warning: This is not short.
How to Be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002) [pdf]
21–30 of 58 posts
Re: How to Be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002) [pdf]
#22Okay, I’m going to be a little bit far out there. A lot of this seems to be grounded in the negative. “How to deal with x” how to “do y when z has failed”. Some of it technical and some of it interpersonal. Why have we created this sphere around programming? What makes /this/ profession so different from any other? And my believe is: nothing. It’s not hard. It’s not better. It won’t “eat the world”. Heck it probably…
Programming is generally considered more challenging than most professions, and it has a transformative potential that must other fields don't. It's okay to recognize that, whilst also not having an over-inflated view of yourself or elitist stance.
We're also entering a new era of the difference between cutting-edge or transformative engineers, and (the still respectable, but more normal) standard dev.
I do some pretty basic science based engineering. It's not special, it just helps some business people in my firm. But the deepmind guys are special, and there really isn't anything like it right now in other fields. The potential seems unbounded right now, that's really exciting!
Re: How to Be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002) [pdf]
#23I honestly don't even understand the title, write code? How to become a better programmer makes some kind of sense, though the short answer is similar: write more code. Which leaves no time to fill the ether with noise, so it's a double win. How does this end up on the front page in the first place?
Saying you'll be a better programmer if you just write code is like saying you'll be a better mathematician if you just write more math.
My math skills improved the most when I stopped obsessing over studying the right things, or finding the right textbooks, and just constantly solved problems.
Re: How to Be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002) [pdf]
#24Okay, I’m going to be a little bit far out there. A lot of this seems to be grounded in the negative. “How to deal with x” how to “do y when z has failed”. Some of it technical and some of it interpersonal. Why have we created this sphere around programming? What makes /this/ profession so different from any other? And my believe is: nothing. It’s not hard. It’s not better. It won’t “eat the world”. Heck it probably…
Programming is generally considered more challenging than most professions, and it has a transformative potential that must other fields don't. It's okay to recognize that, whilst also not having an over-inflated view of yourself or elitist stance. We're also entering a new era of the difference between cutting-edge or transformative engineers, and (the still respectable, but more normal) standard dev. I do some pret…
>>Programming is generally considered more challenging than most professions, and it has a transformative potential that must other fields don't.
Or, most other fields have already transformed the world. Programming is in the process of transforming the world. So it looks to us as if it is unique.
Re: How to Be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002) [pdf]
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
And your point is?
What is yours? The point of the comment you're replying to is obvious. They provided some specific criticism of the material.
I was using a rhetorical device - all I saw was an anonymous complaint about grammar and no real substantive critique with know examples?
Re: How to Be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002) [pdf]
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Saying you'll be a better programmer if you just write code is like saying you'll be a better mathematician if you just write more math.
My math skills improved the most when I stopped obsessing over studying the right things, or finding the right textbooks, and just constantly solved problems.
Being a mathematician and solving already-theoretically-understood math problems are two things that often don't have a lot of overlap.
Re: How to Be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002) [pdf]
#27Okay, I’m going to be a little bit far out there. A lot of this seems to be grounded in the negative. “How to deal with x” how to “do y when z has failed”. Some of it technical and some of it interpersonal. Why have we created this sphere around programming? What makes /this/ profession so different from any other? And my believe is: nothing. It’s not hard. It’s not better. It won’t “eat the world”. Heck it probably…
No other profession has quite the same capacity to transform itself. Like blacksmiths, programmers are capable of building tools that not only change the way they work but enable new kinds of work to be done, often by making previously onerous tasks trivial, and giving the individual a much large potential impact. Unlike blacksmiths, programmers can share their inventions with the entire industry in the blink of an e…
Speed of change is also behind the neverending stream of fad and fatigue. A little.
Re: How to Be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002) [pdf]
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
My math skills improved the most when I stopped obsessing over studying the right things, or finding the right textbooks, and just constantly solved problems.
Being a mathematician and solving already-theoretically-understood math problems are two things that often don't have a lot of overlap.
Yeah fair.
Re: How to Be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002) [pdf]
#29I read through some of the Beginner section that I thought seemed inappropriate for beginners and found a number of grammar and punctuation errors. While trying to navigate the file I found that the page numbering shown in the Table of Contents is off by two pages. His advice on "difficult people" sounds like he is talking about a single, specific person but is doing so in a vague way and expects that to function as…
Ha, so it's a pretty good example of how to be a programmer then huh?
Re: How to Be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002) [pdf]
#30I honestly don't even understand the title, write code? How to become a better programmer makes some kind of sense, though the short answer is similar: write more code. Which leaves no time to fill the ether with noise, so it's a double win. How does this end up on the front page in the first place?
Ehh. A lot of things in the skillset of a capable real-world programmer have little to do with actually writing code, which is the whole point of the book. As can be trivially gleaned by taking a cursory look at the table of contents. And answering the question "how to write better code" with "write more code" is about as helpful as advising a depressed person to just go out and have fun.