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A bunch of programming advice I'd give to myself 15 years ago
41–50 of 327 posts
Re: A bunch of programming advice I'd give to myself 15 years ago
#42The one thing I disagree is the thing about editors. When I began coding I spent hours tweaking my vimrc file and learning all the essentially random shortcuts, and dealing with the absurdities of vimscript. (and debugging vim plugins that broke each other.) It felt like actual work while I was producing nothing. Now I just open vscode with default settings and I am productive right away. Who cares about editors, vsc…
VSCode can also be used more or less effectively though. There are quite a few shortcuts & tricks that can make you 10x more productive, even if maybe it's not as much as vim.
Re: A bunch of programming advice I'd give to myself 15 years ago
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stop being obsessed with quality: you are not at the level where you can provide it yet. Do dirty. Do badly. But ship. You'll reach the level you want to avoid doing all this. What if future you has reached that level and people on your team are shipping spaghetti?
I feel like this is bad advice, really, you need to be obsessed with quality and growth, but you can't let that stop you from shipping. Try for clean to the best of your ability in the time constraints you have, but accept that it will be dirty.
I think aiming for clean is good, but it’s really hard to pin down what clean means when you’re starting out.
I feel like just emulating what you see in your first few jobs is ideal. (As in, ask coworkers who know the thing you’re working on) It could be great code to be inspired from, or mediocre. Either way you get some input about what decisions result in what outcomes, and what the outcome “feels” like.
And if it comes time to change one or many of those decisions later on in this codebase, the person doing it gets a uniform codebase to work from! Unique abstractions and fixes in random places makes refactoring harder.
Re: A bunch of programming advice I'd give to myself 15 years ago
#44> Spending time sharpening the axe is almost always worth it
I hear this advice constantly. But I feel like it really need to be qualified. I have been in projects that never saw any real value produced because people constantly focused on DX, projects management, and other tools.
Sometimes one just needs to do with tools at hand, and not worry if there are better tools.
Re: A bunch of programming advice I'd give to myself 15 years ago
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
A recent Johns Hopkins study claims more than 250,000 people in the U.S. die every year from medical errors. It is ok to be an imposter.
Is it your impression that the medical profession thinks that’s ok ?
The medical industrial complex clearly thinks it is, otherwise there would drastically lower patient loads, allow more spots for medical school, and provide better working conditions that would allow for fewer mistakes. None of this is happening and is an implicit acceptance of medical error deaths
Re: A bunch of programming advice I'd give to myself 15 years ago
#46What about: buy Bitcoin?
Re: A bunch of programming advice I'd give to myself 15 years ago
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just open vi with default settings and am productive right away. I tried VS Code and couldn't get a "hello world" example to run out of the box after a half hour of trying. Who cares about other editors, vi is good enough.
And it's fine. Do what works for you. I just don't think playing with editor endlessly is a well spent time. It makes you feel like you do actual work when you don't. In my opinion.
You only play with the editor endlessly if you’re the type of person to play with the editor endlessly.
My vimrc was set up over the years a bit at a time based on my needs. After several years, I did an overhaul based on what I truly need and don’t need from experience. I rarely change anything in it these days. Maybe a few lines if I start using a new language.
With that stated, most of my vim use is still understanding buffers and motions, which takes no configuration.
Re: A bunch of programming advice I'd give to myself 15 years ago
#48Codeisforhumans.com
Re: A bunch of programming advice I'd give to myself 15 years ago
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
A recent Johns Hopkins study claims more than 250,000 people in the U.S. die every year from medical errors. It is ok to be an imposter.
Is it your impression that the medical profession thinks that’s ok ?
Yes. Nothing is perfect. The remedy they've chosen is to rely on insurance. There is a reason we call doctor's offices 'practices'.
Re: A bunch of programming advice I'd give to myself 15 years ago
#50Those are way too abstract advice when you start programming. You can only understand them because you lived those situations, which implies experience you don't have. I would say (specifically to my young self): - There is no substitute for doing. Less tutorials, more coding. - Stop being obsessed with quality: you are not at the level where you can provide it yet. Do dirty. Do badly. But ship. Some people will be m…
> You have imposter syndrome because you are an imposter. You are really bad. It's ok, doctors hurt people for years while learning to save them What in the medical malpractice?
Making a mistake or a reasonable but ultimately incorrect call is not malpractice. Doctors are just people, just like the rest of us, and certainly you. It’s scary if you think that the medical system is more of a safety net than it actually is, but your gripe is with the precarious nature of life, not medicine.