The Programming Elite, Programmers Who Read • Hacker News Board

Re: The Programming Elite, Programmers Who Read

#21

Post by jrockway » Thu, Sep 11, 2008, 2:17 AM UTC

erictobia wrote: post #6

This sets the bar for an elite programmer fairly low IMHO.

Agreed. When was the last time Joel wrote about programming? I don't think he ever has -- he just writes about demanding that your boss buy you an expensive chair. I hate to tell you, but the way you get good at programming is by programming, not reading feel-good essays about how great you are. (I have a cheap IKEA chair. I like it.)

Jeff occasionally has programming content on his blog, but he doesn't offer much insight. The most intelligent thing I heard him say was "XSS is bad, escape user data when embedding it in HTML!" A good message, but one that everyone should have heard about 10 years ago.

This is not the kind of stuff the elite read. LtU is.

Re: The Programming Elite, Programmers Who Read

#22

Post by rewind » Thu, Sep 11, 2008, 6:54 AM UTC

Meh. Whatever. If you learn online or learn by buying books or fall somewhere in the middle because you do both, you're still learning. Sometimes I just want something to read where I can read away from the damn computer under the sun. At the same time, there's a tonne of stuff online that will teach me the same thing. Who bloody cares where I learn it??? When I was earlier in my career, I spend a TONNE of money on books. Over the past few years, that's fallen to zero because there's a lot of information online. Recently, I started buying again just to change the pace. It really doesn't matter as long as the outcome is the same... which it is.

Re: The Programming Elite, Programmers Who Read

#23

Post by mridulkhan » Thu, Sep 11, 2008, 8:49 AM UTC

What about reading code? Isn't studying good, possibly open source, code more enlightening than drooling over hype filled blogs?

Re: The Programming Elite, Programmers Who Read

#24

Post by andreyf » Thu, Sep 11, 2008, 12:38 PM UTC

I don't know where his data are comming from, but in my experience, most programmers read... so this stat is definitely vastly different in different social circles...

Re: The Programming Elite, Programmers Who Read

#25

Post by andreyf » Thu, Sep 11, 2008, 12:42 PM UTC

shimi wrote: post #8

In one of my previous jobs we had this dude who had like 20+ books on his desk. At best the guy was an average developer... There is a difference between a read and a reference.

Having books on your desk doesn't necessarily mean you read them. Most likely, he was showing off.

Re: The Programming Elite, Programmers Who Read

#26

Post by dangrover » Thu, Sep 11, 2008, 1:42 PM UTC

Most of the CS students I know don't really do any coding or reading about CS outside of their classes.

But I agree, I think it is garbage, meant to make the reader feel good.