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All Programming is Web Programming

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Re: All Programming is Web Programming

#11

Post by nathanb »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #4
CPlatypus wrote: post #2

What Jeff apparently meant was that all application programming is web programming. Because of this unstated (and absurd) assumption, Jeff's critique fails to address most of Michael's points - whether you agree with those points or not. By completely ignoring the system-programmer perspective, Jeff actually manages to be more insulting and apparently clueless than Michael was.

Someone has managed to necro a two-year old argument. What we said two years ago may not be the same as what we say now.

He was making a prediction about the future. A prediction which was provably wrong in 2009 and has become even more wrong today. If there's no accountability--if we don't look back on the things we write about the future and learn from them--we will not grow and will continue making inane predictions.

Re: All Programming is Web Programming

#13

Post by nathanb »

billpatrianakos wrote: post #7
cq wrote: post #5

I don't particularly care for either argument, it just seems like pointless pandering to different fan bases. Applications will evolve towards any platform as necessary

Agreed. Comes off as biased fanboy-ism. It's easy to knock web programming because of how low the barrier to entry is and how any idiot who knows msqli_connect and a few simple HTML tags usually starts calling themselves a programmer. But really it takes just as much knowledge and expertise to be a "web guy". Just understanding how the client browser interacts with the server, the server to each of its components (th…

Indeed.

I (a systems programmer) can write web code just as well as a good web programmer can write systems code: badly. That web frameworks and infrastructure tend to be more forgiving than bare hardware and system architecture is likely why the stereotype of the incompetent web programmer has come about, but the quality of a good web programmer is roughly equivalent to the quality of a good mobile developer or a good systems programmer or a good desktop application programmer.

Re: All Programming is Web Programming

#15

Post by feralchimp »

georgieporgie wrote: post #14
Abdul321 wrote: post #12

That's expected from someone who does not know C. Not all programming is gluing stuff together..

Eh? What's special about C that means you don't glue things together? I'm pretty sure I've glued things together in C before...

I think his meaning was "exclusively" gluing things together.

Re: All Programming is Web Programming

#16

Post by georgieporgie »

All of the arguments that state some variant of, "X results in better programs, because X programmers are better, because X is hard," are ridiculous. Getting software done is more about stubbornness and drive than it is about intelligence. I've known a number of very slow, irrational people who were extremely set on goals, and I've known even more brilliant people who could rarely see anything through to completion.

Re: All Programming is Web Programming

#19

Post by aklofas »

Hmm. I would have to disagree with Atwood. Most software development is still on the desktop. That is to say, there is still a very, very large sector of chip designers, robotics, medical devices, embedded systems, aircraft/spacecraft/cars/etc., OSes, hand-held gadgets, blah blah blah that all write non-javascript, non-ruby stuff.

This website seems to be focused around the startup-website culture, so maybe this isn't the best crowd to reality-check. Sometimes a different perspective is useful, though.

As for Atwoods Law, that's pretty ridiculous.

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