Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy • Hacker News Board

Re: Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy

#131

Post by delian66 » Sun, May 25, 2014, 12:58 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #121

wting wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can fix anyone's code, even when I've never used the language before [..] You can jump into any codebase and solve core architectural problems like precise garbage collection, eventual consistency, or miscellaneous dead locks? I'm not making up contrived examples, these are some of the problems my friends and I are currently dealing with at work for different companies. > I would only have a vague idea of how to…

Yeah, probably, but that's one of my skills, I have fixed a lot of bugs. But take a step back. What are you trying to say? You're better than everyone who hasn't done these things? You're somehow a real programmer and everyone else isn't? And look how big your penis is! Seriously, what were you trying to achieve with this comment? What have you demonstrated? You're a specialist, you know certain things other people d…

Wow, dude, chill out ... in my opinion, wting did not write anything, that gives you reason to accuse him, that he is an elitist. He simply pointed out, that you are limiting yourself with the kind of believe, that there is no need to know how to solve simple problems on your own, and give you examples of things that he was able to do, because he did not limit himself in such a way ...

Re: Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy

#132

Post by mattgreenrocks » Sun, May 25, 2014, 1:01 PM UTC

greenyoda wrote: post #46

bpatrianakos wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to be super technical, sure. But in the context of this article that quote rings true. The masters really are surprisingly few in our field. At least the sort of masters I think you're talking about. In my experience most programmers have a sense of imposter syndrome that is very tough to crack so including that quote in the article was something I liked and think is important for other developers to hear…

"The masters really are surprisingly few in our field." Contrary to what some readers here might expect, most highly competent developers don't have blogs or start their own companies. Most of the talented and experienced engineers who work in the bowels of Google optimizing search algorithms, or at Boeing writing avionics software or at Oracle designing database systems pursue their craft in obscurity and anonymity.…

HN is a bit of an echo chamber, unfortunately. Masters don't really tout themselves as that, nor do they self-promote everything they do.

On the other hand, there's plenty of jr. devs who blog about the 'amazing' gains of productivity from switching to Vim...

Re: Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy

#133

Post by userbinator » Sun, May 25, 2014, 1:08 PM UTC

nhebb wrote: post #75

retrogradeorbit wrote: post #58

"They don’t tell you that a lot of programming skill is about developing a knack for asking the right questions on Google and knowing which code is best to copy-paste." No, no, no! This always frustrates me. This is not 'coding' (maybe it is, and we should be doing less of it, and more programming). This is gluing together pre-coded snippets and trying to make it work. Continuing to do this is an impediment to gettin…

> Copy and paste doesn't help you at all with this. Generally I agree with this, but there is a way to use copy-pasta as a learning tool. If I find a code sample that does what I want but don't understand it, here is what I do: 1. Add a comment with a link to the source for reference. 2. Rename the variables. 3. Comment the parts that I understand. 4. Flag the parts I don't understand with a simple // ? comment. 5. R…

There should be one more step:

6. Make changes to it so that it does the same thing, but in a better way -- faster, smaller/more concise, etc.

I think that being able to do this (correctly) is to truly understand, since then you are "thinking beyond the code" and can see the problem that it solves, not just an implementation that solves it.

Re: Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy

#134

Post by chrissyb » Sun, May 25, 2014, 1:12 PM UTC

ktran03 wrote: post #118

cliveowen wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree with you and frankly I'm shocked to see most of the responses here purporting copy-pasting someone else's code to be a legitimate practice. I also imagine that most if not all of these people are into web developed where there's a long history of copy-pasting snippets of code and no one knows what he's really doing. I've seen many people write a jQuery script for their website and calling themselve…

Same. I'm actually a little shocked HNers think regularly coping and pasting code snippets off the web is ok. That's, kind of crazy. This is bad especially for young developers (such as myself). Not to mention jeopardizing the security and integrity of your software project. I hear 'don't reinvent the wheel' often written in blogs etc. That is not good. The lazy developer would read that and go, 'oh, I dont need to k…

IMO it should be "You can't reinvent the wheel, but you can study physics to understand how the wheel functions."

