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What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

paulgraham.com

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Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#91

Post by imjk »

blahedo wrote: post #72

I am surprised at how casually he dropped this in there: "When I was in college I used to write papers for my friends. It was quite interesting to write a paper for a class I wasn't taking. Plus they were always so relieved." Yikes. Really?

Actually, I appreciate the way he candidly writes things like that. I get that you're pointing out the moral implications of doing other people's school work, but that'd be another essay all its own. In this context, it's an example that proves his point very well as it's a context almost everyone can relate to.

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#92

Post by staunch »

Retra wrote: post #86
chubot wrote: post #55

I'm surprised that Paul Graham likes debugging. I tend to stereotype programmers into two camps: one that likes debugging, one that doesn't. I thought he was part of the latter group. Some programmers are engineers: they deal with the world as it is -- messy, inconsistent, evolved. They are good at debugging, because they are in tune with how things actually work (not how people SAY they work.) They like trying thing…

Perhaps your two camps are just not a very good representation of how programmers actually think?

Some Joe Kraus wisdom i picked up is to always be suspicious of anyone who divides the world into two groups.

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#95

Post by Htsthbjig »

The question is : Is that hardwired or is programmable?

I discovered early in my life that by changing the perspective of a problem you could transform something dull and tedious into something exciting and highly interesting.

For example , when I learned to visualize mathematical problems I become much better at solving them.

Mindmaps, and memory tools can make someone who struggle(and suffers as for example when he does not pass an exam) in something to fly around it.

I had a history teacher that went to wars in his youth as a news reporter, learned languages and traveled the world, studied history by correspondence(from a distance University), went back and settled with a young lady as a teacher.

History for us (the class he teached) changed forever. It was not about words on paper, but about real people, real places, interest and fights, and winners and losses, consequences. We saw photographs of the victims of the wars, some of them taked by him,the stories on how politics and decisions affected their lives and their families', other pics taken by his friends.

After that course, even with completely different teachers History was so easy to study, to remember.

About debugging. I believe the best programmer is the one who hates so much debugging that is able to work terribly hard in automating it and not have to debug EVER again.

People who loves debugging is a problem for me. I want things so well documented and well designed that debugging becomes almost non necessary.

The fact that people believe it is ok to have crappy documentation, crappy design, and spend months trying to catch problems(because they enjoy it) is a misfortune.

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#96

Post by dwiel »

jes wrote: post #80
leviathan wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It probably depends on the type of programming and the challenge it presents. A typical month, for me, has probably 5% exciting programming work. The rest is just tedious churn that you inevitably have to do to support the exciting bit.

I stumbled a bit on the part where you said "The rest is just churn that you inevitably have to do to support the exciting bit." I found myself wondering what a person might have to change to be able to up the exciting work to 10, 20 or 30% of the work-month.

The times when I've gotten the ratio that high have been times when I've been learning new skills while building new things. There's something to be said to building something using that new cool new framework. Its got to still be relevant but this can definitely help. There are many right ways to solve most problems and some are more fun.

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#97

Post by s-phi-nl »

ta75757 wrote: post #42
dxbydt wrote: post #38

This excerpt - "what he really liked was solving problems. The text of each chapter was just some advice about solving them. He said that as soon as he got a new textbook he'd immediately work out all the problems—to the slight annoyance of his teacher, since the class was supposed to work through the book gradually." is literally me. I did that. Every year at my school I did exactly that. Once I actually turned in m…

As (failed) physics major, it sounds so strange to hear someone claim to be good at math but not physics. To me physics is 98% math. It's a few empirical facts from experiments and then bucketloads of math.

Note that he says "I wasn't particularly good at history or physics" (emphasis added), not "I was not any good at physics." As other comments point out, there is enough to physics besides math that someone (who was good at math) could easily do well in physics without being considered exceptional.

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#98

Post by zzzcpan »

Retra wrote: post #86
chubot wrote: post #55

I'm surprised that Paul Graham likes debugging. I tend to stereotype programmers into two camps: one that likes debugging, one that doesn't. I thought he was part of the latter group. Some programmers are engineers: they deal with the world as it is -- messy, inconsistent, evolved. They are good at debugging, because they are in tune with how things actually work (not how people SAY they work.) They like trying thing…

Perhaps your two camps are just not a very good representation of how programmers actually think?

Indeed. It does seem strange to have good debugging skills without being that good at building up systems in the head.

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#99

Post by digikata »

dilap wrote: post #66
ta75757 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As (failed) physics major, it sounds so strange to hear someone claim to be good at math but not physics. To me physics is 98% math. It's a few empirical facts from experiments and then bucketloads of math.

a lot of it is just cultural approach. math people tend to like to rigorously define everything they're doing, and work from there. physics is more like "what can we make up and fudge and twist and bend and then get the right answer." there's a lot of people who aren't as comfortable working in that less-defined context. some of this is maybe inherent to the aim of physics, some of it is just physics machismo culture…

I don't think it's just cultural. Ultimately in physics you are often faced with a pile of observations from nature that you have to make sense of. Vs math, where you usually have a mass perfectly defined err.. well math that you're trying to build forward upon.

I think the best advances in both math and physics are made with people with an excellent grasp of when to move forward with existing constructs, and when to start shaping new ones...

Re: What Doesn't Seem Like Work?

#100

Post by noblethrasher »

chubot wrote: post #55

I'm surprised that Paul Graham likes debugging. I tend to stereotype programmers into two camps: one that likes debugging, one that doesn't. I thought he was part of the latter group. Some programmers are engineers: they deal with the world as it is -- messy, inconsistent, evolved. They are good at debugging, because they are in tune with how things actually work (not how people SAY they work.) They like trying thing…

Yep: http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html
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