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Left to Right Programming

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Re: Left to Right Programming

#211

Post by TZubiri »

"This is bad because your editor can’t help you autocomplete it as you write it."

No, you are bad because you use an editor with autocomplete.

And it's not even debatable, it's like playing bowling with rails, or riding a bycicle with training wheels. Sure you can argue that you are more efficient at bowling and riding a bike with those, but you are going to be arguing alone, and it's much better to realize that python is one of the best languages at the moment and therefore one of the best languages ever, instead of being a nobody and complaining about a lanugage because you are too encumbered by your own ego to realize that you are not as good a programmer as you thought.

Nothing wrong with being an amateur programmer or vibecoding or whatever, but if you come for the king you best not miss

Re: Left to Right Programming

#212

Post by sureglymop »

It's nice if after typing `file.` you see what functions you can use. But what if there end up being too many options? What's next, a fuzzy finding search box for all possible functions? Contextually relevant ones based on the code you've already written?

Re: Left to Right Programming

#213

Post by nurettin »

juancn wrote: post #39

SQL shows it's age by having exactly the same problem. Queries should start by the `FROM` clause, that way which entities are involved can be quickly resolved and a smart editor can aid you in writing a sensible query faster. The order should be FROM -> SELECT -> WHERE, since SELECT commonly gives names to columns, which WHERE will reference. You could even avoid crap like `SELECT * FROM table`, and just write `FROM…

> Queries should start by the `FROM` clause,

FWIW that is the approach used by LINQ.

Re: Left to Right Programming

#214

Post by baalimago »

You don't need to be bothered with minute details such as syntax for counting string length anymore, you just need to know what you want to do. I mention this since OP is bringing up LSP's as an argument for why certain language's design is suboptimal.

"Count length of string s" -> LLM -> correct syntax for string-count for any programming language. This is the perfect context-length for an LLM. But note that you don't "complete the line", you tell the LLM what you want to have done in full (very isolated) context, instead of having it guessing.

Re: Left to Right Programming

#215

Post by lelanthran »

jimbokun wrote: post #194
taeric wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming you are largely just not thinking this one through? We are not modeling the domain, we are describing some data we want to select. Without knowing how it is modeled, I can give a brief "top line" for expected select statements on many data models. "I want average_weather, year, zip_code", "I want year, college_name, degree_name, median_graduate_salary, mean_graduate_salary", "..." I don't think it is tou…

How did you know it was zip_code and not ZipCode? Maybe in this case you know the same naming conventions are enforced across all tables. But in general it’s difficult to know the exact column name without looking it up first.

> How did you know it was zip_code and not ZipCode?

I think you're missing the point; you start off with your goal, regardless of the column name. No one has the goal "we want columsn from this specific table", it's always "we want these columns in the final output".

Re: Left to Right Programming

#216

Post by benrutter »

> While the Python code in the previous example is still readable, it gets worse as the complexity of the logic increases.

This bit is an aside in the article but I agree so much! List comprehensions in python are great for the simple and awful for the complex. I love map/reduce/filter because they can scale up in complexity without becoming an unreadable mess!

Re: Left to Right Programming

#217

Post by userbinator »

Reading through this article only elicits a "WTF!?" from me.

Your editor can’t help you out as you write it.

You shouldn't need handholding when you're writing code. It seems like the whole premise of the author's argument is that you shouldn't learn anything about the language and programming should be reduced to choosing from an autocomplete menu and never thinking more than that. I've seen developers who (try to) work like this, and the quality of their work left much to be desired, to put it lightly.

From there you can eventually find fread, but you have no confidence that it was the best choice.

In C, you have to know ahead of time that fclose is a function that you’ll need to call once you’re done with the file.

It's called knowledge. With that sort of attitude, you're practically begging for AI to replace you.

No wonder people claim typing speed doesn't matter - they can barely think ahead one token, nevermind a statement or function, much less the whole design! Ideally your typing speed should become the bottleneck and you should be able to code "blind", without looking at the screen but merely outputting the code in your mind into the machine as fast as humanly possible. Instead we have barely-"developers" constantly chasing that next tiny dopamine hit of picking from an autocomplete menu. WTF!?

When this descent into mediocrity gets applauded, it's no surprise that so much "modern" software is the way it is.

Re: Left to Right Programming

#218

Post by 9rx »

sgarland wrote: post #79
juancn wrote: post #39

SQL shows it's age by having exactly the same problem. Queries should start by the `FROM` clause, that way which entities are involved can be quickly resolved and a smart editor can aid you in writing a sensible query faster. The order should be FROM -> SELECT -> WHERE, since SELECT commonly gives names to columns, which WHERE will reference. You could even avoid crap like `SELECT * FROM table`, and just write `FROM…

It's written that way because it stems from relational algebra, in which the projection is typically (always?) written first. >The order should be FROM -> SELECT -> WHERE, since SELECT commonly gives names to columns, which WHERE will reference. Per the SQL standard, you can't use column aliases in WHERE clauses, because the selection (again, relational algebra) occurs before the projection. > You could even avoid cr…

Interestingly, the inventor of relational algebra for database management put the "FROM" first in his query language: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1734714.1734718

Re: Left to Right Programming

#219

Post by jibal »

danielPort9 wrote: post #21

Don’t know why python gets so much love. It’s a painful language as soon as more than one person is involved. What the author describes is just the tip of the iceberg

Failure to understand something is not a virtue. That it does get a lot of love strongly suggests that there are reasons for that. Of course it has flaws, but that alone doesn't tell us anything; only comparisons do. Create a comprehensive pro/con list and see how it fares. Then compare that to pro/con lists for other languages.

Re: Left to Right Programming

#220

Post by [deleted] »

sgarland wrote: post #112
kerkeslager wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously not, and bringing this up as if it's a gotcha just shows you aren't keeping up with the conversation. Try less to correct people and more to understand people. It's about how humans think about it, not about how the computer executes it.

How else do you read what they wrote?

[deleted]
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