Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Burn the Programmer

antipope.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 254 posts

Re: Burn the Programmer

#241

Post by falcor84 »

SilasX wrote: post #133
anon151516888 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also why I prefer more "straightforward" libraries such as Tornado or CherryPy.

Wait, that's contrasting to other Python libraries that use the Rails/Spring magic? Which ones?

Django for example has a lot of magic.

A lot of the development process consists of adding fields with particular names to classes that have a long inheritance chain of their own, and it's not trivial at all to understand what all of your options are and how they work behind the scenes.

Re: Burn the Programmer

#242

Post by btown »

arkh wrote: post #186
throwanem wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's far from rationalist fiction Is that bad? Like any didactic subtype of the genre, rationalist fiction often struggles to succeed in both of the goals set for it; the only example I've as yet found enjoyable - and extremely so! I strongly recommend it - is Unsong by Scott Alexander, also of Slate Star Codex.

Not purely rational you have parahumans where most protagonists' acts have some logic behind it. Not a lot of evil people just because they're evil, and not a lot of pure heroes either. https://parahumans.wordpress.com/ if you want something to read for next month(s).

And in case anyone isn’t aware, the sequel started yesterday at https://www.parahumans.net !

Re: Burn the Programmer

#243

Post by hkon »

Raphmedia wrote: post #17
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…

> As a side note, if anyone's interested in looking a bit more into "programming as magic" there's a great book series called The Wizardry If you like that kind of thing and you enjoy/don't mind anime, there's also the serie Knight’s & Magic. It is about a programmer being reborn in a world where people wield big "golem" armors. The protagonist then proceed to make his own version, completly disregarding the philosop…

I followed this link and I have watched a few episodes. Can't get over the first episode intro. Developers life summed up in 30 seconds.

Re: Burn the Programmer

#244

Post by flor1s »

ignoramous wrote: post #221
flor1s wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think the same way about the CPU, even after getting a masters in Computer Science! About a year ago I read the book Code by Charles Petzold and watched some lectures about Computer Science by Robert Sedgewick which really opened up my mind.

Are those lectures in the public domain? If so, could you pls link to them? Thx.

In the case of the Computer Science course from Sedgwick, I have only been able to find it on Safari Books and InformIT (30$) http://www.informit.com/title/9780134493831

If you happen to be a member of ACM, you actually get free access to Safari Books through http://learning.acm.org

Re: Burn the Programmer

#245

Post by SilasX »

falcor84 wrote: post #241
SilasX wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, that's contrasting to other Python libraries that use the Rails/Spring magic? Which ones?

Django for example has a lot of magic. A lot of the development process consists of adding fields with particular names to classes that have a long inheritance chain of their own, and it's not trivial at all to understand what all of your options are and how they work behind the scenes.

Hm I figured Django may be guilty of that. FWIW I learned web apps on RoR but my first job was Django. Django (or at least, apps in practice) was definitely less magic than Rails, although I see what you mean about a lot of the config being less transparent than one might like. I always have to eg hit SO to figure out how to add something to the admin since the model for how it works is not transparent.

I’ll definitely check out Tornado and the others for how they compare.

Re: Burn the Programmer

#246

Post by emmelaich »

b0rsuk wrote: post #30

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…

True Names figure prominently in Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rule_of_Names

Re: Burn the Programmer

#247

Post by Raphmedia »

caseymarquis wrote: post #206
Raphmedia wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a side note, if anyone's interested in looking a bit more into "programming as magic" there's a great book series called The Wizardry If you like that kind of thing and you enjoy/don't mind anime, there's also the serie Knight’s & Magic. It is about a programmer being reborn in a world where people wield big "golem" armors. The protagonist then proceed to make his own version, completly disregarding the philosop…

I just watched the whole thing based on this post. 3/5. Not really worth the 5 hours, but it was alright. The premise was neat.

I felt exactly the same while watching it. Neat promise and entertaining. Something you can binge and enjoy without thinking too much. 3/5 is a nice rating when you compare to some of this season's anime series. There are a lot of show that I would rate 0/5 or even -1/5.

Re: Burn the Programmer

#249

Post by rektide »

jimbokun wrote: post #52
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…

This is exactly the reason I despise Spring with a deep and abiding passion. "Just add this dependency, and add these annotations to your class, and it will all Just Work." "But...what do those annotations actually do ?" "Stop asking so many questions!" I mean, I know the answers are out there, it's open source after all. But so much of it seems deliberately designed to obfuscate the flow of execution and make reason…

Spring desperately needed some remote interfaces to the engine to let external debuggers attach & tell you what was what. It keeps track of all this data, & you can find out what's in the various object containers if you ask really nicely with a lot of code. If this had a GUI, I think it would be an enormously sophisticated & elegant way of dealing with systems. Alas now it's a fright.

Re: Burn the Programmer

#250

Post by stuxnet79 »

nostrademons wrote: post #157
stuxnet79 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good one. Brought back a lot of Wheel of Time memories ... I just wish I had time to re-read the entire series ... never even finished it.

I hate to say this, but it actually got better when Robert Jordan died. He lost control of the series around book 6 and just started meandering, and books 7-10 aren't really worth reading. He picked up the pace again slightly with book 11. Then the Sanderson books (12-14) are excellent; he managed to tie up most of the loose ends, the characters basically read like old Robert Jordan, and the pacing moves well (even a…

Good to know. I stopped at book 7 I believe ... and I see what you are saying, somehow the story was plodding along in the later books - I was still enjoying myself, but I definitely wouldn't have complained if all the cruft was cut out.
Post reply on HN