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Burn the Programmer

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Re: Burn the Programmer

#21

Post by everyone »

marsrover wrote: post #3

You know, us programmers like to refer to ourselves as wizards but I really wonder if non-programmers think the same or is it just like any other profession they're not knowledgeable of? I don't know anything about chemical engineering but I've never considered chemical engineers to be magical. I do like thinking of myself as a wizard, though.

I felt that wizard thing when I was just starting out, for most of my career though, i've thought an apt analogy is tradesman. eg. carpenter or metalworker.

We get commissioned to build something that does X. Then we design and build it. With experience we develop our own tools / practices and a familiarity with our materials. Experienced masters might experiment and develop completely novel things or masterworks. Sometimes many of us will be commissioned together to build something really big or challenging.

Re: Burn the Programmer

#22

Post by yetihehe »

arethuza wrote: post #18
yetihehe wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on what those "wizards" do. If it's just making some formula in spreadsheet work, it's not too awesome. If it's stopping time[1], that might be more "magical". [1] https://hackaday.com/2017/11/09/stop-motion-with-the-time-gl...

"it's not too awesome" Maybe if you had seen some of the eldritch devious monstrosities I've seen people create in Excel (even without VBA) you might reconsider that statement. Be very worried if someone says "we have this Excel spreadsheet that needs to be turned into an app"....

=A1+B1 is not awesome for normal people. If you want, you can do magic with anything, but it was only an example.

Re: Burn the Programmer

#23

Post by pjmlp »

mrguyorama wrote: post #11
gallerdude wrote: post #8

When I was a preteen, I'd watch Notch's ld48 programming streams, and I'd just be confused. I had read the basics of if-statements, for-loops, and functions, but he was using them in a way beyond my comprehension. Later I discovered MIT's Scratch, and it let me figure things out on my own: games, physics, genetic algorithms. I think programming is portrayed to be more difficult than it is. It's a mixture between prog…

I think 90% of the difficulty of learning to program is building and interpreting your mental models of how everything works. This is unfortunate, because everyone's mental models are different, and it's the same problem we see in math teaching, where things are extremely difficult until it "clicks" and suddenly it's so easy

It is why everyone has to write their own version of a monad tutorial. :)

Re: Burn the Programmer

#24

Post by weeksie »

It's definitely an old metaphor. SICP is the "Wizard Book" after all, and IIRC they even used the term "incantations" to describe commands and programming constructs at some points, though it's been well over a decade since I've leafed through it.

Re: Burn the Programmer

#25

Post by humanrebar »

fermigier wrote: post #16

"...Ever tried to set up a Postfix server?" is the new "...Ever tried to set up a Sendmail server?". (When I was younger, I was told by a veteran sysadmin that only 5 persons in the world knew how to configure Sendmail directly, everyone else was relying on preprocessing scripts written by the aforementioned wizards). Edit: my point is that Postfix is actually quite easy to configure, compared to Sendmail which was t…

See also: argument-dependent lookup rules in C++

Re: Burn the Programmer

#26

Post by mbrock »

everyone wrote: post #21
marsrover wrote: post #3

You know, us programmers like to refer to ourselves as wizards but I really wonder if non-programmers think the same or is it just like any other profession they're not knowledgeable of? I don't know anything about chemical engineering but I've never considered chemical engineers to be magical. I do like thinking of myself as a wizard, though.

I felt that wizard thing when I was just starting out, for most of my career though, i've thought an apt analogy is tradesman. eg. carpenter or metalworker. We get commissioned to build something that does X. Then we design and build it. With experience we develop our own tools / practices and a familiarity with our materials. Experienced masters might experiment and develop completely novel things or masterworks. So…

I think the craft aspect is somewhat romanticized and that much of programming work is more like a kind of accounting or some other clerical bureaucratic trade.

Re: Burn the Programmer

#27

Post by mLuby »

adrianN wrote: post #19
stryan wrote: post #10

Considering how many programming abstractions most programmers work above now, I'd say it's more like magic now then ever before. Draw the circle (add the boiler plate code), recite the words (dig up the proper API method), perform the gestures (compile with certain flags) and your spell (desktop app) will work. If you don't, it'll do nothing or worse, blow up in your face. As a side note, if anyone's interested in l…

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality also explores that topic a bit.

Better to read the review/summary as HPatMoR is extremely long and really more of an Ender's Game fanfic than an exploration of magic by rational means. (It does happen briefly but is quickly forgotten.) http://danluu.com/su3su2u1/hpmor/#bad-plotting

>At the start of the story he has a legitimate positive agenda--he wants to use science to uncover the secrets of magic. As the story develops, however, he completely loses sight of that goal, and he instead becomes just a passenger in the plot--he competes in Quirrell’s games and goes through school like any other student. When Voldemort starts including Hariezer in his plot, Hariezer floats along in a completely reactive way,etc.

>Not until spoiler dies, near the end of the story, does Hariezer pick up a positive goal again (ending death) and he does absolutely nothing to achieve it

Re: Burn the Programmer

#28

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

fermigier wrote: post #16

"...Ever tried to set up a Postfix server?" is the new "...Ever tried to set up a Sendmail server?". (When I was younger, I was told by a veteran sysadmin that only 5 persons in the world knew how to configure Sendmail directly, everyone else was relying on preprocessing scripts written by the aforementioned wizards). Edit: my point is that Postfix is actually quite easy to configure, compared to Sendmail which was t…

Is it? I've only modified existing configurations, but Postfix doesn't seem bad.

Re: Burn the Programmer

#29

Post by j2kun »

It makes me wonder if there are any realms of wizardry where the highest ranking wizards spend all their time on management skills and never get to practice their magic.

"Oh, these days I just review a lot of spell-design scrolls and mentor junior acolytes. Magic is more of a people business, you know."

Re: Burn the Programmer

#30

Post by b0rsuk »

Another analogy that I can't shake off is True Name and search engines.

Since the dawn of time folk tales placed emphasis on true name of people and objects. Knowing the true name grants one power over something or someone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_name

Knowing the true name of someone lets you put it in a search engine and find out about him/her. There are some sleazy smartphone apps which let you do even more. Knowing the name of the problem lets you search for the algorithm. Certain problems become trivial if you can name them and find an already known solution.

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