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Response to “Literate programming considered harmful”

johnwshipman.blogspot.com

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Re: Response to “Literate programming considered harmful”

#11

Post by nothrabannosir »

quantumhobbit wrote: post #6

The trend in programming lately seems to be less to no comments and less to no documentation; and it is killing the joy I take in programming. Without comments the only way the next guy has a chance to understand the code is if you stick to lowest common denominator patterns and frameworks. You can't do anything that hasn't been done before. I think this is related to the proliferation of frameworks. I can't come up…

> I can't come up with my own pattern that best fits the problem, but I can select from a list of pre-approved patterns in our framework and shoehorn the problem into it.

Generally only true for burger flipping software. If your problem is unique, there won't be a framework for it.

Want to be creative? Try seeking out creative problems.

Everything has exceptions, but this rule of thumb seems to apply well, in my experience.

Re: Response to “Literate programming considered harmful”

#12

Post by nambit »

quantumhobbit wrote: post #6

The trend in programming lately seems to be less to no comments and less to no documentation; and it is killing the joy I take in programming. Without comments the only way the next guy has a chance to understand the code is if you stick to lowest common denominator patterns and frameworks. You can't do anything that hasn't been done before. I think this is related to the proliferation of frameworks. I can't come up…

I have to disagree with this. I've not found anything of the sort you describe here.

If you have some esoteric pattern in your code, then it's never worth the tradeoff between readability unless it is better performance wise.

Calling them the "lowest" common denominator patterns instead of best practices is being dishonest.

Re: Response to “Literate programming considered harmful”

#13

Post by jcadam »

quantumhobbit wrote: post #6

The trend in programming lately seems to be less to no comments and less to no documentation; and it is killing the joy I take in programming. Without comments the only way the next guy has a chance to understand the code is if you stick to lowest common denominator patterns and frameworks. You can't do anything that hasn't been done before. I think this is related to the proliferation of frameworks. I can't come up…

> The trend in programming lately seems to be less to no comments and less to no documentation; and it is killing the joy I take in programming. Without comments the only way the next guy has a chance to understand the code is if you stick to lowest common denominator patterns and frameworks. You can't do anything that hasn't been done before.

Enter Golang... a language smaller than even ANSI C. It's readable because if you've worked with Golang for more than a week, you basically know every language construct you'll encounter.

As an aside, I've found Clojure to be one of the most "readable" languages I've ever seen, in that I can usually just go to the source code if I'm trying to figure out how to use a library I just pulled in from clojars.

Re: Response to “Literate programming considered harmful”

#14

Post by ctz »

jcadam wrote: post #13
quantumhobbit wrote: post #6

The trend in programming lately seems to be less to no comments and less to no documentation; and it is killing the joy I take in programming. Without comments the only way the next guy has a chance to understand the code is if you stick to lowest common denominator patterns and frameworks. You can't do anything that hasn't been done before. I think this is related to the proliferation of frameworks. I can't come up…

> The trend in programming lately seems to be less to no comments and less to no documentation; and it is killing the joy I take in programming. Without comments the only way the next guy has a chance to understand the code is if you stick to lowest common denominator patterns and frameworks. You can't do anything that hasn't been done before. Enter Golang... a language smaller than even ANSI C. It's readable because…

> Enter Golang... a language smaller than even ANSI C. It's readable because if you've worked with Golang for more than a week, you basically know every language construct you'll encounter.

That's not really what readability is to me. For example, I consider this idiomatic golang code (from the standard library, no less) to be entirely unreadable:

https://golang.org/src/crypto/tls/handshake_messages.go#L297

For me readability is more about suitable levels of abstraction. Languages can affect that by making abstraction longwinded, or expensive at runtime, or hard to compose.

