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Software engineers should write

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Re: Software engineers should write

#151

Post by scoggs »

edpichler wrote: post #133
scoggs wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you said you write on a personal / private blog of your own to improve but if you ever wanted another person to look things over and help you work through some of the trickier parts of learning the language I'd love to help out!

It would be nice, but I haven't cogitated to do this before. I write too much personal things, maybe it is boring for other people, moreover I do not know if this is a good idea, once I will be too much exposed. First I would need to check what I wrote.

Well, I don't know what I have to offer to you in terms of a promise that I won't judge you or pry too deeply into your private life but I really have no good reason to do so. I will gladly share with you all that you want to know about me before we get started if you would like. I really just love helping people out, especially with technology. I started out working towards a career in education (with 12 years of experience) but changed over to programming and web development which is my current career. At some point I want to loop back around and teach some sort of technology discipline to come full circle with my original intentions.

Re: Software engineers should write

#152

Post by aswanson »

robbrown451 wrote: post #41
Kalium wrote: post #3

I find myself uncertain about the thesis. Code that is clear and expressive to a human should not be assumed to also be efficient and optimal for a computer. As writers say, know your audience.

I didn't see what you are seeing in the thesis. There was nothing that said that the sole end goal of programming is to be expressive to humans (whether those humans be yourself, other coders or end users). As for audience, when coding you can consider your audience to be both humans that follow you, as well as the machine it is running on.

As well as your future self, weeks from now, to avoid having to say 'What the fuck was I thinking when I wrote this?'.

Re: Software engineers should write

#153

Post by xasos »

I practice this by writing API documentation. When I can't seem to write code or want to take a break, I write out a plan of what I'm going to do or flesh out the documentation. Not only does it provide me a rigid framework for what I need to code, but it helps the user using my product as well.

Re: Software engineers should write

#154

Post by ggambetta »

HardDaysKnight wrote: post #145
ggambetta wrote: post #10

Why stop at essays or technical articles? As an engineer, I've always been fascinated by the structure and inner mechanics of stories - what makes them work. As a hobby I've done a lot of reading around this; I've written three feature-length screenplays, and a novel you can find in Amazon[1], using very structure-centric approaches (as a result, my characters tend to be too flat). Take a look at The Snowflake Method…

Congratulations on getting the book written and on Amazon. I hope to follow in your footsteps in the coming year. Like you, I'm fascinated by story structure, the hero's journey, and the mono-myth. And I've struggled with creating something less than flat characters. I've read the Snowflake method, and parts of it definitely work for me. Another book that I highly value is Dwight Swain's Technique's of the Selling Wr…

Best of luck with your book :)

The first book I've read that really resonated with me about giving life to characters is The Screenwriter's Bible by David Trottier. BTW, I've read a lot more books about screenwriting than about writing novels, but I believe both apply... stories are stories.

Re: Software engineers should write

#156

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

edpichler wrote: post #55
sophacles wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangential - Just want to give you some feedback on your comment, since you are wanting to improve your second language: First: you've overcome a big hurdle in learning a second language, I understood what you are trying to communicate, and I did so on my first reading of it. To me, this means you're already good at english! (By comparison if I tried in my second language, which is German, I would need a few drafts a…

Oh, I really appreciate your corrections, thank you! I understand that reading bad English is really annoying for natives. I try to be careful here on HN, but sometimes I do some mistakes.

Native English speakers who get annoyed by mistakes made by non-native speakers deserve to be.

Re: Software engineers should write

#157

Post by Reef »

edpichler wrote: post #23

"Even if nobody reads your essay, writing it will make an impact on you." After reading a post in HN ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5614689 ) entitled "why you should write every day", I've being doing it daily in a private blog. I do it in English to improve my second language. My main language is Portuguese. I'm doing it since 09/22/2014. I try to write about my own ideas, because I believe is the right thi…

http://xkcd.com/1179/ please :)

Re: Software engineers should write

#158

Post by collyw »

pluc wrote: post #17

It's been said that a programmer's brain is more akin to that of a writer than a mathematician, allegedly because learning programming languages is much like learning a language - the same areas of the brain are involved. From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-parnin/scientists-begin-... > Scientists are finding that there may be a deeper connection between programming languages and other languages then previously…

I was always crap at creative writing in school, but I am a decent programmer. I personally don't find them very comparable at all.

Re: Software engineers should write

#160

Post by DoktorThomas »

Software engineers are out of focus. The focus is not the code, the focus is the end users. Great code that functions without logic (most of MSFT) is generally useless. Users should not have learn to a new vernacular nor change their logic use patterns to use a new software. Software that fails to reach users without extensive documentation is useless no matter how great it is. Users should do the dreaming; software engineers should be limited to "making it so". Moral to this article: anyone who can write prose can write code....
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