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Why I Love Coding (2012)

henrikwarne.com

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Re: Why I Love Coding (2012)

#111

Post by username90 »

bombcar wrote: post #91
sombremesa wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There really is a special kind of satisfaction when you see something you wrote actually work. I think your second sentence is actually the key here - first time. If you do something day in day out for 20 years there’s no surprise if it works. Thankfully, there’s plenty of room in the domain of programming for someone to go from seasoned expert to absolute beginner and experience the joy all over again.

Exactly - the first time you work out a "puzzle" it's amazing - especially if it's a complex one without a "solution" that you can glance at when you get stuck. But doing roughly the same thing for 20 years it can get wearing - it's a different form of brainwork at that point.

Why would you code roughly the same thing over and over? Don't people do that because they want a nice and easy job rather than constantly challenging themselves?

My impression is that if you constantly do "exciting" stuff you burn out at work. It isn't like school where you do new things all the time but they give you plenty of time to internalize stuff. So people eventually just accept the easy situation where they are comfortable and don't have to do new exciting things.

Re: Why I Love Coding (2012)

#112

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

commandlinefan wrote: post #105

That's why I don't know what to say to people who ask me why I would write my own date picker control or my own URL parser or (you might want to sit down for this) my own cryptography routines. If you don't already understand why I would want to do that, I don't have an explanation that's going to make sense.

This is why it boggles my mind schools bother teaching low level standard library operating systems coding. Not only is the likelihood of me needing to know how to implement my own scheduler, bit also dynamically allocating memory. The system is so low level that the only way you will ever do that is if you work with MS, Apple, or contribute to Linux. Which I'd wager is only a single digit percentage of programmers worldwide.

Re: Why I Love Coding (2012)

#113

Post by username90 »

bluedino wrote: post #68
nly wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're lucky enough to actually write code (or preferably, solve problems) at work then you're already quite lucky. I seem to spend all my time in meetings, preparing presentations, performing sysadmin tasks, testing things owned by other teams or external providers, looking things up for people, "resolving" tickets, communicating with other teams, chasing other teams, debugging internal infrastructure, doing code…

Coding is hell in the wrong environment. Requirements always changing, not being allowed to go back and fix or improve things...

Coding feels like that art game kids do where each person paints a part of a picture without seeing what any of the other kids are doing. The main difference is that with code management will give the end results to customers who will complain a lot if the parts don't fit well together. So instead of learning to become an artist you learn to do as boring work as possible to match what every other developer is doing. It is sad to see when some here considers that state to be the true peak of this craft.

Re: Why I Love Coding (2012)

#114

Post by TchoBeer »

allenu wrote: post #60
jack-bodine wrote: post #9

There really is a special kind of satisfaction when you see something you wrote actually work. I remember the first time I made a sprite move around the screen with arrow keys, I probably moved that guy around for several minutes just out of pride. I'm sure we all have similar memories.

When I was a kid and learned about BASIC, I would write little snippets of code in my paper notebook. I didn’t have a computer at home at the time. One time we were doing a math test in the computer room with Apple IIes and we were allowed to use them as our calculator. I finished the test early, so I thought, what program can I write in the five to ten minutes I have that would be neat? I ended up just making the sc…

A magic moment for me was writing a sorting algorithm that was horrifically inefficient (I think it was like bubble sort but worse), and then later finding out about recursive sorting and making what I now know to be merge sort. It was really special to realize that you can make code that does the same thing but faster if you're clever.

Re: Why I Love Coding (2012)

#115

Post by BeFlatXIII »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #112
commandlinefan wrote: post #105

That's why I don't know what to say to people who ask me why I would write my own date picker control or my own URL parser or (you might want to sit down for this) my own cryptography routines. If you don't already understand why I would want to do that, I don't have an explanation that's going to make sense.

This is why it boggles my mind schools bother teaching low level standard library operating systems coding. Not only is the likelihood of me needing to know how to implement my own scheduler, bit also dynamically allocating memory. The system is so low level that the only way you will ever do that is if you work with MS, Apple, or contribute to Linux. Which I'd wager is only a single digit percentage of programmers w…

To be honest, your example here reminded me of the standard pre-med chemistry curriculum many of my classmates were in. It has an extended focus on building up from fundamentals that I am not sure pays off once it’s time to handle the high-level concepts. The chemistry sequence is something like gen chem |> o chem |> bio chem |> pharmacology. My understanding is that most of the pharmacology fundamentals are not used by MDs in practice: it’s usually only a dedicated PharmD, MD/PhD, or the EMR who considers the chemistry of various drugs on a regular basis.

