Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014) • Hacker News Board

Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)

#221

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 4:48 PM UTC

makerdiety wrote: post #191

brabel wrote: post #101

Great article. I just want to comment on this quote from the article: "Really good developers do 90% or more of the work before they ever touch the keyboard;" While that may be true sometimes, I think that ignores the fact that most people can't keep a whole lot of constraints and concepts in their head at the same time. So the amount of pure thinking you can do without writing anything at all is extremely limited. M…

Mathematics was invented by the human mind to minimize waste and maximize work productivity. By allowing reality mapping abstractions to take precedence over empirical falsifications of propositions. And what most people can't do, such as keeping in their heads absolutely all the concepts of a theoretical computer software application, is an indication that real programmers exist on a higher elevation where informati…

[deleted]

Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)

#222

Post by ranger_danger » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 4:58 PM UTC

tsss wrote: post #142

indigoabstract wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same thought as I read that line. I think he's actually describing Linus Torvalds there, who, legend has it, thought about Git for a month or so and when he was done thinking, he got to work coding and in six days delivered the finished product. And then, on the seventh day he rested. But for the rest of us (especially myself), it seems to be more like an interplay between thinking of what to write, writing…

Well that explains why Git has such a god awful API. Maybe he should've done some prototyping too.

baseless conjecture

Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)

#223

Post by theptip » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 5:05 PM UTC

brabel wrote: post #101

Great article. I just want to comment on this quote from the article: "Really good developers do 90% or more of the work before they ever touch the keyboard;" While that may be true sometimes, I think that ignores the fact that most people can't keep a whole lot of constraints and concepts in their head at the same time. So the amount of pure thinking you can do without writing anything at all is extremely limited. M…

Agree with your point. I think “developers that do 90% of their thinking before they touch the keyboard are really good” is the actual correct inference.

Plenty of good developers use the code as a notepad / scratch space to shape ideas, and that can also get the job done.

Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)

#224

Post by Maxatar » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 5:05 PM UTC

QuercusMax wrote: post #216

tsss wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that explains why Git has such a god awful API. Maybe he should've done some prototyping too.

What do you mean by API? Linus's original got didn't have an API, just a bunch of low level C commands ('plumbing'). The CLI ('porcelain') was originally just wrappers around the plumbing.

Those C functions are the API for git.

Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)

#225

Post by tippytippytango » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 5:13 PM UTC

brabel wrote: post #101

Great article. I just want to comment on this quote from the article: "Really good developers do 90% or more of the work before they ever touch the keyboard;" While that may be true sometimes, I think that ignores the fact that most people can't keep a whole lot of constraints and concepts in their head at the same time. So the amount of pure thinking you can do without writing anything at all is extremely limited. M…

I also find it critical to start writing immediately. Just my thoughts and research results. I also like to attempt to write code too early. I'll get blocked very quickly or realize what I'm writing won't work, and it brings the blockage to the forefront of my mind. If I don't try to write code there will be some competing theories in my mind and they won't be prioritized correctly.

Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)

#226

Post by layer8 » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 5:18 PM UTC

brabel wrote: post #101

Great article. I just want to comment on this quote from the article: "Really good developers do 90% or more of the work before they ever touch the keyboard;" While that may be true sometimes, I think that ignores the fact that most people can't keep a whole lot of constraints and concepts in their head at the same time. So the amount of pure thinking you can do without writing anything at all is extremely limited. M…

That quote is already a quote in the article. The article author himself writes:

> What is really happening?

> • Programmers were typing on and off all day. Those 30 minutes are to recreate the net result of all the work they wrote, un-wrote, edited, and reworked through the day. It is not all the effort they put in, it is only the residue of the effort.

So at least there the article agrees with you.

Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)

#227

Post by _dain_ » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 5:24 PM UTC

anal_reactor wrote: post #73

lordnacho wrote: post #38

This is why domain knowledge is key. I work in finance, I've sat on trading desks looking at various exchanges, writing code to implement this or that strategy. You can't think about what the computer should do if you don't know what the business should do. From this perspective, it might make sense to train coders a bit like how we train translators. For example, I have a friend who is a translator. She speaks a bun…

> This is why domain knowledge is key. Yeah but in my country all companies have a non-compete clause which makes it completely useless for me to learn any domain-specific knowledge because I won't be able to transfer it to my next job if current employer fires me. Therefore I focus on general programming skills because these are transferable across industries.

cripes what country is that

Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)

#228

Post by layer8 » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 5:29 PM UTC

thunderbong wrote: post #24

jeffreygoesto wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hardest part is finding out what _not_ to code, either before (design) or after (learn from prototype or the previous iteration) having written some.

No code is faster than no code!

Sometimes you have to write it to understand why you shouldn’t have written it.

Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)

#229

Post by jshobrook » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 5:46 PM UTC

In other words: the more useful Copilot is, the easier your job is.

Re: Programming Is Mostly Thinking (2014)

#230

Post by makerdiety » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 5:55 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #212

makerdiety wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mathematics was invented by the human mind to minimize waste and maximize work productivity. By allowing reality mapping abstractions to take precedence over empirical falsifications of propositions. And what most people can't do, such as keeping in their heads absolutely all the concepts of a theoretical computer software application, is an indication that real programmers exist on a higher elevation where informati…

> The best programmers simulate machines in their heads, basically. Yes, but they still suck at it. That's why people create procedures like prototyping, test driven design, type driven design, paper-prototypes, API mocking, and etc.

The point is that there are no programmers that can simulate machines in their heads. These elite engineers only exist in theory. Because if they did exist, they would appear so alien and freakish to you that they would never be able to communicate their form of software development paradigms and patterns. These rare type of programmers only exist in the future, assuming we're on a timeline toward such a singularity. And we're not, except for some exceptions that cultivate a colony away from what is commonly called the tech industry.

EDIT: Unless you're saying that SOLID, VIPER, TDD, etc. are already alien invaders from a perfect world and only good and skilled humans can adhere to the rules with uncanny accuracy?