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A collection of things software developers should know

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Re: A collection of things software developers should know

#141

Post by aswanson »

codingdave wrote: post #139
ATsch wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that saying the phrase "get a life" to people that enjoy what they are doing is extremely condescending. If I enjoy programming all day, or having huge flame wars, or maintaining a huge collection of antique watering cans sorted by volume, then who are you to judge me for that?

I tend to avoid this particular flame war by encouraging people to define their own personal goals in life and make sure their work is driving towards those goals. The bad place to be is to be giving away all your time and energy to work for someone else's goals, in hopes of a big payout so that some future day you can works towards your own goals. So if you love your work, great. If you were to get hit by a bus tomo…

Exactly. I interpret "get a life" to mean, don't defer living and happiness, indefinitely, however you define them.

Re: A collection of things software developers should know

#142

Post by lists »

larkery wrote: post #92
ATsch wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that saying the phrase "get a life" to people that enjoy what they are doing is extremely condescending. If I enjoy programming all day, or having huge flame wars, or maintaining a huge collection of antique watering cans sorted by volume, then who are you to judge me for that?

I think there's a case to be made that it is possible to judge whether people's behaviours are helping them to enjoy their lives to the best extent. It is a very extreme position to say that there is literally nothing which can be generalised about people's experiences, and so one person's heroin main-lining hobby is as good as another's model railway collection so long as they both profess an equal belief in their r…

Pleasure and pain equally enable a self-satisfaction one might term 'happiness', like the pleasure of consistently demeaning oneself when one finds oneself frustrated by life because demeaning _others_ is pleasurable.

We are comfortable perceiving other species' limitations, even directly perceiving how their behavior or evolution will be their downfall, but we're not particularly good at analyzing ourselves in this way, and its owing to, rather than in spite of, moral constraints, themselves varying from demographic to demographic, so that ultimately the question becomes "_Which kind_ of human should propagate?" For Aristole, only slave-owners could practice virtue, materially and cognitively (though today, epigenitics would tell us there isn't as much of a distinction here as one would wish, or the recent literature indicating IQ drops the _longer_ one is poor as well; Aristotle ultimately had an idea of this as well, but treated of it separately in On the Soul).

Re: A collection of things software developers should know

#143

Post by aswanson »

scardine wrote: post #124
ATsch wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that saying the phrase "get a life" to people that enjoy what they are doing is extremely condescending. If I enjoy programming all day, or having huge flame wars, or maintaining a huge collection of antique watering cans sorted by volume, then who are you to judge me for that?

"Being right" gives you a high - that is why flame wars can be so addictive. Like cocaine it may give you instant gratification and pleasure but in the end it is not worth. Despite the unfortunate redaction, I guess the parent is telling that if you find yourself chasing this kind of highs very often, you probably are basing your life on shitty values like "being right all the time".

Yeah, Im trying to be more conscious of this, I love that cheap high. It's a formula for being an asshole, unfortunately.

Re: A collection of things software developers should know

#144

Post by rodolphoarruda »

BatFastard wrote: post #71
amrrs wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's more to Life beyond Programming - [Marriage, Love, Kids] (not a sorted list)

My list in order Kids Health Happiness Money Marriage

I learned the hard way that my own health comes first even to my kids. I had a kidney stone episode that really put me out of my mind. The pain was so bad I could not think on anything but to survive. I couldn't even remember I had a family in the first place. So my health comes first, if it deteriorates, all the external world goes away.

Re: A collection of things software developers should know

#146

Post by zengid »

weego wrote: post #12

Every programmer should know cpu cache read time? How many times is this going to come up. Barely anyone in the world needs to know that.

I sense a bit of humor in your comment, but none the less its worth learning.

In the end, the CPU is the actual machine that runs the code. It's good to have an idea about how it works because it clears away a lot of the smoke and mirrors that abstract VMs use in defining their behavior.

Re: A collection of things software developers should know

#148

Post by echion »

chii wrote: post #86
davemp wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not trying to offend, but . . . > If I enjoy xyz, who are you to judge me for that? I find this (common) sentiment troubling and frankly a bit arrogant. Whether or not you enjoy something is not always good metric for said thing's long term effects on your life. Other people have experienced different things than you and may have some really good insights. Assuming you know exactly what's best strikes me as arrogant.…

> Whether or not you enjoy something is not always good metric for said thing's long term effects on your life. But isn't this the very definition of judging"? When people say "get a life", they are implicitly saying that you current life isn't up to measure (by their own values).

I think you're agreeing with the post to which you're replying.

Re: A collection of things software developers should know

#149

Post by _sdegutis »

ATsch wrote: post #31
oldandtired wrote: post #26

This is what every programmer should know: 1. Life is too short, so get a life. 2. Know that you don't know everything, so get don't arrogant. 3. Don't get caught up in the various programming "religious" wars, there's more to life than a specific point of view. 4. Laugh and enjoy the the wonderful beauty in the world around us. 5. You're as much the idiot as the person you consider an idiot. 6. Sometimes the "import…

I find that saying the phrase "get a life" to people that enjoy what they are doing is extremely condescending. If I enjoy programming all day, or having huge flame wars, or maintaining a huge collection of antique watering cans sorted by volume, then who are you to judge me for that?

I thought I was happy just programming all day and night for probably half of my life. I didn't realize that people need normal light-hearted social interaction and occasional rest and relaxation for our health, both physical and mental. It cost me a great deal to learn this lesson and I hope to spare anyone else from learning it the hard way.

Re: A collection of things software developers should know

#150

Post by lobster_johnson »

Some of the points about phone numbers also apply to email addresses.

For example, as has been shown repeatedly, most email validation patterns are simply wrong, and are best trimmed down to something like /^[^\s]+@[^\s]+$/.

Arguably more useful than a text-based email validation is validating whether the domain part has a valid MX. This will guard against many typos.

Another less-obvious fact that people eventually come to realize is that emails don't last for ever. I run a site where people constantly contact support about being unable to log in, because their email address is no longer active, and they forgot their password. (Some of them even forgot what their user name was.) It turns out many people use their work or school email, and that this email ceases to work after they leave. It's a good idea to regularly ask people whether their email is still valid.

All of the above could easily be bundled as a SaaS service. We use Mailgun for email address validation and for reading bounces (so we can alert users that their email is no longer working, in case they're stilled logged in), but a high-level, all-in-one service could be useful.

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