Software engineers should write • Hacker News Board

Re: Software engineers should write

#11

Post by FigBug » Mon, Dec 29, 2014, 5:39 PM UTC

euphemize wrote: post #2

Thoroughly agreed. As a developer who spent a lot of time studying humanities, arts and other disciplines requiring constant writing for grant submissions, essays, etc. a lot of skills required to be a good developer become invaluable for a dissertation and the other way around. > A core skill in both disciplines is an ability to think clearly. The best software engineers are great writers because their prose is as l…

I recently worked as an expert witness and had to write a report, I haven't written anything since University ~15 years ago. Writing a technically accurate report about source code for a non-technical audience was amazingly difficult. It was fun, but stressful. Each sentence has to be able to withstand a cross examination, sometimes it took hours to write a single sentence.

I'd do it again, and I recommend anybody that gets the change to do it as well.

Re: Software engineers should write

#12

Post by shbhrsaha » Mon, Dec 29, 2014, 5:41 PM UTC

ggambetta wrote: post #10

Why stop at essays or technical articles? As an engineer, I've always been fascinated by the structure and inner mechanics of stories - what makes them work. As a hobby I've done a lot of reading around this; I've written three feature-length screenplays, and a novel you can find in Amazon[1], using very structure-centric approaches (as a result, my characters tend to be too flat). Take a look at The Snowflake Method…

Great point! Completely overlooked that aspect.

Re: Software engineers should write

#13

Post by _neil » Mon, Dec 29, 2014, 5:46 PM UTC

tomphoolery wrote: post #5

I was always an "English kid", came close to failing my math subjects in middle school and finally in high school, I did fail Algebra I, and had to re-take it the next year. Meanwhile, I was in advanced programming courses and on my way to take an AP Computer Science course in the last semester of my sophomore year. Looking back, that experience taught me about how important modeling is to pedagogy. The fact is, my A…

Somewhat related is a recently published book by Angus Croll called If Hemingway Wrote Javascript[0]. It's not so much about Javascript as it is about the writing styles of great authors and the expressiveness inherent in writing code.

[0] http://www.nostarch.com/hemingwayjs

Re: Software engineers should write

#14

Post by presidentender » Mon, Dec 29, 2014, 5:50 PM UTC

ggambetta wrote: post #10

Why stop at essays or technical articles? As an engineer, I've always been fascinated by the structure and inner mechanics of stories - what makes them work. As a hobby I've done a lot of reading around this; I've written three feature-length screenplays, and a novel you can find in Amazon[1], using very structure-centric approaches (as a result, my characters tend to be too flat). Take a look at The Snowflake Method…

The pistol on your novel's cover is a CZ-75. It's not an unknown gun by any means, but it's relatively uncommon in real life; sushi to the hamburger that is a Glock or a Beretta. Despite this, it's a common choice for infographics where just "a gun" is needed, and I can't for the life of me figure out why.

I'm curious - do you know why that particular pistol was chosen for your cover?

Re: Software engineers should write

#15

Post by aswanson » Mon, Dec 29, 2014, 5:51 PM UTC

Kalium wrote: post #3

I find myself uncertain about the thesis. Code that is clear and expressive to a human should not be assumed to also be efficient and optimal for a computer. As writers say, know your audience.

"Code that is unreadable by other engineers, even if it's functional, is bad code."

Re: Software engineers should write

#16

Post by k__ » Mon, Dec 29, 2014, 5:54 PM UTC

Thinking back, I was neither.

I wasn't good in math, languages or anything in elementary school.

I didn't want to be there and always played "sick".

This just got a little bit better, when I left elementary school and switched 2 schools afterwards. Since the second school was a lot easier than the first, I got better grades without doing anything.

But I never got really good at anything at school, better in Science than in Humanities, always a B- on average. Even my degrees got that rating...

Re: Software engineers should write

#17

Post by pluc » Mon, Dec 29, 2014, 5:55 PM UTC

It's been said that a programmer's brain is more akin to that of a writer than a mathematician, allegedly because learning programming languages is much like learning a language - the same areas of the brain are involved.

From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-parnin/scientists-begin-...

> Scientists are finding that there may be a deeper connection between programming languages and other languages then previously thought. Brain-imaging techniques, such as fMRI allow scientists to compare and contrast different cognitive tasks by analyzing differences in brain locations that are activated by the tasks. For people that are fluent in a second language, studies have shown distinct developmental differences in language processing regions of the brain. A new study provides new evidence that programmers are using language regions of the brain when understanding code and found little activation in other regions of the brain devoted to mathematical thinking.

Re: Software engineers should write

#18

Post by coolsunglasses » Mon, Dec 29, 2014, 5:57 PM UTC

jobu wrote: post #7

There are times I wish I could go back to my younger self and explain exactly this. Unfortunately it took me almost a decade as a software engineer before I realized there was a career barrier without being able to communicate effectively when writing or presenting. It's possible to stay as an average engineer for a long time, but if you want to try being an Architect, then at least 50% of your time is spent writing…

How did they go about incentivizing tech talks?

Have you written anywhere about the things this company did?

Re: Software engineers should write

#19

Post by Retra » Mon, Dec 29, 2014, 5:59 PM UTC

k__ wrote: post #16

Thinking back, I was neither. I wasn't good in math, languages or anything in elementary school. I didn't want to be there and always played "sick". This just got a little bit better, when I left elementary school and switched 2 schools afterwards. Since the second school was a lot easier than the first, I got better grades without doing anything. But I never got really good at anything at school, better in Science t…

It is probably not worth extrapolating from elementary school performance. And it is probably even less useful to use grades as a measure of success at anything other than doing schoolwork.

Re: Software engineers should write

#20

Post by k__ » Mon, Dec 29, 2014, 6:00 PM UTC

k__ wrote: post #16

Thinking back, I was neither. I wasn't good in math, languages or anything in elementary school. I didn't want to be there and always played "sick". This just got a little bit better, when I left elementary school and switched 2 schools afterwards. Since the second school was a lot easier than the first, I got better grades without doing anything. But I never got really good at anything at school, better in Science t…

Funny thing is, I got this you're A or B impression still.

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