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What Is Code?

bloomberg.com

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Re: What Is Code?

#291

Post by sopooneo »

tjradcliffe wrote: post #179
fragmede wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two other more contemporary examples are the Android app Tasker, and the website IFTTT ( https://ifttt.com/ ). There's something about calling it programming that turns certain people off. I remember a story about a freshman in a physical mechanics class that complained about all the MATLAB code they had to write. The professors retort was that they were free to use a slide rule instead, and that particular freshman…

> The mere act of calling it programming is somehow a problem. There are some words that carry with them unshedable connotations that people want to get away from so strongly that they will call themselves something else at the first possible instant. "Programmer" is one of them. "Poet" is another. No one makes money from poetry because as soon as a poet makes money they are something else: a musician, a performer, a…

Until one shoots out the top. Then he/she can be a "poet" again.

Re: What Is Code?

#293

Post by blahblah3 »

very cool article

although to a layman I would try to answer "what is code" more simply: code is just instructions.

instructions for how to tie a windsor knot or cook a recipe or play a piano piece can be thought of as "code" executed by the human.

Re: What Is Code?

#294

Post by walterbell »

aswanson wrote: post #288
walterbell wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It means the "balance of power between entrepreneurs and investors" is different when your monthly allowance runs into the thousands, i.e. this very successful and commendable outlier is not represenative of the norm.

Re: What Is Code?

#297

Post by maehwasu »

tdicola wrote: post #106
spb wrote: post #102

"How often are you going to be multiplying sevens and cats? Soooo much." Where the fuck does this meme of "fundamental type mismatches come up all the time in ordinary code" come from? What kind of defective system are people writing where it's normal for strings and numbers to be interpreted relationally (even accidentally)? It sounds like the author is trying to demonstrate the significance of things like syntax tr…

It can happen accidentally quite easily. Someone new to a codebase starts hacking in a feature and mistypes a variable as 'value' instead of 'values'. They fail to realize there's already a 'value' variable in the global namespace (perhaps it's a gigantic spaghetti code mess of a file). They don't have good test cases that exercise this exact line and fail to see the bug. Code ships to production, three months later…

Your example is quite good, although there are far more bulletproof ways than exhaustive test cases to make sure this doesn't happen.

Re: What Is Code?

#298

Post by thrwwy5 »

woah wrote: post #269
notNow wrote: post #143

Watch it when capitalists pushing incessantly people to learn coding. They're trying very hard to cut the costs of their input "materials" and they will do everything that they could to devalue us in every way possible. So, if you're a talented and competent dev, be super aggressive with these predators and take everything your hands can grab before they have the upper hand and show us their true colors. Happy Coding…

Let us keep the sacred arts secret, brothers. EDIT: Just being sarcastic. You are clearly incompetent, coasting along in your job, and afraid of someone with 6 months of experience being better than you.

Seems to have worked well enough for doctors and lawyers. They're unionized (through the AMA and ABA), upper-class professionals who command much more respect from the general public than we do, and whereas our salaries tend to max out at around $150k, theres can easily exceed $500k (in the case of medical specialists or law firm partners).

Re: What Is Code?

#299

Post by dragonwriter »

thrwwy5 wrote: post #298
woah wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let us keep the sacred arts secret, brothers. EDIT: Just being sarcastic. You are clearly incompetent, coasting along in your job, and afraid of someone with 6 months of experience being better than you.

Seems to have worked well enough for doctors and lawyers. They're unionized (through the AMA and ABA), upper-class professionals who command much more respect from the general public than we do, and whereas our salaries tend to max out at around $150k, theres can easily exceed $500k (in the case of medical specialists or law firm partners).

The AMA and ABA aren't labor unions; outside of government service -- where programmers are also often unionized, too -- doctors and lawyers generally don't have labor unions.

Re: What Is Code?

#300

Post by Hytosys »

notNow wrote: post #143

Watch it when capitalists pushing incessantly people to learn coding. They're trying very hard to cut the costs of their input "materials" and they will do everything that they could to devalue us in every way possible. So, if you're a talented and competent dev, be super aggressive with these predators and take everything your hands can grab before they have the upper hand and show us their true colors. Happy Coding…

This is egregious if you replace "coding" with "writing" or "reading".

Historically, any perceived detriments of mass education have been significantly outweighed by benefits.

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