Total long shot. But does anyone have any good side projects that would center around simulating fluid dynamics? I’ve always been interested in aerodynamics and I’ve wanted to see if there is a way to learn more about it with my programming skills.
Challenging projects every programmer should try (2019)
121–130 of 346 posts
Re: Challenging projects every programmer should try (2019)
#122While writing a text editor, a compiler, an operating system, or a raytracer might make you a better programmer, it won't make you a better software engineer. In fact, it might make you worse at software engineering, because it embodies the disastrous "Not Invented Here" doctrine. Hackers like to obsess about Big-O, data structures, HoTT, and other high-theory stuff, yet the following skills, essential for software e…
This sounds like sensible advice. But there are a few problems with making software purely from ready-made building blocks. Here are two of them:
1) Much more often than not, the ready-made building blocks are crap. Your software will reflect that crappiness, and your life will consist not of writing software, but of maintaining and massaging crap.
2) Even if your ready-made building blocks are high-quality, they limit what kind of software you can write. Ideally, you imagine what you want your software to do, and then you write software to do it. You create the building blocks in that process. If you are only using ready-made building blocks, there is a lot of great software you just cannot write. And I think we all see that, because there isn't much great software around.
These problems might not be a concern for you. If you write software that is pretty much just more of the same, 2) does not apply to you. And while 1) is still problematic, it will be just manageable because you use these building blocks mostly on their happy path.
But I have bad news for you. This kind of software will soon be written not by you, but by an AI.
Re: Challenging projects every programmer should try (2019)
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey, putting a ray tracer and a web browser in the same category of "more challenging projects" seems a bit weird. A ray tracer is a weekend project. A web browser is a multiple man-years project, unless you use a third-party HTML+CSS engine and a third-party JS engine.
depends on the ray tracer. You can make "a" ray tracer in a weekend. You can spend months making a mid-scoped tracer if you decide to pick up PBRT (which is online for completely free now!): https://pbr-book.org/4ed/contents If you want to upgrade your "weekend" ray tracer to a 2-4 week project, I'd suggest: 1. have it take input a scene/model file (FBX is the industry standard but also a pain in the butt because Aut…
Try using USD instead[0]. It's an open scene description from Pixar that is well documentented and seeing adoption across the board - including apps like Blender.
Re: Challenging projects every programmer should try (2019)
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if we don't want to be "software engineers"? I'm still not totally convinced that "software engineer" is even a thing , frankly.
The good news is that the field of computer programming is huge - so there is room for all sorts of preferences, skills, and abilities. And sure, use of the word "engineer" will cause angst among some - because it used to have a precise meaning which has been diluted (and in the case of software, ignored.) Indeed the list of projects runs the gamut of where a programmer might go in life. They might do user UI, or gam…
Not ignored! It's precisely because software engineering discards the very parts of programming that are closest to real engineering that this term came to describe it. "Don't bother learning the fundamentals, but focus on bureaucratic ritual instead" is a message that requires excellent marketing.
Re: Challenging projects every programmer should try (2019)
#125I’m surprised an emulator (especially Game Boy) is considered harder than a little operating system. I guess that would make sense if you’re not familiar with ASM but an OS will force you to learn that too.
Having checked off most of the list, I would agree the Game Boy emulator is far easier than the OS.
I guess with the emulator it depends how much you want to do. You'd be foolish to write a console emulator and not import someone else's CPU code. When I wrote a Game Gear emulator 26 years ago I used off-the-shelf CPU code and just mapped all the in/out and did the graphics bits. Took me and a friend a single evening to get it happily playing games.
And OS is harder. Well, it was last time I wrote one, again about 26 or 27 years ago. Getting something to boot at all was tricky. I used this book as my main source of inspiration:
https://www.amazon.com/Developing-32-Bit-Operating-System-Cd...
Re: Challenging projects every programmer should try (2019)
#126If you think you need a "factory pattern" to write Space Invaders, there is something wrong. I'm close to absolutely certain no such design concept was involved in the original.
At no point does the author say or even imply that you need the factory pattern to implement Space Invaders. Are we reading a different article?
In the bullet points "things to learn":
- Creating and managing a dynamic number of objects (e.g., factory pattern).
Re: Challenging projects every programmer should try (2019)
#127I will also add a CAS, computer algebra system to the list.
I've never seen an explanation of Gröbner bases that's accessible enough to the average non-mathematician developer to make that practical. Any pointers?
Re: Challenging projects every programmer should try (2019)
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is like telling a student learning an instrument never to practice scales or études No, it's like recognizing that an orchestra conductor doesn't need to play every instrument (or even any instrument!) in order to make music. Or alternatively, that a violin player doesn't need to understand the physics of acoustic dispersion in order to be the best in the world at playing the violin.
> an orchestra conductor doesn't need to play [...] any instrument! in order to make music Ok, this is clearly a side-topic AND at the risk of being pedantic: Is this actually true? Like, I can see how theoretically one could learn to sight-read music well enough to be able to direct an orchestra of individual musicians, then do enough ear-training to identify enough notes to keep tabs on everyone (especially if you'…
No, it's not true, there are no prominent conductors that cannot play an instrument (or sing at a high level).
A conductor should have a deep understanding of music, theory, and rehearsal pedagogy. At least in current western schools of music I don't see how you would explore these topics outside of the study of an instrument. Maybe there is some esoteric path to this; I just can't imagine how you go to Berklee and begin to explore the nuances of a composition without ever engaging with it as an instrumentalist.
On top of that, the conductor isn't just engaged at performances, they're also responsible for leading rehearsals. If they've never deliberate practiced the learning of music from an instrumentalist perspective I think they would be very hard-pressed to structure strategies for getting the larger group to a high level.
Re: Challenging projects every programmer should try (2019)
#129While writing a text editor, a compiler, an operating system, or a raytracer might make you a better programmer, it won't make you a better software engineer. In fact, it might make you worse at software engineering, because it embodies the disastrous "Not Invented Here" doctrine. Hackers like to obsess about Big-O, data structures, HoTT, and other high-theory stuff, yet the following skills, essential for software e…
Gentlemen, you can't hack in here; this is Hacker News.
[deleted]
Re: Challenging projects every programmer should try (2019)
#130While writing a text editor, a compiler, an operating system, or a raytracer might make you a better programmer, it won't make you a better software engineer. In fact, it might make you worse at software engineering, because it embodies the disastrous "Not Invented Here" doctrine. Hackers like to obsess about Big-O, data structures, HoTT, and other high-theory stuff, yet the following skills, essential for software e…
This sounds like sensible advice. But there are a few problems with making software purely from ready-made building blocks. Here are two of them: 1) Much more often than not, the ready-made building blocks are crap. Your software will reflect that crappiness, and your life will consist not of writing software, but of maintaining and massaging crap. 2) Even if your ready-made building blocks are high-quality, they lim…
> If you are only using ready-made building blocks, there is a lot of great software you just cannot write. And I think we all see that, because there isn't much great software around.
I claim that the opposite is true: The reason there are so few software projects that are really great is because high-level skills, not low-level ones, are in short supply. Every CS graduate can implement Paxos. The number of people with the experience needed to take an implementation of Paxos, and many other components, and put them together into something that works really well is much, much smaller.
> But I have bad news for you. This kind of software will soon be written not by you, but by an AI.
AI is actually much better at writing low-level code than high-level code. If you tell it to implement a piece table or a Fibonacci heap, it will do so without problems, in any language. If you tell it to create a simple CRUD application using existing libraries, it will output something that doesn't actually work.