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Now might be the best time to learn software development

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Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#101

Post by idiotsecant »

noworriesnate wrote: post #25
ako wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And compared to what we had before SQL, it is much easier to use, and a lot more people are able to use it.

But software developers often struggle to use sql and prefer using ORMs or analytical APIs like polars; the people who excel at sql are typically not programmers, they’re data engineers, DBAs, analysts, etc. Maybe a similar bifurcation will arise where there are vibe coders who use LLMs to write everything, and there are real engineers who avoid LLMs. Maybe we’re seeing the beginning of that with the whole bifurcatio…

'real' engineers can use SQL just fine. This is a strange position to take.

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#102

Post by adalacelove »

noworriesnate wrote: post #25
ako wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And compared to what we had before SQL, it is much easier to use, and a lot more people are able to use it.

But software developers often struggle to use sql and prefer using ORMs or analytical APIs like polars; the people who excel at sql are typically not programmers, they’re data engineers, DBAs, analysts, etc. Maybe a similar bifurcation will arise where there are vibe coders who use LLMs to write everything, and there are real engineers who avoid LLMs. Maybe we’re seeing the beginning of that with the whole bifurcatio…

I'm a developer and: - I hate ORMs, they are the source for a lot of obscure errors behind layers and layers of abstractions. - I prefer analytical APIs for technical reasons, not just the language.

Reasons: - I can compose queries, which in turn makes them easier to decompose - It's easier to spot errors - I avoid parsing SQL strings - It's easier to interact with the rest of the code, both functions and objects

If I need to make just a query I gladly write SQL

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#104

Post by musicale »

psunavy03 wrote: post #14

"Great news, boss! We invented this new tool that allows nontechnical people to write code in English! Now anyone can deploy applications, and we don't have to hire all those expensive developers!" "Wow, show it to me!" "OK here it is. We call it COBOL."

FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslator) was another "AI" project in "automatic programming":

"Before 1954, almost all programming was done in machine language or assembly language. Programmers rightly regarded their work as a complex, creative art that required human inventiveness to produce an efficient program."

-John Backus, "The History of Fortran I, II, and III", https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/800025.1198345

"The IBM Mathematical Formula Translating System or briefly, FORTRAN, will comprise a large set of programs to enable the IBM 704 to accept a concise formulation of a problem in terms of a mathematical notation and to produce automatically a high speed 704 program for the solution of the problem."

-IBM, "Specifications for the IBM Mathematical FORmula TRANslating System, FORTRAN", http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Fortran/10...

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#105

Post by sanderjd »

noworriesnate wrote: post #25
ako wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And compared to what we had before SQL, it is much easier to use, and a lot more people are able to use it.

But software developers often struggle to use sql and prefer using ORMs or analytical APIs like polars; the people who excel at sql are typically not programmers, they’re data engineers, DBAs, analysts, etc. Maybe a similar bifurcation will arise where there are vibe coders who use LLMs to write everything, and there are real engineers who avoid LLMs. Maybe we’re seeing the beginning of that with the whole bifurcatio…

> But software developers often struggle to use sql

Is this true? It doesn't seem true to me.

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#106

Post by sanderjd »

veqq wrote: post #35
glimshe wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're joking but it's true. I'm sure you know that. SQL had similar claims... Declarative, say what you need and the computer will do for you. Also written in English.

Er, have you heard of datalog or Prolog? Declarative programming really does work. SQL was just... Botched.

I think SQL is better than datalog. I suspect this is one of those opinions that may be somewhat outside consensus on a forum like HN, but is strongly within the consensus more broadly.

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#107

Post by el_benhameen »

NoPicklez wrote: post #84

My take just purely based on the title, I'm in the security space not a developer but I did study it during my degree. I would say that when the fundamentals are easier to learn it becomes a great time to learn anything. I remember spending so much of my degree during software development trying to fix bugs and have things explained by trawling through online forums like many of us have. Looking for different ways of…

I have found them quite helpful in the same way. I can bounce ideas off of them or say “here’s my understanding of this; in what ways am I incorrect?”. I don’t trust them to have pinpoint accuracy on complex problems, but given the way they’re trained, I do trust them to be directionally correct. That makes getting past hangups faster and leads me to ask more, better questions of myself, which I think means I learn faster.

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#108

Post by ruszki »

noworriesnate wrote: post #25
ako wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And compared to what we had before SQL, it is much easier to use, and a lot more people are able to use it.

But software developers often struggle to use sql and prefer using ORMs or analytical APIs like polars; the people who excel at sql are typically not programmers, they’re data engineers, DBAs, analysts, etc. Maybe a similar bifurcation will arise where there are vibe coders who use LLMs to write everything, and there are real engineers who avoid LLMs. Maybe we’re seeing the beginning of that with the whole bifurcatio…

What you can achieve with the standard SQL is taught on universities. The whole package. I’ve never met a developer, who struggled with that. When you use ORMs you need to follow SQL’s logic anyway. People use ORMs to avoid painful data conversions. Not to avoid the logic. Data engineers, DBAs, analysts, etc excel in specific databases, not in “SQL”.

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#110

Post by tonyedgecombe »

lupire wrote: post #82
dijksterhuis wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does every system need to be efficient?

Sorry to be that guy, but would to prefer if your computer and phone each cost $5000?

In some ways I would, computing lost something once normal people were allowed in.
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