31–40 of 254 posts
When I was a preteen, I'd watch Notch's ld48 programming streams, and I'd just be confused. I had read the basics of if-statements, for-loops, and functions, but he was using them in a way beyond my comprehension. Later I discovered MIT's Scratch, and it let me figure things out on my own: games, physics, genetic algorithms. I think programming is portrayed to be more difficult than it is. It's a mixture between prog…
You know, us programmers like to refer to ourselves as wizards but I really wonder if non-programmers think the same or is it just like any other profession they're not knowledgeable of? I don't know anything about chemical engineering but I've never considered chemical engineers to be magical. I do like thinking of myself as a wizard, though.
I felt that wizard thing when I was just starting out, for most of my career though, i've thought an apt analogy is tradesman. eg. carpenter or metalworker. We get commissioned to build something that does X. Then we design and build it. With experience we develop our own tools / practices and a familiarity with our materials. Experienced masters might experiment and develop completely novel things or masterworks. So…
interesting premise in the article but masked by horrible writing. i had to reread this multiple times to understand the point of it. the transition from talking about VR to programming was incredibly vague.
You know, us programmers like to refer to ourselves as wizards but I really wonder if non-programmers think the same or is it just like any other profession they're not knowledgeable of? I don't know anything about chemical engineering but I've never considered chemical engineers to be magical. I do like thinking of myself as a wizard, though.
For example, soon after I got my degree I was making browser based games, and the artist I was working with was really impressed with the particle effect fireworks I’d added to the highscores table out of boredom and was expecting to be told to remove.
And, on the other hand, a real time perlin noise warp tunnel I added to a later game was described as an embarrassing glitch that the boss thought looked like a bug rather than a deliberate effect. (And, unlike the fireworks, had actually been a requested feature).
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…
You know, us programmers like to refer to ourselves as wizards but I really wonder if non-programmers think the same or is it just like any other profession they're not knowledgeable of? I don't know anything about chemical engineering but I've never considered chemical engineers to be magical. I do like thinking of myself as a wizard, though.
I felt that wizard thing when I was just starting out, for most of my career though, i've thought an apt analogy is tradesman. eg. carpenter or metalworker. We get commissioned to build something that does X. Then we design and build it. With experience we develop our own tools / practices and a familiarity with our materials. Experienced masters might experiment and develop completely novel things or masterworks. So…
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…