So is good writing actually.
Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)
81–90 of 339 posts
Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)
#82Agree and disagree. Certain programming domains and problems are mostly thinking. Bug fixing is often debugging, reading and comprehension rather than thinking. Shitting out CRUD interfaces after you've done it a few times is not really thinking. Other posters have it right I think. Fluency with the requisite domains greatly reduces the thinking time of programming.
Debugging is not thinking? Reading, understanding and reasoning about why something is happening is THE THING thinking is about. Fluency increases the speed in which you move to other subjects but does not reduce your thinking, you're going to more complex issues more often.
It's not just thinking though. You're not sitting at your desk quietly running simulations in your head, and if a non programmer was watching you debug it would look very busy.
Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)
#83This is why I just don't care about my keyboard, mouse, monitor etc beyond a baseline of minimum comfort. Typing at an extra 15 wpm won't make a lick of difference in how quickly I produce a product, nor will how often my fingers leave the keyboard or how often I look at the screen. Once I've ingested the problem space and parameters, it all happens in my head.
I often feel that having a "comfortable" keyboard/mouse/monitor is more important than a fast CPU or a fancy graphics card - just because of that slight extra feeling of pleasure/ease that lasts all day long :-).
The advantage of them is that my monitors and keyboards usually last a long time so putting money into them is not as wasteful as putting it into some other components.
One thing that surprised me though is that I recently bought a KVM to switch from desktop to laptop instead of a second monitor and this turned out to be both better and much cheaper. I gave away an older monitor to a relative and found that not having to turn to look at a 2nd monitor was actually nicer. Initially I really didn't want to do this and really wanted another screen but I had to admit afterwards that 1 screen + KVM was better for me.
RAM and disc space just matter up to the point of having enough so that I'm not wasting time trying to manage them to get work done.
Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)
#84Developers 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.
>I don’t really know what “think algorithmically means,”
I would say thinking about algorithms and data structures for algorithmic complexity not to explode.
>Nothing clever
A lot of devs use nested loops and List.remove()/indexOf() instead of maps, etc., the terrible performance gets accepted as the state of the art, and then you have to do complex workarounds not to call some treatments too often, etc., increasing the complexity.
Performance yields simplicity: a small increase in cleverness in some code can allow for a large reduction in complexity in all the code that uses it.
Whenever I do a library, I make it as fast as I can, for user code to be able to use it as carelessly as possible, and to avoid another library popping up when someone wants better performances.
Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)
#85Developers 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?
There are 2 bad habits in programming: people that start writing code the 1st second, and people that keep thinking and investigating for months without writing any code. My solution to that: just force to do the opposite. In your case: start writing code immediately. Ni matter how bad or good. Look the youtube channel “tsoding daily” he just goes ahead. The code is not always the best, but he gets things done. He does research offline (you can tell) but if you find yourself doing just research, reading and thinking, force yourself to actually start writing code.
Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)
#86That’s an iteration of Peter Naur’s « Programming as Theory Building » that has been pivotal in my understanding of what programming really is about.
Programming is not about producing programs per se, it is about forming certain insights about affairs of the world, and eventually outputing code that is nothing more than a mere representation of the theory you have built.
Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)
#87Developers 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.
> Nothing clever, nothing coupled
Yes, simple is good. Simple is not always easy though. A good goal to strive for nevertheless.
> nothing DRY
That's interesting. Would you prefer all the code to be repeated in multiple places?
Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)
#88Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)
#89Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)
#90Good 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.
This. Programming is mostly reconnaissance, not just thinking. If you don’t write code for days, you’re either fully aware of the problem surface or are just guessing it. There’s not much to think about in the latter case.