Go ahead, write the “stupid” code • Hacker News Board

Re: Go ahead, write the “stupid” code

#21

Post by analog31 » Mon, Sep 29, 2025, 12:55 AM UTC

>>> When I finished school in 2010 (yep, along time ago now), I wanted to go try and make it as a musician. I figured if punk bands could just learn on the job, I could too. But my mum insisted that I needed to do something, just in case.

Amusing coincidence. I also wanted to be a rock star, or at least a successful working musician. My mom also talked me out of it. Her argument was: If there's no way to learn it in school, then go to school anyway and learn something fun, like math. Then you can still be a rock star. Or a programmer, since I had already learned programming.

So I went to college as a math major, and eventually ended up with a physics degree.

I still play music, but not full time, and with the comfort of supporting myself with a day job.

Re: Go ahead, write the “stupid” code

#22

Post by Swizec » Mon, Sep 29, 2025, 1:03 AM UTC

throwy98888 wrote: post #6

I appreciate the sentiment, but "There is no stupid code" is the dumbest sentence I've ever read.

Stupid code is fine. Make it work/exist first, you can make it good later.

Re: Go ahead, write the “stupid” code

#23

Post by sanj » Mon, Sep 29, 2025, 1:03 AM UTC

This reminds me of the (excellent!) book by Jamie Buck: https://pragprog.com/titles/jbmaze/mazes-for-programmers/

They write a maze algo in any new language they learn just to learn bits of the language.

Re: Go ahead, write the “stupid” code

#24

Post by noduerme » Mon, Sep 29, 2025, 1:11 AM UTC

I like this philosophy. It's interesting to me that the author writes about trying deno, specifically out of curiosity for compiling binaries with it, because that is something that's been specifically tickling the back of my mind for awhile now, but I've had no real reason to try it. I think this gave me the motivation to write some "stupid" code just to play with it.

Re: Go ahead, write the “stupid” code

#25

Post by Jensson » Mon, Sep 29, 2025, 1:16 AM UTC

throwy98888 wrote: post #6

I appreciate the sentiment, but "There is no stupid code" is the dumbest sentence I've ever read.

He will counter with "There are no stupid sentences"!

Re: Go ahead, write the “stupid” code

#26

Post by mig_ » Mon, Sep 29, 2025, 1:18 AM UTC

bitwize wrote: post #4

I'm working on in-kernel ext3/4fs journalling support for NetBSD. The code is hot garbage but I love it because of the learning journey it's taken me on: about working in a kernel, about filesystems, etc. I'm gonna clean it up massively once I've figured out how to make the support complete, and even then I expect to be raked over the coals by the NetBSD devs for my code quality. On top of that there's the fact that…

Ext4 is most certainly still in use and not a toy. Its trusted. It takes a lot for folks to adopt a new file system.

I worked on a research topic in grad school and learned about holes in files, and how data isn’t removed until the last fd is closed. I use that systems knowledge in my job weekly.

A tip. Kernel development can be lonely, share what you are working on and find others.

Re: Go ahead, write the “stupid” code

#27

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 29, 2025, 1:19 AM UTC

xboxnolifes wrote: post #16

throwy98888 wrote: post #6

I appreciate the sentiment, but "There is no stupid code" is the dumbest sentence I've ever read.

I think the people who think there is no stupid code don't actually ever witness truly bad code. The worst code that they come across is, at worst, below average. And since that's the worst they see, it gets mentally defined as bad.

[deleted]

Re: Go ahead, write the “stupid” code

#28

Post by grugagag » Mon, Sep 29, 2025, 1:20 AM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #21

>>> When I finished school in 2010 (yep, along time ago now), I wanted to go try and make it as a musician. I figured if punk bands could just learn on the job, I could too. But my mum insisted that I needed to do something, just in case. Amusing coincidence. I also wanted to be a rock star, or at least a successful working musician. My mom also talked me out of it. Her argument was: If there's no way to learn it in…

Luckily you can still pursue being a musician without all the pressure of having to be successful. On this road, one day you are free to declare your own success to yourself

Re: Go ahead, write the “stupid” code

#29

Post by grugagag » Mon, Sep 29, 2025, 1:25 AM UTC

VladVladikoff wrote: post #9

This is a particularly bad mobile layout. Fix your margins.

At least on IOS, if you double tap the text it’ll fill the viewport just nicely.

Re: Go ahead, write the “stupid” code

#30

Post by Existenceblinks » Mon, Sep 29, 2025, 1:35 AM UTC

Tenemo wrote: post #13

Existenceblinks wrote: post #10

> Fast forward to today. I’ve been doing a dive on JavaScript/TypeScript and different runtimes like NodeJS and Deno, That's why. If all codes in a project are stupid, there's no stupid code indeed relatively. Go read Linux kernel mailing list.

And reading the Linux kernel mailing list would allow him to... do what exactly? And by when? Compared to writing simple, working, usable apps in TypeScript, immediately after reading about how Deno/TypeScript/etc. work?

To avoid writing stupid code since they will see qualified people put reason on why some codes are "garbage" (I'm not saying this).