Software development topics I've changed my mind on • Hacker News Board

Re: Software development topics I've changed my mind on

#541

Post by geophile » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:11 PM UTC

physicles wrote: post #426

geophile wrote: post #330

After more than 25 years in the industry, and 10 years of retirement, I agree with pretty much everything on this list. A few things that struck me: - Don't get too fundamentalist about OO or functional programming. Each has its place. - "Spend time hunting for an algebra" is somewhat obscure, but truly excellent advice, and I have spend a lot of my career doing exactly that. That has never been time wasted. This con…

As I understood it, the “algebra” is the domain-specific language/abstraction that you build — and if you’re lucky, discover — that encodes something fundamental about the domain you’re working in. Once you’ve found that, further coding is easier than you’d expect. I’ve had the pleasure of finding a few of these over my career.

I think it goes beyond that. An algebra has operators that take objects of some type as input and yield objects of the same type as output. E.g. arithmetic (numbers in, numbers out), and relational algebra (tables in, tables out).

Re: Software development topics I've changed my mind on

#542

Post by mmcnl » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:14 PM UTC

ZaoLahma wrote: post #82

> Most programming should be done long before a single line of code is written Nah. I (16+ years developer) prefer to iteratively go between coding and designing. It happens way too often that when you're coding, you stumble across something that makes you go "oh f me, that would NEVER work", which forces you to approach a problem entirely differently. Quite often you also have eureka moments with better solutions th…

Yeah, validate your assumptions. Nothing ever works the first time. Quick iterations to get feedback is the way.

Re: Software development topics I've changed my mind on

#543

Post by cosmosgenius » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:17 PM UTC

franktankbank wrote: post #213

bayindirh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the person at the top can come down for a coffee with people who endured some bad management, and ask honest, non-loaded three questions, it can be measured qualitatively but with very high accuracy. The three questions are: - What should we start doing? - What should we continue doing? - What should we stop doing? This is an immensely powerful tool. Thanks to the awesome person who introduced me this. Addenda: "T…

What insight does an IC have on what the person at the top even does? I can basically only comment on my interactions with direct management and I otherwise don't know how they spend their day.

By having a 5 min group meeting where only the manager speaks. Manager is not allowed to talk about what direction the team should go and what the team should do. Anything else will give instant insights on whats going on at the isolated top.

Re: Software development topics I've changed my mind on

#544

Post by mmcnl » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:17 PM UTC

Kichererbsen wrote: post #179

ZaoLahma wrote: post #82

> Most programming should be done long before a single line of code is written Nah. I (16+ years developer) prefer to iteratively go between coding and designing. It happens way too often that when you're coding, you stumble across something that makes you go "oh f me, that would NEVER work", which forces you to approach a problem entirely differently. Quite often you also have eureka moments with better solutions th…

Most programming is actually figuring out what already exists and what (and more importantly: why) the requirements are. This is best done long before a single line of code is written. I think the author is taking a wider view of "programming" than the actual writing of code as the end product. Some of the most important work I've done is spend the time to argue that something doesn't need to be done at all.

And how do you figure out what the requirements are? In my 10+ professional years, I have never gotten requirements by asking for them. Almost always I had to show my interpretation of what I think the requirements are, and use the feedback I got to define the actual requirements. The quickest way to get there is by iterating.

Re: Software development topics I've changed my mind on

#545

Post by mtdrk » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:18 PM UTC

lijok wrote: post #153

latexr wrote: post #22

> Most won't care about the craft. Cherish the ones that do, meet the rest where they are > (…) > People who stress over code style, linting rules, or other minutia remain insane weirdos to me. Focus on more important things. What you call “stressing over minutiae” others might call “caring for the craft”. Revered artisans are precisely the ones who care for the details. “Stressing” is your value judgement, not neces…

Video game logic: Everyone worse than me is a noob. Everyone better than me has no life.

This is more like noob logic. Good players are eager to learn from those better than them.

Re: Software development topics I've changed my mind on

#546

Post by patmorgan23 » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:20 PM UTC

ghc wrote: post #214

latexr wrote: post #22

> Most won't care about the craft. Cherish the ones that do, meet the rest where they are > (…) > People who stress over code style, linting rules, or other minutia remain insane weirdos to me. Focus on more important things. What you call “stressing over minutiae” others might call “caring for the craft”. Revered artisans are precisely the ones who care for the details. “Stressing” is your value judgement, not neces…

To reduce your argument to its essence, you're saying typesetting is part of the craft of writing. I've yet to meet an author who believes this (other than enjoying editing their own work as output from a typewriter), and I think the same broadly applies to code. It's not that everyone thinks these things are unimportant, it's that caring deeply about doing them a particular way is orthogonal to the craft. It's somet…

Type setting is not a good analogy here.

A better one would probably be accounting and spread sheets. Having common formatting conventions between spreadsheets (and code files) allows your brain to filter out the noise better. Obviously you can get too down in the weeds on "what are the best conventions" but the most important part is to have them and stick to them.

Re: Software development topics I've changed my mind on

#547

Post by taeric » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:23 PM UTC

kflgkans wrote: post #535

taeric wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, this is largely the same idea. For things that have to be bubbled up, you wind up in the simplistic "single thread of execution by an operator" pattern. And, in that scenario, exceptions work exactly the same as just returning it all the way up. It is literally just making it easier to unwind the stack. My assertion is that actual error handling in workflows doesn't work in that manner. Automated workflows hav…

Thanks for the additional clarification!

Certainly! And please let me know if I'm off or otherwise confused here. I can guarantee I'm not the brightest bulb around here! :D

Re: Software development topics I've changed my mind on

#548

Post by asalahli » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:26 PM UTC

> You literally cannot add too many comments to test code

In my opinion, almost every developer I've worked with who advocated for generous amounts of comments has overestimated their (and or others') ability to write good quality comments.

Obvious ones like `a = b; // set a to b` while useless are also mostly harmless, but I've been lead astray by outright factually wrong comments, many more times than I can count. I certainly don't feel confident in my own ability to not write factually incorrect comments. So yeah, I'd rather the code do the talking.

Re: Software development topics I've changed my mind on

#549

Post by krior » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:33 PM UTC

spc476 wrote: post #498

Twirrim wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've grown to be a big fan of opinionated linters like gofmt, rustfmt, black etc. They avoid so much time spent disagreeing about code formatting and personal preferences. Instead engineers can do mutual grumbling sessions about weird formatting choices they see it do, and move on.

If I didn't want to have opinions, I would join a cult.

save your opinions for the things that really matter instead of another bikeshed to build! (not telling you to shut up, btw :) )

Re: Software development topics I've changed my mind on

#550

Post by dranudin » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:35 PM UTC

hliyan wrote: post #84

Retric wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the formatting and conventions of the blueprint Some of those formatting conventions are written in blood. The clarity of a blueprint is a big deal when people are using it to convey safety critical information. I don’t think code formatting rises anywhere close to that level, but it’s also trying to reduce cognitive load which is a big deal in software development. Nobody wants to look at multiple lines concatenat…

I 100% agree. The problem is that after a half a century, software engineering discipline has been unable to agree on global conventions and standards. I recently had an experience where a repair crew was worried about the odd looking placement of a concrete beam in my house. I brought over the blueprints, and the technician found the schedule of beams and columns within seconds, pinpointed the beam and said, "Ah, th…

That is largely due to a difference in complexity.I would say that the level of complexity of a blueprint of a house is on par with a 20-30 line python solution of a leet code easy excercise to a programmer. If the one reading the blue print is an engineer and the one reading the python code is a programmer. A crud app is more like the blue prints for a vacuum cleaner or something like that.