Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work?

#101

Post by bmh100 » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 6:07 PM UTC

Kaizyn wrote: post #37

altitudinous wrote: post #30

I am in my late 40's, I have been coding since I began uni in 1987, I have a Computer Science degree. When I got out there 25+ years ago I was all about doing things the best way, code reuse, refactor etc to get things just right. Most younger devs are. It took so much time getting the environments perfect, unit tests, etc. The customer paid for that, my managers must have been tearing their hair out watching us faff…

So the quality is reliant upon your 'personal software process' or individual discipline while you work rather than upon practices like test-driven development, continuous integration, etc.?

I work in an environment like this. The need for TDD and CI are greatly reduced through the use of modular code design, encapsulating major logic/system units with a uniform API, and coding standards. The emphasis is inherent program quality as opposed to external quality checks. One consequence is the discouragement of individual creative flourish: "clever" code is discouraged, and descriptiveness is favored over terseness. This makes the code easy to understand, to modify, to check for correctness, and to reason about. Of course, there are still unit tests and integration tests, but their role is more low level and less visible.

Re: Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work?

#102

Post by JamesBarney » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 6:12 PM UTC

Learn how to write. This is something I'm working on slowly. But seriously, documentation can separate successful open source projects from unsuccessful ones.

Also when you're working for a client ability to communicate and make sure you're building the right thing will trump building the thing right.

Re: Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work?

#103

Post by dllthomas » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 6:33 PM UTC

gragas wrote: post #61

dllthomas wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume proud of completion, and proud of UI design.

Ah, proud of UI design makes sense. I thought OP was feeling proud about his/her program design, immediately after mentioning it's so awful.

Yeah, that wouldn't have made a lot of sense :-P

Re: Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work?

#104

Post by gaelow » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 6:46 PM UTC

Coding ability wise, elite coders are usually already well above the average professional senior programmer level while still in their teens (emphasis on coding ability wise).

But,

- They are a tiny fraction of the collective. Pretty much everyone else sucks at programming.

- Coding is like working out. Even if you are not elite, you can improve a lot if you persevere. All the way through your entire career, no matter how long.

- It is not all about coding skills. Maybe for those 40k LOC one-man app guys it is, but that's not even the most common scenario anymore. You can compensate with other skills such as being inspirational, having good insights, ability to QA a product/design and identify its weak spots and potential on the early stages, ability to break down a problem into smaller ones and prioritize your tasks, ability to evaluate, understand and communicate with team mates and clients (social skills with coding skills is always a winning combination)... The list goes on and on. Even though it's not all related to programming, it is stuff you'll eventually have to deal with as a professional programmer, specially in the startup world.

Code is reusable. You don't have to be a genius coder to put together a slick and successful app. Even for the most innovative software, the code of every part is most likely already there, written by experts in a clean, efficient, robust and well-documented module you can use free of charge, even commercially. So go on and use it. (I know it's actually not that easy, but mostly piles of crap until you find something useful and learn to use it properly. You get better at that too).

Re: Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work?

#105

Post by sitkack » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 7:03 PM UTC

codr4life wrote: post #70

sitkack wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not the answer. Write code with careful attention. The OP has written at least 30kloc, this is more than enough.

I don't agree, lines of code has nothing to do with experience level. Hitting your head against the wall trying to solve new kinds of problems is where the gold is. And that takes time, and courage.

We agree generally. The OP doesn't need to code more, they need to think more deeply, with more purpose. They probably should actually write less code.

Re: Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work?

#106

Post by blt » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 8:04 PM UTC

There is lots of good advice in this thread. I would like to focus on your comment about race conditions. It's very good that you have identified this weakness in your code. Writing concurrent code is hard, but it's also valuable experience because there is no room for shortcuts. If you don't do it right, your code will fail eventually. Therefore writing concurrent code, identifying bugs, and fixing them will train you to think rigorously about your code.

Diagnosing bugs often comes down an exploration of every possible sequence of events, trying to identify the pattern of sequences that triggers the bug, and figuring out how to fix it. In single-threaded code the debugger can make this task easy, but attaching a debugger (or even building in debug mode) often makes concurrency bugs go away, so you are forced to solve the problem in your head by analyzing the system. This experience is like strength training for programmers. I would suggest putting extra effort in the concurrent parts of your code, really try to make them correct. In the end, the practice will improve the quality of your non-concurrent code too.

Re: Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work?

#107

Post by upstill » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 9:04 PM UTC

syngrog66 wrote: post #72

this rings as very fake and/or blatantly self-promotional. I wish HN had less of this type of post. I feel like a certain percentage of HN posters have learned how to push enough of the buttons of the rest of you to make it a net win for them. just nauseating. And now come the downvotes, because I know I am effectively "not allowed" to express this kind of opinion without penalty -- yet I don't care, let's burn it up…

Well, that's one opinion--unique, judging by the other responses. Someone asking for help and insight is "fake", "self-promotional", "nauseating" and manipulative? And downvotes on such a judgement are somehow out of bounds?

Dude. Take a pill. Get over yourself.

Re: Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work?

#108

Post by Ronin354 » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 10:29 PM UTC

autotune wrote: post #53

kfrzcode wrote: post #16

Hey tastyface. I feel you. I'm here. I didn't graduate from college, and my knowledge is ad-hoc, learned-by-doing and incomplete. I told myself I wouldn't give up until I was making a living writing code. I'm doing that, and it's been arduous, but I've never been more intellectually fulfilled. It's scary, to think there's a whole new generation of programmers who probably can learn faster and more fully internalize a…

Working 80-100 hour weeks will almost definitely lead to burnout, or any other number of problems that result from not being able to take a break from the work.

If this is the case how does elon musk survive. I think people working for elon also does same

Re: Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work?

#109

Post by Ronin354 » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 10:30 PM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #105

codr4life wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree, lines of code has nothing to do with experience level. Hitting your head against the wall trying to solve new kinds of problems is where the gold is. And that takes time, and courage.

We agree generally. The OP doesn't need to code more, they need to think more deeply, with more purpose. They probably should actually write less code.

This definitely sounds right. But is this from your experience ?

Re: Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work?

#110

Post by itamarst » Sun, Dec 11, 2016, 1:43 AM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #11

For what it's worth, you're feeling the same combination of awe and doubt that grips almost any creative practitioner at some point. Writers realize that there are other people who can write an extremely well-structured, gripping novel in a matter of months. Artists see their colleagues do live drawing and suddenly understand that something that is painful and difficult for them comes easy for these other people. (I…

To put it more succinctly: there will always be someone better you.

But there's a good side that - if there's someone better than you that means you have someone to learn from. So when you encounter good code take the time to learn from it (and from the mistakes its authors made when they were less experienced: https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/03/22/language-evolution/).