Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

“Coding is basically just ifs and for loops.”

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 418 posts

Re: “Coding is basically just ifs and for loops.”

#121

Post by kwertyoowiyop »

montalbano wrote: post #108
ncann wrote: post #14

That first reply is so funny to me because it hits too close to home https://twitter.com/nice_byte/status/1466940940229046273 The more I do this, the more I gravitate towards the simple things.

Funny, I posted this on another HN thread [0] recently, but it's perfectly relevant again: We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. T. S. Eliot - Little Gidding [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29043941

Sounds good. I still remember my BASIC.

Re: “Coding is basically just ifs and for loops.”

#123

Post by kwertyoowiyop »

Moodles wrote: post #109
kevmo wrote: post #22

git is just a graph, man

I think it's funny that it's kind of like a blockchain, and as soon as the business people and MBAs realize this, they're going to "evangelize this amazing application of blockchain to all code!" to death.

So Bitcoin is just Git with extra steps!

Re: “Coding is basically just ifs and for loops.”

#125

Post by progre »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #43

you guys have for loops?

We used to have. Now we mostly chain map-functions. But there are those rare instances where we don't operate on iterables and still need to do something many times. I've seen people so weirded out by this that they prefer to generate an iterable to work on a rather than to use a for-loop.

Re: “Coding is basically just ifs and for loops.”

#127

Post by dane-pgp »

ojr wrote: post #103
ravenstine wrote: post #74

If you want to go even lower than that, coding is basically just saying yes or no in response to a yes or a no . Sure, that's oversimplifying it, but that's the smallest unit of information being changed during computation. But yes, once you learn the basics that are shared between most programming languages and don't get distracted by the nuances, it doesn't take that long to pick up a different language. Being prof…

yes, at the lowest level its binary code, 0 and 1

I like to think of myself, actually, as not a code writer, but an author. I just use zeros and ones instead of words 'cause words will let you down.

Re: “Coding is basically just ifs and for loops.”

#128

Post by qsort »

sharken wrote: post #107
8ytecoder wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s just so sad that the lowest common denominator has become the standard now. When I first learnt Clojure it entirely changed the way I think and solve problems. The code really was elegant. Obviously, it can only be read by someone who can also understand programming beyond ifs and fors. That’s a non-starter in most environments - enterprise or otherwise. Funny enough, I see most innovations coming from consultan…

Ifs and fors are the easiest concepts to explain to non-developers, so it makes sense to start there. I wouldn't say that they are the standard now, but using and mastering all features in a language is hard. Add to that design patterns, classes and code layout it becomes a full-time job to keep up. I have been in contact with code most of my professional life, but still isn't comfortable writing large amounts of cod…

I agree that modern software development for non-full time developers is brutal, several of my data scientist colleagues are remarkably brilliant people and yet they struggle with some more advanced programming concepts.

However, most of those features are relatively standard and are more conceptual than syntactical in nature. Bashing people because they don't know stuff is stupid and counterproductive, but I shouldn't be forced to code in the programming equivalent of roman numerals just because someone else can't be properly fucked to understand lambdas or interfaces or generics, all stuff that's literally covered in your run-of-the-mill CS 101 course.

It all boils down to having enough humility and empathy to understand that other people are not, in fact, the same as us.

Re: “Coding is basically just ifs and for loops.”

#130

Post by wruza »

CuriousCosmic wrote: post #105
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you eventually "give up", and clock your 9–5 writing if+for making a fine living, but erroneously pass that off as a mature This comment sure indicates to me where you most likely are on the curve. In all seriousness, I think this is considerably off the mark. After enough experience you realize that expressivity and convenience are antipatterns and don't actually simplify things but are harbingers of complexity, b…

Personally I disagree. We should be using state machines and pure functions. If+for loops are just what's easiest to express in the major languages of today. they are no more or less computationally expensive but due to lack of tooling they are often cheaper to write. In languages and libraries that allow FSM and pure functional kernel based designs you can get just as clear logic that is expressible not just to the…

FSM and pure functional kernel based designs you can get just as clear logic that is expressible not just to the programmer but also to business personnel

I’m yet to see a secretary who could “return a new table state such that as if documents became a right fold as binding together a map of composition of signing and copy routines over documents” instead of “get these documents from the table, copy, sign and put them back in a binder”. This is a nonsense some of us want to believe in, but it is not true.

Post reply on HN