Re: Response to “Literate programming considered harmful”

#15

Post by rtpg »

quantumhobbit wrote: post #6

The trend in programming lately seems to be less to no comments and less to no documentation; and it is killing the joy I take in programming. Without comments the only way the next guy has a chance to understand the code is if you stick to lowest common denominator patterns and frameworks. You can't do anything that hasn't been done before. I think this is related to the proliferation of frameworks. I can't come up…

Even in the bog-standard sort of software I write, I rarely find that choosing and applying a pattern is "mechanical".

Even if you tell yourself "oh, I'll use Observer", there are still so many details that can make your solution be boring and alright, or actually clean and magical. Foresight into how your structure will evolve, making things easier to test and read, separating the _right_ concerns.

I have copied stuff from Stack Overflow but always for solutions to a couple lines of code. I don't know what Stack Overflow answer I can copy for the general structure of my code...

Re: Response to “Literate programming considered harmful”

#16

Post by sitkack »

nambit wrote: post #12
quantumhobbit wrote: post #6

The trend in programming lately seems to be less to no comments and less to no documentation; and it is killing the joy I take in programming. Without comments the only way the next guy has a chance to understand the code is if you stick to lowest common denominator patterns and frameworks. You can't do anything that hasn't been done before. I think this is related to the proliferation of frameworks. I can't come up…

I have to disagree with this. I've not found anything of the sort you describe here. If you have some esoteric pattern in your code, then it's never worth the tradeoff between readability unless it is better performance wise. Calling them the "lowest" common denominator patterns instead of best practices is being dishonest.

> some esoteric pattern

I have been at many sites where "esoteric" means things like first class functions (Python) or recursion. Not some hipster monad, y-combinator or method missing bullshit.

Re: Response to “Literate programming considered harmful”

#17

Post by bunderbunder »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #11
quantumhobbit wrote: post #6

The trend in programming lately seems to be less to no comments and less to no documentation; and it is killing the joy I take in programming. Without comments the only way the next guy has a chance to understand the code is if you stick to lowest common denominator patterns and frameworks. You can't do anything that hasn't been done before. I think this is related to the proliferation of frameworks. I can't come up…

> I can't come up with my own pattern that best fits the problem, but I can select from a list of pre-approved patterns in our framework and shoehorn the problem into it. Generally only true for burger flipping software. If your problem is unique, there won't be a framework for it. Want to be creative? Try seeking out creative problems. Everything has exceptions, but this rule of thumb seems to apply well, in my expe…

If your problem is unique and requires creative solutions, and you work in an anti-documentation team, that's when things get truly nasty.

Re: Response to “Literate programming considered harmful”

#18

Post by pdpi »

nambit wrote: post #12
quantumhobbit wrote: post #6

The trend in programming lately seems to be less to no comments and less to no documentation; and it is killing the joy I take in programming. Without comments the only way the next guy has a chance to understand the code is if you stick to lowest common denominator patterns and frameworks. You can't do anything that hasn't been done before. I think this is related to the proliferation of frameworks. I can't come up…

I have to disagree with this. I've not found anything of the sort you describe here. If you have some esoteric pattern in your code, then it's never worth the tradeoff between readability unless it is better performance wise. Calling them the "lowest" common denominator patterns instead of best practices is being dishonest.

There's a middle ground between cookie cutter and esoteric.

While the OP's tone is perhaps a bit harsh, I've been in his shoes before, where a team that doesn't understand why a problem doesn't fit their go-to solution forces you to write a convoluted mess to shoehorn the problem into the solution. performance isn't even the problem, usually. Maintainability is.

Re: Response to “Literate programming considered harmful”

#19

Post by qznc »

bunderbunder wrote: post #17
nothrabannosir wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't come up with my own pattern that best fits the problem, but I can select from a list of pre-approved patterns in our framework and shoehorn the problem into it. Generally only true for burger flipping software. If your problem is unique, there won't be a framework for it. Want to be creative? Try seeking out creative problems. Everything has exceptions, but this rule of thumb seems to apply well, in my expe…

If your problem is unique and requires creative solutions, and you work in an anti-documentation team, that's when things get truly nasty.

Elsewhere known as "Academia" ;)
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