What Is Code? • Hacker News Board

Re: What Is Code?

#281

Post by jonahx » Fri, Jun 12, 2015, 2:31 AM UTC

murbard2 wrote: post #63

ForHackernews wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just the right-brained. I want that as a professional software developer. I want a computer that will do what I thought, instead of what I foolishly typed. Basically, I want a computer as smart as a good junior dev so I can just yell my brilliant ideas at it, and it will do the dirty work for me.

That's only because you think your thought exists and is correct. Programming forces you to confront the fact that it isn't, and that there are many aspects of it that you've overlooked.

This may be the reason, but doesn't have to be and often isn't. If you can explain your idea to another person, and know when they've executed it, why is that not evidence of your thought existing? Why is being able to translate your idea into the unnatural constraints of programming languages as they exist in 2015 the arbiter of correct thinking?

Re: What Is Code?

#282

Post by marvy » Fri, Jun 12, 2015, 2:37 AM UTC

zeckalpha wrote: post #257

fragmede wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I... you're trolling, right? Before Google rose to fame, Altavista was probably the most popular, but in order to find what you wanted, you frequently had to add AND, and NOT to your searches, and still needed to dig in a dozen pages in order to find what you were really after. Then Google came along, and the rest of them died.

I thought Google did it, too, for a while.

They still do: https://www.google.com/advanced_search

Re: What Is Code?

#283

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 12, 2015, 2:40 AM UTC

irq-1 wrote: post #109

tolmasky wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theres tons of successes, we just refuse to count them. Photoshop (as hinted in the article), is a super special purpose language for doing image operations. It no longer "looks" like coding, so we don't count it as coding for the masses. Excel is a much more general purpose language used by tons of "non-coders" (and arguably the most popular programming language on earth). Again, doesn't (often) look like normal pro…

Remember when search engines had Boolean operators?

[deleted]

Re: What Is Code?

#284

Post by mangeletti » Fri, Jun 12, 2015, 3:04 AM UTC

mangeletti wrote: post #261

dankohn1 wrote: post #229

I hate to sound hyperbolic, but I can't overstate how impressive this work is. For me, it evokes nothing so much as Tracy Kidder's The Soul of A New Machine [0] for opening up an obscure world (the one many HN posters live in, but obscure to most people). I am amazed both by the technical fidelity and by the quality of the story telling. [0] http://www.amazon.com/Soul-New-Machine-Tracy-Kidder/dp/03164...

I agree. This is the best piece of writing I think I've ever read on the web. This touches on everything, and so accurately, and so concisely... this article is giving me a stroke I think.

The big red semicolon picture near the bottom had me cracking up so hard. I will need to re-read this article every week for the rest of my life, in order to fully enjoy it.

Re: What Is Code?

#285

Post by mangeletti » Fri, Jun 12, 2015, 3:07 AM UTC

jheriko wrote: post #280

meowface wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen anything like this on a website before. The writing, the formatting, the structure, the animations; it's near perfect.

are we reading the same article??!?! the content is quite good but the layout, colour, animations etc. are a mess.

Look

Re: What Is Code?

#286

Post by mangeletti » Fri, Jun 12, 2015, 3:15 AM UTC

merrickread wrote: post #9

My Dad always tells me he flat out does not understand what I do. He respects it, knows it's challenging and fun, but just doesn't get it. I've sent this to him -- he's about 1/4 of the way through and thoroughly enjoying it. This is a very fun read that's worth leafing through

Wow, I did the exact same thing, for exactly the same reason. My dad called me a few hours later and said, "I finished the 38000 word article you sent.". I checked and he wasn't far off; it's around 29000 words.

Re: What Is Code?

#287

Post by dsuth » Fri, Jun 12, 2015, 3:22 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #108

It's 2015. The audience of this article shouldn't even exist. The reader, as described in the article, is a VP who has so little understanding about what it is his company does, that the only meaningful abstraction he can mentally picture is that of his employees "burning barrels of money". Imagine an auto company VP who says "I don't know anything about engines and drivetrains and all that technical stuff. All I kno…

Writing software is not what (many) companies do. Companies exist to create things of value for their clients. Software is one aspect of the secondary functions that enhance this value creation.

In the article, the VP worked at a company that sold things on the internet. The things they produced were their primary function; internet platform development is a secondary function, much like marketing, hiring, business development etc etc.

So the theoretical VP's core competency should not have been software dev, or even technology - that's what CTOs and technical leads are for. In fact his core competency probably wasn't product development anymore, if it ever was. He was a manager, and his role was managing resources within the company to optimise their primary function.

Hence the disconnect, and hence why articles like this (and audiences for them) exist.

Re: What Is Code?

#288

Post by aswanson » Fri, Jun 12, 2015, 3:25 AM UTC

walterbell wrote: post #274

aswanson wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds contradicted to the mathematics/empirical/quantitative observations. Startups built on texting two alphabetic characters are attracting million dollar financing rounds. Startups based on erased timeouts of texts are declining 3 billion dolllar acquisition offers. VCs are trying to get deal flow by building the reputation of being the most helpful to entreprenuers. Interest rates are at historic lows and h…

The privilege level of Snapchat's founder would place that particular example closer to the investor segment. Quantitative observations can be complemented by fundamental analysis. tl;dr the articles provide 10 pages of relevant context.

"Privilege level". I guess that means because his dad was already rich, the valuation of billions of dollars for a disappearing text service means nothing, along with the fact that forbes inflated a two-page article into 10 means something. Ok.

Re: What Is Code?

#289

Post by mturmon » Fri, Jun 12, 2015, 3:43 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #196

stormbrew wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who is supposed to teach people what code is? Our schools? Who with a CS degree and programming experience would willfully choose to teach in the USA's education system? Grade school teachers aren't expected to be specialists in the field they teach. They're expected to be specialists in teaching. Usually they have a bachelors (or masters) in education and maybe another degree, but it may or may not be the thing th…

This is incidentally a weakness in the US education system. You split schools into elementary-middle-high (for no especial reason) then treat it all as 'grade school'. In every European country I've lived in schools are generally split into primary and secondary. Primary school teachers are general educators whose primary skill is teaching but who do not need advanced knowledge in any particular subject. They usually…

Your characterization of US education in middle and high school is largely incorrect. I don't want to take time to explain all the ways.

Re: What Is Code?

#290

Post by brianpgordon » Fri, Jun 12, 2015, 3:55 AM UTC

spb wrote: post #188

This is supposed to be an introduction just to the abstract concept of code, yet it includes a section that asks the reader to take a test on whether or not they agree with the author on the effectiveness of domain-specific snippets of JavaScript ( http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-paul-ford-what-is-cod... ) - one that replies to your selections with obtuse references to the code's use of promises and callbacks.…

It's just a fun little quiz. I kind of like it as a "reality check" to show the reader that while they may understand the concepts, the reality is much more difficult and fraught with subtle considerations. It also serves as a subtle reminder to readers (who may be the frustrated business-type from the opening of the article) that there's a reason software projects are so hard and cost so much money. Software development isn't something you can grok from reading an article, even a book-length one.