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I Don't Like Magic

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Re: I Don't Like Magic

#11

Post by vladms »

The advantage of frameworks is to have a "common language" to achieve some goals together with a team. A good framework hides some of the stupid mistakes you would do when you would try to develop that "language" from scratch.

When you do a project from scratch, if you work enough on it, you end up wishing you would have started differently and you refactor pieces of it. While using a framework I sometimes have moments where I suddenly get the underlying reasons and advantages of doing things in a certain way, but that comes once you become more of a power user, than at start, and only if you put the effort to question. And other times the framework is just bad and you have to switch...

Re: I Don't Like Magic

#12

Post by selridge »

pessimizer wrote: post #10
noelwelsh wrote: post #7

If you have this attitude I hope you write everything in assembly. Except assembly is compiled into micro-ops, so hopefully you avoid that by using an 8080 (according to a quick search, the last Intel CPU to not have micro-ops.) In other words, why is one particular abstraction (e.g. Javscript, or the web browser) ok, but another abstraction (e.g. React) not? This attitude doesn't make sense to me.

Are you seriously saying that you can't understand the concept of different abstractions having different levels of usefulness? That's the law of averages taken to cosmic proportions. If this is true, why have more than one abstraction?

I just think everyone who says they don't like magic should be forced to give an extemporaneous explanation of paging.

Re: I Don't Like Magic

#13

Post by pdonis »

xantronix wrote: post #2

Predicated upon the definition of "magic" provided in the article: What is it, if anything, about magic that draws people to it? Is there a process wherein people build tolerance and acceptance to opaque abstractions through learning? Or, is it acceptance that "this is the way things are done", upheld by cargo cult development, tutorials, examples, and the like, for the sake of commercial expediency? I can certainly…

> What is it, if anything, about magic that draws people to it?

Simple: if it's magic, you don't have to do the hard work of understanding how it works in order to use it. Just use the right incantation and you're done. Sounds great as long as you don't think about the fact that not understanding how it works is actually a bug, not a feature.

Re: I Don't Like Magic

#14

Post by sodapopcan »

vladms wrote: post #11

The advantage of frameworks is to have a "common language" to achieve some goals together with a team. A good framework hides some of the stupid mistakes you would do when you would try to develop that "language" from scratch. When you do a project from scratch, if you work enough on it, you end up wishing you would have started differently and you refactor pieces of it. While using a framework I sometimes have momen…

The problem with this is that it means you have to read guides which it seems no one wants to do. It drives me nuts.

But ya, I hate when people say they don't like "magic." It's not magic, it's programming.

Re: I Don't Like Magic

#15

Post by vandahm »

I've used React on projects and understand its usefulness, but also React has killed my love of frontend development. And now that everyone is using it to build huge, clunky SPAs instead of normal websites that just work, React has all but killed my love of using the web, too.

Re: I Don't Like Magic

#16

Post by sodapopcan »

If you are the only person who ever touches your code, fine, otherwise I despise this attitude and would insta-reject any candidate who said this. In a team setting, "I don't like magic" and "I don't want to learn a framework" means: "I want you to learn my bespoke framework I'm inevitably going to write."

Re: I Don't Like Magic

#18

Post by socalgal2 »

pdonis wrote: post #13
xantronix wrote: post #2

Predicated upon the definition of "magic" provided in the article: What is it, if anything, about magic that draws people to it? Is there a process wherein people build tolerance and acceptance to opaque abstractions through learning? Or, is it acceptance that "this is the way things are done", upheld by cargo cult development, tutorials, examples, and the like, for the sake of commercial expediency? I can certainly…

> What is it, if anything, about magic that draws people to it? Simple: if it's magic, you don't have to do the hard work of understanding how it works in order to use it. Just use the right incantation and you're done. Sounds great as long as you don't think about the fact that not understanding how it works is actually a bug, not a feature.

Or is just a specialization choice. Taxi drivers don't care how a car works, they hire a mechanic for that. Doctors don't care how a catscan works they just care that it provides the data they need in a useful format.

Re: I Don't Like Magic

#19

Post by james_marks »

tokenless wrote: post #8

The AI pilled view is coding is knitting and AI is an automated loom. But it is not quite the case. The hand coded solution may be quicker than AI at reaching the business goal. If there is an elegant crafted solution that stays in prod 10 years and just works it is better than an initially quicker AI coded solution that needs more maintenance and demands a team to maintain it. If AI (and especially bad operators of…

Doesn’t the loom metaphor still hold? A badly operated loom will create bad fabric the same way badly used AI will make unsafe, unscalable programs.

Anything that can be automated can be automated poorly, but we accept that trained operators can use looms effectively.

Re: I Don't Like Magic

#20

Post by c22 »

socalgal2 wrote: post #18
pdonis wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is it, if anything, about magic that draws people to it? Simple: if it's magic, you don't have to do the hard work of understanding how it works in order to use it. Just use the right incantation and you're done. Sounds great as long as you don't think about the fact that not understanding how it works is actually a bug, not a feature.

Or is just a specialization choice. Taxi drivers don't care how a car works, they hire a mechanic for that. Doctors don't care how a catscan works they just care that it provides the data they need in a useful format.

I like the definition of magic I learned from Penn Jillette, (paraphrased): magic is just someone spending way more resources to produce the result than you expected.
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