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Speak English to me: The secret world of programmers

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Re: Speak English to me: The secret world of programmers

#11

Post by Swizec »

6keZbCECT2uB wrote: post #9
Swizec wrote: post #3

> "Why does it have to be so complicated? I just want to install a program" > "Why would you do that in the command line? It's way easier using $Program" A concerning observation that’s slowly dawning on me is that more and more programmers don’t know how computers work. They can write code, build software, and do lots of useful things. But they have no idea how computers work. They’re more akin to lusers as we used…

It's a common sentiment that others don't know how computers work. I'm sure you personally are an exception, but I think that most people with this sentiment live in glass houses and don't realize how little they understand about how computers work. Since I don't know how they work, I can't provide comprehensive examples, but I remember being surprised by details around dynamic linking and relocatable binaries, aroun…

No of course I don’t know everything and there’s lots I used to know but have forgotten.

But I do feel fortunate that I got to see a lot of the modern abstraction come into being so I have a vague idea of what they’re abstracting and why. That helps a lot.

Re: Speak English to me: The secret world of programmers

#12

Post by makeitdouble »

jonahx wrote: post #8

Everything in the post can by explained by "People think the familiar is easy, and the novel is hard." Judged by the standards of a programmer, yes, the suggested solutions are simpler. Judged by the non-technical coworker's standards, no, they are new and therefore scary and harder. You might say, "If they expended even 5 minutes of effort, they would not feel that way." But that's 5 minutes more than just using the…

The interesting part to me is, these "non-technical" coworkers aren't proposing simpler solutions. When reading "Why couldn't you just do this in something simple like Word?", Word isn't what I'd call a simple program from any angle.

It's not preinstalled on most computers and costs money, it won't run everywhere (running Word on a school provided Chromebook is a world of fun), for decades it had version compatibility issues, and the current version has an UI that would make an airliner pilot feel right at home.

To me most people in the corporate environment are highly technical and have arcane knowledge of crazy complicated tools and workflows. Just not _our_ tools and workflows.

And yes, I also don't want to go buy an Office license, install Word, learn how to deal with the commenting options, what format I should save the file back, when some random person sends me a Word file. So we're all pretty alike I think.

Re: Speak English to me: The secret world of programmers

#13

Post by fcatalan »

I find a version of this even with fresh out of college programmers.

They just know how to type Java on an IDE, maybe some SQL (using some graphical front end), some HTML/CSS. They can't operate in a Linux dev environment at all, can't use the command line or exit vi or perform any kind of simple shell based automation or use git without a plugin for their IDE.

And they also are reluctant to learn because they are self defined into some narrow field that doesn't include all this ops trickery in our workflow that they don't consider real programming.

Re: Speak English to me: The secret world of programmers

#14

Post by j16sdiz »

jpgvm wrote: post #2

Something I have noticed across the technical/non-technical divide is that the concepts of simplicity and difficulty are easily conflated. Often non-technical folk are only interested in "easy" solutions. Technical folks are more inclined to pick simple solutions. The perception of simple being hard mostly comes from simple often eliding things like a GUI which is inherently complex and overkill for a good number of…

Tech folks tends to over engineering the solution: https://xkcd.com/1319/

Re: Speak English to me: The secret world of programmers

#16

Post by sqs »

Yeah, I feel this. I recently added a .tool-versions file to a website repository (that non-programmers need to edit) and updated the README to say "install asdf (https://asdf-vm.com/) and then run `pnpm install`". And then I saw people try to follow the instructions and start needing to install Xcode, then Homebrew, etc., and it took forever. I think the right solution is to give them a 1-click cloud IDE with the repository loaded and a live preview running in the background.

Re: Speak English to me: The secret world of programmers

#18

Post by nicolas_t »

fcatalan wrote: post #13

I find a version of this even with fresh out of college programmers. They just know how to type Java on an IDE, maybe some SQL (using some graphical front end), some HTML/CSS. They can't operate in a Linux dev environment at all, can't use the command line or exit vi or perform any kind of simple shell based automation or use git without a plugin for their IDE. And they also are reluctant to learn because they are se…

What kind of college grads don't know how to operate in a linux dev environment? That'd be an immediate no-hire from me.

Re: Speak English to me: The secret world of programmers

#20

Post by voidfunc »

nicolas_t wrote: post #18
fcatalan wrote: post #13

I find a version of this even with fresh out of college programmers. They just know how to type Java on an IDE, maybe some SQL (using some graphical front end), some HTML/CSS. They can't operate in a Linux dev environment at all, can't use the command line or exit vi or perform any kind of simple shell based automation or use git without a plugin for their IDE. And they also are reluctant to learn because they are se…

What kind of college grads don't know how to operate in a linux dev environment? That'd be an immediate no-hire from me.

Most lol. You only hiring MIT and Stanford grads?
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