Re: Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy

#135

Post by userbinator » Sun, May 25, 2014, 1:14 PM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #99

retrogradeorbit wrote: post #58

"They don’t tell you that a lot of programming skill is about developing a knack for asking the right questions on Google and knowing which code is best to copy-paste." No, no, no! This always frustrates me. This is not 'coding' (maybe it is, and we should be doing less of it, and more programming). This is gluing together pre-coded snippets and trying to make it work. Continuing to do this is an impediment to gettin…

> Then I'll throw them all away and code my own. Possibly it will share a lot with one of the answers, what I would consider a good approach So basically you're in the business of reinventing the wheel all the time. I feel sorry for your employer.

It could be said that he is reinventing the wheel and trying to make it rounder, which is definitely a good thing.

Re: Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy

#136

Post by _random_ » Sun, May 25, 2014, 1:33 PM UTC

oldspiceman wrote: post #39

The only useful class I took in university was first year programming. I felt like god when I first wrote an output stream to a file. I couldn't believe it was possible. Most people didn't have those kind of feelings. I think that's the difference. You're either captivated or you're not.

Then you read some science fiction and futurology forecasts and understand that there is no way future isn't going to be revolving around programming in every way. And you feel even better.

Re: Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy

#137

Post by dkersten » Sun, May 25, 2014, 1:41 PM UTC

nomedeplume wrote: post #79

Strom wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means 'lots of money'.

...."lots of money" varies from community to community.

Which is why saying lots of money if more useful than specifying an amount, because that amount may or may not be a lot of money where the reader is from, but might be a huge amount where the person who posted it is from.

Re: Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy

#138

Post by vezzy-fnord » Sun, May 25, 2014, 1:49 PM UTC

They don’t tell you that a lot of programming skill is about developing a knack for asking the right questions on Google and knowing which code is best to copy-paste.

And this is how the security industry makes its living.

Re: Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy

#139

Post by yuribit » Sun, May 25, 2014, 1:53 PM UTC

"The anxiety of feeling lost and stupid is not something you learn to conquer, but something you learn to live with"

That's exactly my daily felling, but I'm just a junior soft eng

Re: Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy

#140

Post by Iftheshoefits » Sun, May 25, 2014, 1:58 PM UTC

ktran03 wrote: post #118

cliveowen wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree with you and frankly I'm shocked to see most of the responses here purporting copy-pasting someone else's code to be a legitimate practice. I also imagine that most if not all of these people are into web developed where there's a long history of copy-pasting snippets of code and no one knows what he's really doing. I've seen many people write a jQuery script for their website and calling themselve…

Same. I'm actually a little shocked HNers think regularly coping and pasting code snippets off the web is ok. That's, kind of crazy. This is bad especially for young developers (such as myself). Not to mention jeopardizing the security and integrity of your software project. I hear 'don't reinvent the wheel' often written in blogs etc. That is not good. The lazy developer would read that and go, 'oh, I dont need to k…

The HN engineering and programming community seems to me to consist of a wide variety of different groups and types of programmers (coders/engineers/whatever).

It shouldn't be surprising that there is a group who feel "I'll just slap A to B" is a good idea (that's not what happens every time somebody copy-and-pastes, by the way--it's one extreme example, and it's possible to copy-and-paste with a deep and mature understanding of what one is doing). Just like it shouldn't be surprising when certain elements of other groups chime in with comments implying CS is some deeply intellectual study of the fundamental nature of mathematics and logic, and if a programmer isn't treating his Enterprise CRUD App X as a means to engage in a deeply intellectual study or application of algorithms, data structures, and complexity analysis he's doing it wrong, or he isn't a real programmer, etc.