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Why Programming is Difficult

joearms.github.io

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Re: Why Programming is Difficult

#161

Post by truthteller »

leobelle wrote: post #153
antics wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know enough about The Mismeasure of Man to say whether it's correct or not, but Steven Jay Gould is about as eminent a biologist as there has ever been. The allegation that he is a "noted fraud and liar" is a pretty gross mis-estimate his work, and my personal opinion is that a misapprehension at this level makes it very unlikely that you have good reasons for believing what you do. To casual lurkers: what th…

I've seen truthteller's comments before. He should probably be hellbanned but he's flown under the radar for some reason. He's been around for 119 days, has tons of comments and only a comment karma of 37. Look at this gem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6678987

are you some sort of indian nationalist?

Re: Why Programming is Difficult

#162

Post by truthteller »

lutusp wrote: post #123
truthteller wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the opinions of ignorant journalists are not really relevant. it was strongly criticized by experts in the relevant area. do you realize how intellectually lazy you look when you form strong opinions on subjects without even doing basic research first?

> ... without even doing basic research first? If self-reference were a disease, you would be in an emergency room. You know nothing about me or the research I have conducted, apart from the fact that your argument represents an all-too-common logical error. > the opinions of ignorant journalists are not really relevant. > it was strongly criticized by experts in the relevant area. So, which is it? Did journalists de…

at this point you are just embarrassing yourself with your weird crusade attack "psychologists and supporters". I'm sure most readers in this forum feel intuitively that mental ability can be measured with some accuracy, so I doubt you will convince many people. and anyone who cares to look will find a vast psychometric literature that supports the validity of IQ.

Re: Why Programming is Difficult

#164

Post by zurn »

gaius wrote: post #79
shadowfiend wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than focusing on the IQ remark, I'll mention that the entire point of this post is that programming is not just “sit[ting] down to code something”. A program written in a vacuum when you're sitting in your chair is useful to precisely one person at precisely one point in time: you, right now. When you're working on teams, under managers, within organizations, you're working to build something that's useful for…

This is why, when I see 22-year-old kids in interviews claiming 10 years of programming experience, that's a negative signal for me. Commercial programming is solving problems you didn't choose, in a language that's not your favourite, using existing code you didn't write, for people you would never have met outside the job, in less time than you would like. In most real situations writing the code is the easy part,…

> Commercial programming is solving problems you didn't choose, in a language that's not your favourite, [...]

Programming jobs in software business definitely do include many where you can greatly influence the problems you work on and tools you use.

Maybe your applicants were looking for that kind of place (as would many on HN).

Re: Why Programming is Difficult

#165

Post by fit2rule »

lutusp wrote: post #35
fit2rule wrote: post #9

Programming is difficult because people are profiting from the difficultability of it. For as long as you can give someone a money-making machine, but say that it will be 'a lot of esoteric work' to make it, grease it, keep it clean .. there will be development work. By the very nature of the business, if you are not improving something, some human-describable human activity, by using esoteric magic, you're probably…

> Anyone can 'program computers'; computers are a universal language. If that were true, programmers would be making minimum wage and would be ranked alongside people who wash cars.

And that is in fact how it is in many parts of the world.

Re: Why Programming is Difficult

#166

Post by overgard »

joe_the_user wrote: post #157
overgard wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, the IQ thing really got under peoples skin, but I think his point is that the hard part of being a really good programmer is dealing with all the bullshit that managers invent to keep the mediocre programmers on the straight and narrow. Problem being, those efforts essentially make one programmer indistinguishable from another by putting shackles on everyone. I admit there's a certain logic to it, building a bus…

I have to object that there is seriously more to project management than keeping the "mediocre programmers" in line. I mean, there are overly ambitious programmers that do have to be reigned in, there are people held back by whatever structure you might and many variations of this. And code has to be appropriate for it's purpose. I'm sure the code for Doom is great for Doom. If it is "cowboy code", it's probably not…

But that's kind of the point isn't it: project management, and especially agile, is about making work predictable. There's an undeniable business logic to this that I wouldn't refute.

Yet works of greatness are almost never predictable. You can't reign it into story points or whatever. There's too many false starts, or sudden insights. It certainly takes process and discipline, but not necessarily the kind that can be measured and reported.

That's probably fine for most business, because your inventory control program doesn't need any individual brilliance; but I think it can be frustrating for really good programmers because they do want to create a work of greatness.

Re: Why Programming is Difficult

#168

Post by leobelle »

truthteller wrote: post #161
leobelle wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen truthteller's comments before. He should probably be hellbanned but he's flown under the radar for some reason. He's been around for 119 days, has tons of comments and only a comment karma of 37. Look at this gem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6678987

are you some sort of indian nationalist?

You called India a "shit hole". The entire country. Do I have to be an Indian nationalist to not see that kind of a comment as inane? If you had some kind of comment to make about the positive side of British Raj and the crown's denial of Indians right to govern themselves, it probably required maybe a less "shit hole" of a comment.

Re: Why Programming is Difficult

#169

Post by Malician »

lutusp wrote: post #136
dllthomas wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, apparently it is not clear, because it seems "clearly" to me to mean the other. You are taking "I had no idea that X" to be a claim of "not X"; I think it is a claim that they had no idea that X - and the pragmatic purpose of this in the conversation was "... and therefore, I don't think having no idea is crazy". I think your interpretation in this context is - at least - uncharitable.

> Well, apparently it is not clear, because it seems "clearly" to me to mean the other. Let's look at the original exchange. The person to whom I replied said, "I've never used my IQ as justification for anything, granted, but I had no idea it wasn't considered a solid measurement." I replied, "It isn't remotely a "solid measurement", in fact it's a field surrounded by justified controversy on multiple grounds" ... a…

You are not being ambiguous. The poster who replied to you did not want to engage in an exchange with you, so he retreated from it - thus his use of the past tense "had" in reference to his prior belief. Given that every argument he provided referred to his not caring about the importance of whether IQ matters, I think this is the only reasonable way to read his post.

Re: Why Programming is Difficult

#170

Post by joe_the_user »

overgard wrote: post #166
joe_the_user wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to object that there is seriously more to project management than keeping the "mediocre programmers" in line. I mean, there are overly ambitious programmers that do have to be reigned in, there are people held back by whatever structure you might and many variations of this. And code has to be appropriate for it's purpose. I'm sure the code for Doom is great for Doom. If it is "cowboy code", it's probably not…

But that's kind of the point isn't it: project management, and especially agile, is about making work predictable. There's an undeniable business logic to this that I wouldn't refute. Yet works of greatness are almost never predictable. You can't reign it into story points or whatever. There's too many false starts, or sudden insights. It certainly takes process and discipline, but not necessarily the kind that can b…

Yet works of greatness are almost never predictable.

Actually, most great artists work with a lot of constraints. There are many great realist painters who accept the constraint of realistically representing the world. Any programmer works with the constraints of the machine.

And working in the constraints of project management and multiple-person provides plenty of room for creativity I would say. Yes, you have the constraint of the code working and you have the constraint of the code being understandable. You might even have the constraint of telling the other programmers how to do the difficult thing you can do and they can't. Greatness is possible there given that greatness is possible with code that compiles as opposed to code which is merely unpredictable.

And project managers are always happy to have people finish faster than expected.

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