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My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

thecodist.com

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Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#101

Post by friendzis »

rajeemcariazo wrote: post #41
askyourmother wrote: post #37

Regrets as a programmer: 1. Every piece of unpolished, unfinished code that management decided should ship to the customers regardless 2. Ever using node and npm. 3. Seeing and living through the train wreck of J2EE and the XML horrors that ensued. 4. Not seeing the beauty in simple functions early on. Not everything needs to be a class or module. 5. Most business problems are political/social - regret every time we…

could you elaborate more about using node and npm

I am not node developer, but I don't think it solves the problems it is supposed to.

Serving pages rendered with node via webserver (nginx, apache) is not the most pleasant experience compared to e.g. python + wsgi

npm packages are not packages. It is simply a dependency definition + repository. Pull in package from npm and it is nowhere near usable until you figure out where it actually puts the files you care. You only know it's somewhere in `node_pacakges/`. Compare to e.g. gulp or python pip. You just pull in a package and it's usable.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#102

Post by sokoloff »

byw wrote: post #26

I keep hearing stories of non-technical managers making elementary mistakes when it comes to technical decisions. Many of the things are so widely established, they can be learned by spending a little time reading a few books, talking to a few people. So I have to wonder what the obstacles are here. An aversion to reading? Inflexible management dogma? Distractible lifestyles? Poor critical thinking in general?

Reflexively, I keep hearing stories (and seeing some firsthand) where technical managers are making elementary mistakes when it comes to people matters.

Many of these things are so widely established....

It's a problem in both directions. In my view, the non-technical managers need to learn to take more counsel from the technical experts working for them, since most technical matters can be openly discussed. People matters, at least some of the sticky ones, can't be openly discussed with a panel of experts.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#105

Post by davidgl »

eru wrote: post #76
askyourmother wrote: post #37

Regrets as a programmer: 1. Every piece of unpolished, unfinished code that management decided should ship to the customers regardless 2. Ever using node and npm. 3. Seeing and living through the train wreck of J2EE and the XML horrors that ensued. 4. Not seeing the beauty in simple functions early on. Not everything needs to be a class or module. 5. Most business problems are political/social - regret every time we…

> 5. Most business problems are political/social - regret every time we were called in to try and provide a "technical" band aid to those same problems. Why? Social and political problems are really hard to solve. If you can use technology to sidestep them, that's exactly the right way to do it.

That's the problem, you can't solve people problems with technology, god knows I've seen enough people try ...

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#106

Post by almostarockstar »

wtbob wrote: post #80
forgottenacc56 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JavaScript is actually an incredibly flexible and effective language.

> JavaScript is actually an incredibly flexible and effective language. == vs === No integers. Assignment is declaration. Prototypes. Curly brackets & semicolons. Semicolon insertion. It may be flexible (in the sense that an Alfa Romeo driven into a telephone pole at 120 mph is flexible), but it sure as heck ain't effective. JavaScript is the great shame of the computing industry: that it exists, and that it is used,…

The flexibility of JS is not how the language is designed, it is the hole that the language is filling.

The fact that using JS you can write a browser based app, a mobile app, backend software, configuration files and flat data files (JSON) without switching gears is the flexibility.

I would also argue that if you really don't like JS, you are using the wrong tool for whatever job you are trying to do.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#107

Post by davidgl »

forgottenacc56 wrote: post #56
rajeemcariazo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

could you elaborate more about using node and npm

I used to hate npm with the burning heat of a thousand supernovas. I think maybe they changed the way it works because now it tends to work instead of assaulting you viciously with a massive cascade of dependency errors every time you try to install a package. Until recently it was quite the absolute worst experience of software ever for me and I used DOS and Windows 1.0. Every time I realized I had to use npm I woul…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness :D

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#108

Post by i336_ »

Lerc wrote: post #72
chii wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a contingent of people who believe that Robert Frost was lamenting the fact that he took the road less traveled by, and had a worse experience. There's a good reason why certain roads are more traveled, and by not going the common path, his life was much harder.

I took it to be a satirical comment on the way everyone expresses their individuality the same way. Very much the in the same theme as the Monty Python gag: CROWD: We are all Individuals! GUY AT BACK: I'm not.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079470/quotes

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#109

Post by a_imho »

askyourmother wrote: post #37

Regrets as a programmer: 1. Every piece of unpolished, unfinished code that management decided should ship to the customers regardless 2. Ever using node and npm. 3. Seeing and living through the train wreck of J2EE and the XML horrors that ensued. 4. Not seeing the beauty in simple functions early on. Not everything needs to be a class or module. 5. Most business problems are political/social - regret every time we…

>5. Most business problems are political/social

Very insightful. Wondering why it is not discussed more often with so many snake oilers selling their silver bullets.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#110

Post by edraferi »

a_imho wrote: post #109
askyourmother wrote: post #37

Regrets as a programmer: 1. Every piece of unpolished, unfinished code that management decided should ship to the customers regardless 2. Ever using node and npm. 3. Seeing and living through the train wreck of J2EE and the XML horrors that ensued. 4. Not seeing the beauty in simple functions early on. Not everything needs to be a class or module. 5. Most business problems are political/social - regret every time we…

>5. Most business problems are political/social Very insightful. Wondering why it is not discussed more often with so many snake oilers selling their silver bullets.

It's a lot simpler to throw money at technology than actually face policy / culture problems.
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