This article gets lost in matters of measurement, drifts off, and in the end fails to say anything worthwhile. Hopefully some of you will read the discussion first and skip the article.
Most developers don’t really know any computer language
11–20 of 23 posts
Re: Most developers don’t really know any computer language
#12Not really sure where the article is going but I will throw out two things:
* "Never memorize something that you can look up in a book."
* We may know about 10k-40k words depending on the study, person, etc, but can generally communicate any idea with those that we do. There's a ton of overlap and specialization that can be worked around with smaller, simpler pieces (Guy Steele's recently linked '98 OOPSLA talk on growing a language comes to mind...).
The second point is pretty familiar when it comes to programming. Maybe you don't know the most efficient algorithm, the most maintainable strategy, the whizbang idiomatic language construct, etc. but that doesn't mean you can't "communicate" useful work to/through the code you do "know".
Re: Most developers don’t really know any computer language
#13Just like there are more musicians than people who understand music theory, formalism is not required for software development. This is neither surprising nor bad.
Indeed, this makes me think of http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/11/mort-elvis-einstein...
Re: Most developers don’t really know any computer language
#14Just like there are more musicians than people who understand music theory, formalism is not required for software development. This is neither surprising nor bad.
Unlike music, software can be (and almost always is) grotesquely defective in ways that aren't obvious to the user right away.
Re: Most developers don’t really know any computer language
#15I haven't worked with enough programmers to either agree or disagree, but I personally try to become really fluent in the languages that I use. For example, participating in the ruby-core mailing list has really increased my knowledge of Ruby methods and internals. It also really pays to know a language when you're using something that compiles into it. You're going to have a bad time with Coffeescript if you're not…
The last bit is sort of true and not. Obviously you don't have to know Javascript to write Coffeescript any more than you have to know C to write Javascript (or how your machine architecture works to write C).
But it certainly helps. And you'll never write good code without a solid understanding of the runtime your syntax is sitting on. But I don't think that's any more true of CS/JS than it is for any other environment. Java progammers need to understand the JVM, C people want some ability to read disassembly and understand calling conventions, people writing code generators need to understand the hardware pipeline they are optimizing for.
It's turtles all the way down.
Re: Most developers don’t really know any computer language
#16I haven't worked with enough programmers to either agree or disagree, but I personally try to become really fluent in the languages that I use. For example, participating in the ruby-core mailing list has really increased my knowledge of Ruby methods and internals. It also really pays to know a language when you're using something that compiles into it. You're going to have a bad time with Coffeescript if you're not…
Wouldn't it be better if you instead knew a good bit of c++/obj-c, c#/java, php, matlab, python, etc.
It's just like investing, you are putting all your eggs in one basket. I don't think Ruby's future is especially in trouble, but it is certainly not as secure as the basket of languages I included above.
Also ruby is only really used for a small subset of tasks. With the basket of languages I included you could really do anything from microcontroller programming to making video games to website dev.
Re: Most developers don’t really know any computer language
#17This article starts by claiming developers have only a superficial knowledge of the languages they use, and on that basis, it argues we should teach languages in a more superficial way.
But it's unclear what benefit we'd supposedly reap by teaching languages in a more superficial way?
If there is a substantive point to this article (aside from the pretentious suggestion has a deeper knowledge of programming than everyone else), I failed to understand his point.
Re: Most developers don’t really know any computer language
#18I completely believe the conclusion. And I believe that it applies to most of the people reading this thread. Let me demonstrate with a real example.
Perl by default passes by reference, copies by value, and mutates in place. How many Perl programmers have any clue of what I said?
By contrast Python by default passes by reference, copies by reference, and does not mutate values in place. How many Python programmers have any clue what that means?
And how many programmers who have programmed both languages professionally (or other commenters in this discussion) can discuss some of the differences in the languages that arise from this difference? Can you write a concrete piece of code which will demonstrate consequences of this difference?
My guess is that few really understand what I'm talking about. Nor do you need to because the memorized patterns for writing loops, functions, etc work perfectly well whether or not you understand this internal design decision.
Re: Most developers don’t really know any computer language
#19Just like there are more musicians than people who understand music theory, formalism is not required for software development. This is neither surprising nor bad.
Indeed, this makes me think of http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/11/mort-elvis-einstein...
You know, as irrelevant as my comment is, this comment means a great deal to me. I haven't read it before but I did make the following Ask HN finally provoked by another of Atwood's posts:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4785581
For me, this is very reassuring so I thank you :)
Re: Most developers don’t really know any computer language
#20Just like there are more musicians than people who understand music theory, formalism is not required for software development. This is neither surprising nor bad.
Unlike music, software can be (and almost always is) grotesquely defective in ways that aren't obvious to the user right away.
I'm not so sure; there is plenty of popular music I find grotesquely defective in ways that aren't obvious to the people who appreciate it. Like it or not, software quality is entirely subjective and in the eye of the beholder. There is no other way to explain the continued ubiquity of things like PHP, Windows, iTunes, , etc.