The 'No True Programmer' Fallacy • Hacker News Board

Re: The 'No True Programmer' Fallacy

#31

Post by icebraining » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 9:14 AM UTC

inlined wrote: post #15

This reminds me a lot of a friend of mine who is a brilliant designer and also very technically adept. She couldn't build an operating system, but she could build a responsive website in 1/20th the time I could. Yet she's asked me "Am I not technical? I'm getting interviewed as a non-technical founder". This "hard core" massochim pissing contest really needs to stop. It feels like we've bonded with peers who also fel…

Well, playing Devil's advocate, is the "technical" in "technical founder" a description of the person, or of the role?

I mean, if she starts a tech company with someone, what will she be doing all day? It seems to me that designing the company's website, while doubtless a technical task, would only take a small section of her time. If she does non-technical stuff the rest of the time, is she really filling the role of a technical founder?

This isn't a slight at her, just a difference in what we understand the "technical" to mean. I'm not sure I'd consider even Linus Torvalds a "technical founder" if his role involved almost no programming.

Re: The 'No True Programmer' Fallacy

#32

Post by michaelwww » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 9:15 AM UTC

teacup50 wrote: post #17

jacquesm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read some of Norvigs code and tell me he's not a programmer, his stuff is some of the most elegant and efficient that I've ever seen.

Putting programmers on a pedestal fits with the YC culture of marketing via lionization of technology personalties, but it's counter-productive if your aim is to actually grow in the field. Hero worship blinds you to two simple facts, in almost all cases: - They're not doing anything you couldn't also do if you worked at it as hard as they have. - Like everyone, they're fallible, making mistakes, and may even not des…

I'm sorry to disagree but you're wrong. There are better programmers than I, that no matter how hard I work I will never be as good as. Not everyone can be a Mozart or Mozart wouldn't be special.

Re: The 'No True Programmer' Fallacy

#33

Post by BerislavLopac » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 9:21 AM UTC

hueving wrote: post #22

Do we call people that put together chairs structural engineers? Do we call baristas chemists? Baseball players physicists? Words exist for a reason, and using a spreadsheet does not make you a programmer. However I can already see that programmer is being diluted to mean anyone proficient with a computer. What term should we use for people that can write software? 'Software engineer' feels like overkill for writing…

So you're saying that someone writing a small self-contained script is a programmer, while someone who constructs a complex, multi-layered spreadsheet with complex functions, graphs and formatting isn't?

Re: The 'No True Programmer' Fallacy

#34

Post by discreteevent » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 9:26 AM UTC

It works the other way too. If instead of thinking of yourself as a programmer you think: "I solve problems" You can broaden your reach. There was a time when I was reluctant to work on something because I couldn't use C++ !

Re: The 'No True Programmer' Fallacy

#35

Post by zwetan » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 9:29 AM UTC

It's not about being a dick and discouraging people who want to learn programming but they should know in what they are getting into: programming is hard and the learning process is a long road of many years.

Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years http://norvig.com/21-days.html

with that wonderful quote "Bad programming is easy. Idiots can learn it in 21 days, even if they are dummies."

Re: The 'No True Programmer' Fallacy

#36

Post by dozzie » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 9:29 AM UTC

johw wrote: post #18

From my observations, the 'No true X' Fallacy comes into play when a person identifies himself with his skill...it becomes his identity so much that if he encounteres someone better at "his" skill, he feels his identity threatened. This arises when the person does not really have a lot of properties associated with his identity. I saw a lot of people who were really insecure in other areas of life besides the area wh…

If you will learn NLP as a side effect, I would avoid the book as a plague. If the author puts such a big lie as NLP, who knows what else is false in the book?

Re: The 'No True Programmer' Fallacy

#37

Post by labuan » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 9:33 AM UTC

jkot wrote: post #21

> But that’s total nonsense. It’s like saying that there are only two kinds of people when it comes to swimming, those that can learn how to swim and those that can’t It is a career advice. While most people can learn to swim, professional swimming is completely different level. If my friend is going to waste years of life and thousands of dolars to study wrong field, I would be very bad friend not to warn him. BTW:…

The difference being that programming is not very competitive. You can have a very successful programming career without being or, more importantly, being considered a good programmer.

Re: The 'No True Programmer' Fallacy

#38

Post by mianos » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 9:36 AM UTC

I hate to say it, but please don't feed the troll.

Re: The 'No True Programmer' Fallacy

#39

Post by foobar2020 » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 9:44 AM UTC

nazri1 wrote: post #25

> There are even studies on the subject to prove that there are ‘two kinds of people, those that can program and those that can never learn it no matter how much effort they put into it’ If you're referring to the "The Camel has Two Humps" paper then perhaps you'd like to know that the authors retracted their claim: http://www.eis.mdx.ac.uk/staffpages/r_bornat/papers/camel_hu...

Some of the claims. From the abstract:

I continue to believe, however, that Dehnadi had uncovered the first evidence of an important phenomenon in programming learners. Later research seems to confirm that belief.

Re: The 'No True Programmer' Fallacy

#40

Post by radmuzom » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 9:45 AM UTC

I agree strongly with Jacques Mattheij. Part of the programmer superiority (especially HN readers) syndrome is driven by fear; they consider themselves special and enlightened and "better" than others, and fear that teaching anyone to be a programmer will undermine their value.

I have seen it repeated multiple times here, in the context of the value of "unskilled" labour, that you are not adding any value if you are digging up a ditch and working hard to fill it over and over again. The automatic assumption is that programmers are providing more value. However, if you are writing hello world (or a slightly more complex program) in a new cool shiny language over and over again, then you are not adding any value just like any other labourer.