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I’m spending months coding the old way

miguelconner.substack.com

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Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#291

Post by drzaiusx11 »

ggerules wrote: post #288
drzaiusx11 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took several classes along these lines in college; one writing a rudimentary OS on bare metal 68k asm, wiring up peripherals on breadboards, etc. Creating an ALU using only 74 series logic chips and the like. This was 30y ago, but the 1970s chips were already antiques, but the lessons were timeless. I'm happy courses like this still exist and I wish everyone had an opportunity to take them as part of standard compu…

Programming in an assembly language is a very zenith like experience for me.

I love having a relationship with the lowest levels of our craft. Access to an electron microscope and decapping chips to make my own reimplementions (in software) is next on my bucket list. If chip lithograph wasn't so prohibitively expensive I'd also try my hand at that...

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#292

Post by bendmorris »

beej71 wrote: post #123

I'll bet we see more and more of this in the future. As developer skills atrophy due to over-reliance on LLMs, we'll have to keep our skills sharp somehow. What better way than a sabbatical?

To answer "what better way," clearly using the skills regularly is much better. Letting them atrophy for potentially multiple years and then trying to resurrect them repeatedly doesn't seem like a recipe for maintaining sharp skills to me.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#293

Post by MaxBarraclough »

tremon wrote: post #244
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't imagine anyone teaching x86 assembly these days, did you mean x86-64?

What do you imagine the difference to be between those two?

The improved register count must make it much less claustrophobic for students. It's not just the same ISA but with wider words.

Looks like I'm mistaken on terminology though. x86 includes the 16-bit, 32-bit, and 64-bit ISAs of that family, and doesn't refer specifically to the 32-bit generation.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#294

Post by deepsun »

apricot wrote: post #86

I am this very term teaching 18-year-old students 6502 assembly programming using an emulated Apple II Plus. They've had intro to Python, data structures, and OO programming courses using a modern programming environment. Now, they are programming a chip from the seventies using an editor/assembler that was written in 1983 and has a line editor, not a full-screen one. We had a total of 10 hours of class + lab where I…

What I found teaching coding us that Python is actually not good as the first language. The main issue is types -- you should always think of what type your variable is (and what types are collection items are). Python makes it hard.

Spaces are sometimes mandatory sometimes not. Something I didn't even think might be confusing, for me it's like breathing.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#295

Post by zahlman »

okeuro49 wrote: post #274
genxy wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In dynamically typed programs, you can if you allow it, let the types happen to you. In a statically typed program, you are forced to think about them from the beginning. That same abstract concept is at play with vibe coding, but instead the code now happens to you. My best LLM written code is where I did a prototype of the overall structure of the program and fed that structure along with the spec and the goal. It…

I've used a dynamically typed language extensively. I don't think they are suited for anything but small scripts. Refactoring is a nightmare, as as types don't exist, the compiler can't help you if you try to access a property that doesn't exist. I think generally people have realised this, and there are attempts to retrofit types onto dynamically typed languages.

To "realize" that it would have to be true. The longer I've stuck with untyped Python the more I've preferred it, and the more I've seen people tie themselves in knots trying to make the annotations do impossible (or at least difficult) things. (It also takes away bandwidth for metaprogramming with the annotations.)

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#296

Post by zahlman »

hyperhello wrote: post #283
okeuro49 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used a dynamically typed language extensively. I don't think they are suited for anything but small scripts. Refactoring is a nightmare, as as types don't exist, the compiler can't help you if you try to access a property that doesn't exist. I think generally people have realised this, and there are attempts to retrofit types onto dynamically typed languages.

It bugs me that there are two kinds of languages. Parameters and variables could be typed optionally in a dynamic language; either error in the compiler or at runtime; otherwise you just haven’t made any type errors while you coded and the code is fine either way.

This is what gradual typing (such as TypeScript, or the use of Python annotations for type-checking) accomplishes. The issue is that it basically always is bolted on after the fact. I have faith that we aren't at the end of PL history, and won't be surprised if the next generation of languages integrate gradual typing more thoughtfully.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#297

Post by 0123456789ABCDE »

orphea wrote: post #241
Remdo wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought Hacker News was a place where you could share your views and discuss them with different people, but your comment seems to show that it now became a Facebook comment section. Thank you for your eye-opening contribution.

Well, they did share their view and it's being discussed, so what's the problem?

the problem is that it has no substance at all. it is the equivalent of "your opinion sucks", it doesn't elaborate on it, so there is nothing to discuss either. beyond _this_, which in itself isn't much i'll give you that.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#298

Post by econ »

spockz wrote: post #201
apricot wrote: post #86

I am this very term teaching 18-year-old students 6502 assembly programming using an emulated Apple II Plus. They've had intro to Python, data structures, and OO programming courses using a modern programming environment. Now, they are programming a chip from the seventies using an editor/assembler that was written in 1983 and has a line editor, not a full-screen one. We had a total of 10 hours of class + lab where I…

One of my favourite experiences coming up as an engineer was working with a very senior engineer right in the beginning. Whenever he had a task or problem, he would start out thinking, maybe doodling a bit on paper, go for a walk, and only then sit down at his computer and start typing. He would type in one go only compiling in the end, and it would work. (Even typos were rare.) All this to say that it is extremely u…

> He would type in one go only compiling in the end, and it would work. (Even typos were rare.)

Then with each year grow more paranoid if there are no bugs or typos.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#299

Post by Neywiny »

deepsun wrote: post #294
apricot wrote: post #86

I am this very term teaching 18-year-old students 6502 assembly programming using an emulated Apple II Plus. They've had intro to Python, data structures, and OO programming courses using a modern programming environment. Now, they are programming a chip from the seventies using an editor/assembler that was written in 1983 and has a line editor, not a full-screen one. We had a total of 10 hours of class + lab where I…

What I found teaching coding us that Python is actually not good as the first language. The main issue is types -- you should always think of what type your variable is (and what types are collection items are). Python makes it hard. Spaces are sometimes mandatory sometimes not. Something I didn't even think might be confusing, for me it's like breathing.

Indentation is mandatory, but when are spaces? Imo, if you're running static analysis it'll take care of types well enough. Sometimes I need a cast but not often.

Contrasting that to helping a college roommate with Arduino code he said he didn't understand what it was doing: he had 0 indentation. Braces everywhere. He didn't understand what it was doing not because it was complex logic (it was only maybe 30 simple lines) but because his flow control was visually incomprehensible. It's pretty hard to do that in Python.

But that's why I believe in polygloty. Best of multiple worlds.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#300

Post by 6031769 »

derwiki wrote: post #276
yodsanklai wrote: post #249

> so i'm spending 3 months coding the old way the old way which is about one year ago?

I mean ya, management at my company has made it clear that all of our code should be written by agents. So yea, things have changed a lot in a year.

Please come back in a year and tell us how that has worked out for them.
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