The other thing that comes to mind is the quip that it’s easier to innovate down the stack than up the stack. Apple can design new chips better than Intel can create an operating system.

Re: Why I Love Coding (2012)

#116

Post by smithza »

the_only_law wrote: post #7

I feel like I’ve lost most of my interest in it. It’s been years since I’ve been truly excited by it and and motivated to do it, but I had been on and off the edge, losing interest for long periods of time before a random spark of motivation would bring it back, only to go out within a few months at most, and after the most recent spark, I’m not sure if I can see myself coming back to programming. It’s a strange feel…

I wonder if this is tangentially related, and worry that it might be an unpopular view, but in relationships, with a family member or spouse/partner, falling out of love can be a self-reinforcing feedback loop of separation. Sometimes the solution is to stop worrying about not having the feelings and affections and act as if you feel affection; the affection will grow out of the discipline.

Re: Why I Love Coding (2012)

#117

Post by gytdau »

smithza wrote: post #116
the_only_law wrote: post #7

I feel like I’ve lost most of my interest in it. It’s been years since I’ve been truly excited by it and and motivated to do it, but I had been on and off the edge, losing interest for long periods of time before a random spark of motivation would bring it back, only to go out within a few months at most, and after the most recent spark, I’m not sure if I can see myself coming back to programming. It’s a strange feel…

I wonder if this is tangentially related, and worry that it might be an unpopular view, but in relationships, with a family member or spouse/partner, falling out of love can be a self-reinforcing feedback loop of separation. Sometimes the solution is to stop worrying about not having the feelings and affections and act as if you feel affection ; the affection will grow out of the discipline.

Or, alternatively, will pretending to have affection simply cement the feeling that affection is unrewarding? Perhaps there is a case to be made to lean into not having affection, to fall out of love and to have a break, and to let it arise again naturally instead of summoning it via artifice.

Re: Why I Love Coding (2012)

#118

Post by smithza »

gytdau wrote: post #117
smithza wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if this is tangentially related, and worry that it might be an unpopular view, but in relationships, with a family member or spouse/partner, falling out of love can be a self-reinforcing feedback loop of separation. Sometimes the solution is to stop worrying about not having the feelings and affections and act as if you feel affection ; the affection will grow out of the discipline.

Or, alternatively, will pretending to have affection simply cement the feeling that affection is unrewarding? Perhaps there is a case to be made to lean into not having affection, to fall out of love and to have a break, and to let it arise again naturally instead of summoning it via artifice.

I prefaced the opinion as likely being unpopular. It is something that I contemplate as a husband when affection is low and wits are at an end (with a toddler demanding much energy and attention from my wife and I). It has helped immensely in my attitude that disciplining myself to just love her has stirred up feelings of love inside. It is the virtuous opposite of the self-reinforcing cycle of despair and resentment.

Re: Why I Love Coding (2012)

#119

Post by nonameiguess »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #112
commandlinefan wrote: post #105

That's why I don't know what to say to people who ask me why I would write my own date picker control or my own URL parser or (you might want to sit down for this) my own cryptography routines. If you don't already understand why I would want to do that, I don't have an explanation that's going to make sense.

This is why it boggles my mind schools bother teaching low level standard library operating systems coding. Not only is the likelihood of me needing to know how to implement my own scheduler, bit also dynamically allocating memory. The system is so low level that the only way you will ever do that is if you work with MS, Apple, or contribute to Linux. Which I'd wager is only a single digit percentage of programmers w…

Schools are also trying to prepare people who might be going to grad school and into research careers. Computer Science is still an academic discipline, not just a vocational major. Very little research goes into creating user-facing consumer apps. A ton of research goes into trying to make virtual memory allocators and process schedulers work just a tiny bit better.

Pre-med is totally different since it is explicitly vocational. People in it are becoming licensed clinicians. If they want to do medical research, they need to separately pursue a PhD.

What more schools need are Software Engineering degrees in addition to Computer Science, maybe even Application Development as its own major or sub-focus within Software Engineering. Some schools have something like this, but at the biggest and most prestigious institutions, there is a huge focus on research.

Re: Why I Love Coding (2012)

#120

Post by progmetaldev »

megamix wrote: post #27

Coding at work sucks. Coding at home is great as a hobby.

I've found being the only developer, or in a very small team of developers, with realistic deadlines is most enjoyable. There's always the looming deadline, but being a small team means everyone is of the understanding of how timelines and coding works (as long as you are truly a close-knit team).
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