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Letting tools make choices

jackfranklin.co.uk

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Re: Letting tools make choices

#11

Post by matfil »

leetrout wrote: post #4

A coworker from a previous job said something along the lines of “How much work is getting done by teams debating tabs vs spaces?” And it was in context of the decision being important but once it’s made just go write code and ship a product. One of the many reasons I immediately fell in love with Go.

A coworker from a previous job said something along the lines of “How much work is getting done by teams debating tabs vs spaces?”

That's a good question, but having agreed that such debates don't contribute much, you've got two ways to go: either enforce a standard, or "live and let live" (perhaps supported by strong-ish module ownership). I think it's unfortunate that the "live and let live" option seems to have largely fallen by the wayside over the past few years.

Re: Letting tools make choices

#12

Post by astrobe_ »

It looks like a case of analysis paralysis. Customize on use, not upfront. When I write personal tools (throw-away scripts, more long-lived utilities etc.), it is not rare that I change my mind about how they should work after using them - even though I made each and every choice while coding them! You don't know what you need until you need it.

Re: Letting tools make choices

#13

Post by sweeneyrod »

auston wrote: post #6

I’ve always struggled with this, on the one hand I recognize my productivity/efficiency increase. On the other... I feel like tooling that automatically makes decisions for you can be a crutch if you don’t take the time to understand it. It might be me getting older/grouchier but watching a dev use black or prettier because they don’t know how/are too lazy to indent their code properly is frustrating for me. Or when…

> It might be me getting older/grouchier but watching a dev use black or prettier because they don’t know how/are too lazy to indent their code properly is frustrating for me.

> Or when I see new devs pick up User.find(id) in rails and sticking to the ORM without learning a lick of SQL - I think to myself how they’re selling themselves short.

I think those are very different cases. Knowing SQL is a valuable skill which I'm pretty sure almost all developers end up using at some point in their careers, whereas there's no value in being able to format code. Maybe that will change once we start seeing people who learnt to code with automatic formatters and didn't develop any sense for what good syntax looks like, but I don't think we're there yet.

Re: Letting tools make choices

#14

Post by thedanbob »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #3

This to me is what I really miss about Ruby on Rails being a more popular platform, way more than any of the metaprogramming magic or super-readable syntax. It made a ton of choices for you, which helped with productivity on teams more than anything else. If you had a new developer coming onto a Rails project, there's no need to ask how logging is done, where models and controllers were stored, what the naming conven…

My org still uses RoR for nearly all our sites. I used to add a fair amount of custom config and gems, but more and more I find myself gravitating to the default stack. It’s just simpler, and easier on the next guy if I ever pass on a project.

Re: Letting tools make choices

#15

Post by lonelappde »

auston wrote: post #6

I’ve always struggled with this, on the one hand I recognize my productivity/efficiency increase. On the other... I feel like tooling that automatically makes decisions for you can be a crutch if you don’t take the time to understand it. It might be me getting older/grouchier but watching a dev use black or prettier because they don’t know how/are too lazy to indent their code properly is frustrating for me. Or when…

Similarly, I am embarrassed for devs who type their code in a coddling text editor because they are too ignorant to use ed, the standard text editor, properly.

Computers are for solving problems, not helping programmers, after all, right?

Re: Letting tools make choices

#16

Post by pfarrell »

lonelappde wrote: post #15
auston wrote: post #6

I’ve always struggled with this, on the one hand I recognize my productivity/efficiency increase. On the other... I feel like tooling that automatically makes decisions for you can be a crutch if you don’t take the time to understand it. It might be me getting older/grouchier but watching a dev use black or prettier because they don’t know how/are too lazy to indent their code properly is frustrating for me. Or when…

Similarly, I am embarrassed for devs who type their code in a coddling text editor because they are too ignorant to use ed, the standard text editor, properly. Computers are for solving problems, not helping programmers, after all, right?

My sarcasm detector just exploded.

It’s all a continuum. A great test for mid career programmers is solving a problem from a blank text file. Especially true for more languages with great IDEs like Java or C#

Re: Letting tools make choices

#17

Post by mygo »

pfarrell wrote: post #16
lonelappde wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, I am embarrassed for devs who type their code in a coddling text editor because they are too ignorant to use ed, the standard text editor, properly. Computers are for solving problems, not helping programmers, after all, right?

My sarcasm detector just exploded. It’s all a continuum. A great test for mid career programmers is solving a problem from a blank text file. Especially true for more languages with great IDEs like Java or C#

Interestingly, that’s how I started coding and I’m still young(ish).

Borrowed a book from the library as a pre teen and followed along using notepad on my dad’s computer.

I didn’t see syntax highlighting or autocomplete until I was much older. So I can see why some people nowadays aren’t concerned as much with things like indentation. Syntax highlighting adds another dimension of legibility. I couldn’t imagine coding a website even just in plain old html without good indentation if there was no syntax highlighting.

Re: Letting tools make choices

#18

Post by SirSavary »

auston wrote: post #6

I’ve always struggled with this, on the one hand I recognize my productivity/efficiency increase. On the other... I feel like tooling that automatically makes decisions for you can be a crutch if you don’t take the time to understand it. It might be me getting older/grouchier but watching a dev use black or prettier because they don’t know how/are too lazy to indent their code properly is frustrating for me. Or when…

If I can add on to this, I'd say it's okay for new devs to use a tool such as prettier without knowing how it works as long as they know what it's purposes is and why they're using it.

I remember when I first started programming I often used tools without understanding what they did simply because a guide or Stackoverflow answer recommended them. It led to a lot of problems down the road, e.g. Googling for "how to add two numbers using jQuery".

When I try to teach junior devs, I'll let them use User.find... as long as they understand someone else is writing the SQL for them and that it isn't some magic database tool ;)

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