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“Coding is basically just ifs and for loops.”

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Re: “Coding is basically just ifs and for loops.”

#271

Post by prescriptivist »

hnarn wrote: post #267
karlshea wrote: post #36

I also like "all web development is basically fancy string concatenation", and as a web dev I feel seen.

George Hotz said something once that most modern developer jobs are depressing because you're not doing any actual programming. I.e. you're not given a problem to solve with code, you're just taping together frameworks and pieces of code that someone else wrote to order. It's a bit like studying to be a chef for five years and then having to put together one of five types of burgers. Like everything Hotz says it's sp…

I love George, but he's a bit of a reactionary to a fault and this anecdote is a perfect example. A person with deep knowledge and thoughtfulness will make almost the exact same point with much more nuance, aka Jim Keller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=1363s

The choice quote in contrast to Hotz is "executing recipes is unbelievably efficient -- if it's what you want to do"

Re: “Coding is basically just ifs and for loops.”

#272

Post by kinjba11 »

mise_en_place wrote: post #156
kbenson wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a very real way, it's all conditional jumps in assembly, and every thing you've learned to make programming easier by allowing more directly letting you express your high level intent is just sugar. It might even help some or most of the time. But what you're actually doing is creating a bunch of branches and loops, and as much as the high level stuff might help, you really shouldn't forget this is the medium you…

Agree with this a lot. In other words, don’t be too clever. That leads to an unmaintainable codebase. There is value in simplicity and not overly using abstractions that take you farther and farther away from bare metal.

> There is value in simplicity and not overly using abstractions that take you farther and farther away from bare metal.

This is a contradiction. Simplicity is obtained through abstractions. As an example, fifty years ago, 'goto' reigned supreme. Then structured 'if/else/for' took over, as the superior abstraction over 'goto'. Now use of 'goto', while being far simpler to implement and closer to the bare metal, is commonly derided by many programmers.

The long term trend in software is constantly increasing abstraction hiding mountains of complexity, which increases both simplicity and complexity. Writing print('hello world') is simple, but the compiler, OS, silicon, etc. that makes that simplicity possible is extremely complex.

Re: “Coding is basically just ifs and for loops.”

#273

Post by hnarn »

prescriptivist wrote: post #271
hnarn wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

George Hotz said something once that most modern developer jobs are depressing because you're not doing any actual programming. I.e. you're not given a problem to solve with code, you're just taping together frameworks and pieces of code that someone else wrote to order. It's a bit like studying to be a chef for five years and then having to put together one of five types of burgers. Like everything Hotz says it's sp…

I love George, but he's a bit of a reactionary to a fault and this anecdote is a perfect example. A person with deep knowledge and thoughtfulness will make almost the exact same point with much more nuance, aka Jim Keller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=1363s The choice quote in contrast to Hotz is "executing recipes is unbelievably efficient -- if it's what you want to do"

There's definitely an assumption by Hotz that programming and solving "real" problems is what everyone should aspire to, and that anything else is just meaningless. Like anything in life, what's meaningful is of course completely subjective, all the way from some people actually finding it fulfilling to others just not being interested in putting in that much effort into their career and preferring to do other things with their time.

Re: “Coding is basically just ifs and for loops.”

#274

Post by phist_mcgee »

kaba0 wrote: post #254
ravenstine wrote: post #74

If you want to go even lower than that, coding is basically just saying yes or no in response to a yes or a no . Sure, that's oversimplifying it, but that's the smallest unit of information being changed during computation. But yes, once you learn the basics that are shared between most programming languages and don't get distracted by the nuances, it doesn't take that long to pick up a different language. Being prof…

Not quite. It has to somehow store and later retrieve a few (infinite) “yes-nos” to be general enough.

All machines that satisfy a test of whether they can do yes-no, store the result of that yes-no, and then go to another yes-no are verifiably considered yes-no machines, that is, they are yes-no complete.

Re: “Coding is basically just ifs and for loops.”

#275

Post by filoeleven »

laurent92 wrote: post #229
elviejo wrote: post #164

"First a punch is just a punch, Then a punch is not only a punch, And finally a punch is just a punch" (heard from Bruce Lee) Basically it means that in the beginning we punch like we can.. then a martial arts student learns the proper and different ways to punch.. so a punch is no longer just a punch... Is a lot of instructions.. Then to sheer practice and repetition the right way to punch becomes second nature.. so…

That’s what disappoints me in modern Java. There is practically no ifs. It makes it inaccessible to beginners on the project, and the streams are about twice as slow… just because devs think they are more clever if they pile 7 “.map()” to transform a list. list.stream().filter(Objects::nonNull).map(User::getUsername).filter(Objects::nonNull).filter(name -> name.contains(searchString)).map(name -> “We have found your…

That’s a failure of Java’s language design, not a failure of the functional/declarative paradigm.

