it really take four hours to sharpen an axe? I've never done it.

Doing it right, with only manual tools, I believe so, remembering back to one of the elder firefighters that taught me (who was also an old-school forester).

Takes about 20 minutes to sharpen a chainsaw chain these days though...

Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)

#19

Developers need to learn how to think algorithmically. I still spend most of my time writing pseudocode and making diagrams (before with pen and paper, now with my iPad). It's the programmers' version of the Abraham Lincoln's quote "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

[deleted]

Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)

#20
Good programming is sometimes mostly thinking, because "no plan survives first contact with the enemy." Pragmatic programming is a judicious combination of planning and putting code to IDE, with the balance adapting to the use case.
Post reply on HN