Coding Horror: Code: It's Trivial • Hacker News Board

Re: Coding Horror: Code: It's Trivial

#11

Post by dschobel » Tue, Jul 07, 2009, 3:46 PM UTC

That's the weird thing about the coding profession. I'd wager that the vast majority of people here work on solved / "trivial" problems which have established best practices and everything all laid out there for you to find if you bother to look.

And yet we've all encountered so many developers who continually get it wrong.

It's this weird recurring phenomena I've had throughout my career (and I'd wager I'm not alone in this) where I know I'm not an excellent programmer compared to even, say, a random sampling of linux kernel developers _but_ I'm flat out horrified by the incompetence of my peers who seem to find the most asinine solutions to these trivial and well-known problems.

Re: Coding Horror: Code: It's Trivial

#12

Post by patio11 » Tue, Jul 07, 2009, 4:14 PM UTC

I really hope nobody with any industry experience thought SO could be cloned in a weekend. That notion screams "The longest program I have ever written was for a CS lab, and I got extra credit for it because I am the awesome."

But, hypothetically supposing that it had been cloned in a weekend, then you'd be staring at the 90% of a software business which does not happen in an IDE. My app can be cloned in a weekend. It has been before, by someone who was PO'ed at me and wanted to drive me out of business. He did a pretty good job in his weekend, too -- I think the user experience of the app was probably better than I managed for 1.0, which took me a week and change.

But the other 90%, yeah, that has taken me about 3 years and a week now. It has had a lot of mental effort, sweat equity, and failing-my-way-forward invested in it. And the business, as distinct from the app, is fairly resistant to cloning.

Somewhere out there, in the forgotten corners of the Internet where not even Googlebot dares to tread, the earstwhile weekend app is probably still wondering what went wrong.

Re: Coding Horror: Code: It's Trivial

#13

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 07, 2009, 4:23 PM UTC

dschobel wrote: post #11

That's the weird thing about the coding profession. I'd wager that the vast majority of people here work on solved / "trivial" problems which have established best practices and everything all laid out there for you to find if you bother to look. And yet we've all encountered so many developers who continually get it wrong. It's this weird recurring phenomena I've had throughout my career (and I'd wager I'm not alone…

[deleted]

Re: Coding Horror: Code: It's Trivial

#14

Post by w1ntermute » Tue, Jul 07, 2009, 4:25 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #12

I really hope nobody with any industry experience thought SO could be cloned in a weekend. That notion screams "The longest program I have ever written was for a CS lab, and I got extra credit for it because I am the awesome." But, hypothetically supposing that it had been cloned in a weekend, then you'd be staring at the 90% of a software business which does not happen in an IDE. My app can be cloned in a weekend. I…

ktharavaad (http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ktharavaad), the user who said he could clone SO in a weekend (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=678501), hasn't commented on HN since before the weekend (http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ktharavaad), so I'm guessing he learnt his lesson.

That said, I think people are making too big a deal out of this. Even the best of us occasionally end up shooting comments from the hip without thinking about them first.

Re: Coding Horror: Code: It's Trivial

#15

Post by jbeerhalter » Tue, Jul 07, 2009, 4:34 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #12

I really hope nobody with any industry experience thought SO could be cloned in a weekend. That notion screams "The longest program I have ever written was for a CS lab, and I got extra credit for it because I am the awesome." But, hypothetically supposing that it had been cloned in a weekend, then you'd be staring at the 90% of a software business which does not happen in an IDE. My app can be cloned in a weekend. I…

"The longest program I have ever written was for a CS lab, and I got extra credit for it because I am the awesome."

Did you mean to write "I am the awesome"? Because I swear I heard that same phrase from notable CS kids at CMU.

Re: Coding Horror: Code: It's Trivial

#16

Post by tritchey » Tue, Jul 07, 2009, 4:47 PM UTC

Consider how destructive this kind of attitude is toward the programming profession. By trivializing any project, a programmer is by extension making it seem like programming is easier, and cheaper, than it really is. What starts out as an ego-pumping "hey, I'm smarter than THAT person." turns into a devaluation of the work we all do, all to fulfill some desire for acceptance among non-technical peers. You wouldn't pick the brain surgeon that told you he could get the job done in a fraction of the time his colleagues could muster.

Re: Coding Horror: Code: It's Trivial

#17

Post by mattyb » Tue, Jul 07, 2009, 4:59 PM UTC

jbeerhalter wrote: post #15

patio11 wrote: post #12

I really hope nobody with any industry experience thought SO could be cloned in a weekend. That notion screams "The longest program I have ever written was for a CS lab, and I got extra credit for it because I am the awesome." But, hypothetically supposing that it had been cloned in a weekend, then you'd be staring at the 90% of a software business which does not happen in an IDE. My app can be cloned in a weekend. I…

"The longest program I have ever written was for a CS lab, and I got extra credit for it because I am the awesome." Did you mean to write "I am the awesome"? Because I swear I heard that same phrase from notable CS kids at CMU.

Isn't that what he wrote?

Re: Coding Horror: Code: It's Trivial

#18

Post by patio11 » Tue, Jul 07, 2009, 5:02 PM UTC

jbeerhalter wrote: post #15

patio11 wrote: post #12

I really hope nobody with any industry experience thought SO could be cloned in a weekend. That notion screams "The longest program I have ever written was for a CS lab, and I got extra credit for it because I am the awesome." But, hypothetically supposing that it had been cloned in a weekend, then you'd be staring at the 90% of a software business which does not happen in an IDE. My app can be cloned in a weekend. I…

"The longest program I have ever written was for a CS lab, and I got extra credit for it because I am the awesome." Did you mean to write "I am the awesome"? Because I swear I heard that same phrase from notable CS kids at CMU.

The voice I was going for was "immature but net-savvy". I live in central Japan rather than central Michigan so I would put the common word choice down to global cultural diffusion aided by the Internet rather than desire to mock any individual person, particularly anybody you know.

Re: Coding Horror: Code: It's Trivial

#19

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 07, 2009, 5:14 PM UTC

ErrantX wrote: post #3

It's interesting quite how much "defensive" blog content those couple of HN comments sparked off.

[deleted]

Re: Coding Horror: Code: It's Trivial

#20

Post by jimbokun » Tue, Jul 07, 2009, 5:32 PM UTC

fogus wrote: post #2

> No, I don't take this claim seriously. Not enough to write a response. Uhhh, isn't the post his response? Just saying.

No. He starts off by conceding the point, basically. The title is "Code: It's Trivial." So assume that you can write all of the code for Stack Overflow in a weekend. He lists 13 things that his team spends time on that are not writing code (at least not in the sense of adding new features or fixing already reported bugs).

His point is that writing code is a relatively small part of even a software business. An important part, but no more important than many other things that must be done for a business to succeed.