Your for loop can do all kinds of damage to the list, and you have to read it all to find out what it does. Saner languages make the functional version more expressive.p:

  return first(users.filter(u => contains(u.name, searchString))
I’m not saying JS is a sane language; it has an anemic standard library without a robust “first()” or “contains()”. But that code gets you the first user where the name matches, without resorting to indexes or null checks or worrying about how a for loop can mutate lists that it should not.

EDIT: I should have used filter(list fn) here, I was trying to write something plausible in JS instead of a purer functional language and misses that translation.

Re: “Coding is basically just ifs and for loops.”

#276

Post by IX-103 »

sva_ wrote: post #234
matheusmoreira wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those mean nothing without the proteic machinery that translates codons into other proteins though. DNA and RNA without ribosomes is like a language without a compiler.

Umm.. what are those codons and other proteins made of? ...

Codons are an (effectively arbitrary) grouping of 3 consecutive nucleic acid bases that ribosomes can translate into a amino acid when building a protein. Technically any combination of 3 consecutive bases could be considered a codon, however biologists usually only group base pairs based on how they are normally read by a ribosome. Note that this means it is possible for a single sequence of nucleic acids to code for multiple proteins, with the only difference being the starting offset.

Proteins are made of amino acids not nucleic acids. Nucleic acids are polymers whose elements contain a phosphorus group. Amino acids contain an nitrogen group (an amino group to be specific).

Re: “Coding is basically just ifs and for loops.”

#277

Post by prescriptivist »

hnarn wrote: post #273
prescriptivist wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love George, but he's a bit of a reactionary to a fault and this anecdote is a perfect example. A person with deep knowledge and thoughtfulness will make almost the exact same point with much more nuance, aka Jim Keller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=1363s The choice quote in contrast to Hotz is "executing recipes is unbelievably efficient -- if it's what you want to do"

There's definitely an assumption by Hotz that programming and solving "real" problems is what everyone should aspire to, and that anything else is just meaningless. Like anything in life, what's meaningful is of course completely subjective, all the way from some people actually finding it fulfilling to others just not being interested in putting in that much effort into their career and preferring to do other things…

The irony of this point is if you ever watch a livestream from Hotz, he is, at an amazing level, literally taping together frameworks and systems to graduate to a point where he can begin to express solutions to a real problem. It's one of his great strengths -- nothing cannot be accomplished through hours dedicated to a problem with the extant tools we have. If he wants to impugn the flawed systems we have at our disposal it's just because nothing exists that is in congruity with what is happening in his head.

He is, however he may dislike it, good at taping together frameworks and stands as a success case for the systems he might look down on.

Re: “Coding is basically just ifs and for loops.”

#278

Post by filoeleven »

BobbyJo wrote: post #191
elviejo wrote: post #164

"First a punch is just a punch, Then a punch is not only a punch, And finally a punch is just a punch" (heard from Bruce Lee) Basically it means that in the beginning we punch like we can.. then a martial arts student learns the proper and different ways to punch.. so a punch is no longer just a punch... Is a lot of instructions.. Then to sheer practice and repetition the right way to punch becomes second nature.. so…

Everything else is only there for the monkeys pressing the keys.

And the monkeys reading the code to see what it does. I don’t recall who it was exactly but some early computing heavyweight, maybe Von Neumann, thought that any language which requires a compiler was a waste of resources.

Re: “Coding is basically just ifs and for loops.”

#279

Post by p_l »

btschaegg wrote: post #268
z2 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters. Translation from http://www.livinglifefully.com/zensayings2.htm

"Before enlightenment: Ifs and loops. After enlightenment: Ifs and loops." :)

heh.

"Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment - chop wood, carry water."

Re: “Coding is basically just ifs and for loops.”

#280

Post by gavinray »

filoeleven wrote: post #275
laurent92 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s what disappoints me in modern Java. There is practically no ifs. It makes it inaccessible to beginners on the project, and the streams are about twice as slow… just because devs think they are more clever if they pile 7 “.map()” to transform a list. list.stream().filter(Objects::nonNull).map(User::getUsername).filter(Objects::nonNull).filter(name -> name.contains(searchString)).map(name -> “We have found your…

That’s a failure of Java’s language design, not a failure of the functional/declarative paradigm. Your for loop can do all kinds of damage to the list, and you have to read it all to find out what it does. Saner languages make the functional version more expressive.p: return first(users.filter(u => contains(u.name, searchString)) I’m not saying JS is a sane language; it has an anemic standard library without a robust…

JS has Array.some() for "contains"
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