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What Is Code?

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Re: What Is Code?

#321

Post by johnny22 »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #239
cordite wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father sent a small comment chain to me as well on a topic like this on one of his blog posts. June 3, 2015 at 10:12 am I think software developers like to impress people with how many lines of code they can write. June 3, 2015 at 3:31 pm That is not true. A good day is when you leave the office with more powerful software, but fewer lines of code. June 4, 2015 at 4:31 am So why is software always getting bigger ?…

> Does this even apply to free software like browsers and email clients ? The more I get involved in open source the more I think most code bloat is due to people needing their egos validated by getting a commit into a project, regardless of whether the commit is all that useful or not.

I've been involved for a long time, and it sure doesn't seem that way to me. Lots of that "code bloat" is simply making things portable across compilers, interpreters, operating systems and languages.

Re: What Is Code?

#322

Post by sfk »

woah wrote: post #269
notNow wrote: post #143

Watch it when capitalists pushing incessantly people to learn coding. They're trying very hard to cut the costs of their input "materials" and they will do everything that they could to devalue us in every way possible. So, if you're a talented and competent dev, be super aggressive with these predators and take everything your hands can grab before they have the upper hand and show us their true colors. Happy Coding…

Let us keep the sacred arts secret, brothers. EDIT: Just being sarcastic. You are clearly incompetent, coasting along in your job, and afraid of someone with 6 months of experience being better than you.

And you are an idiot.

Re: What Is Code?

#323

Post by fit2rule »

clebio wrote: post #264

> Writing this article was a nightmare because I know that no matter how many people review it, I’ll have missed something, some thread that a reader can pull and say, “He missed the essence of the subject.” I know you’re out there, ashamed to have me as an advocate. I accept that. I know that what I describe as “compilation” is but a tiny strand of that subject; I know that the ways I characterize programming langua…

Keep writing. The space is there for you.

Re: What Is Code?

#324

Post by lucozade »

cordite wrote: post #22
merrickread wrote: post #9

My Dad always tells me he flat out does not understand what I do. He respects it, knows it's challenging and fun, but just doesn't get it. I've sent this to him -- he's about 1/4 of the way through and thoroughly enjoying it. This is a very fun read that's worth leafing through

My father sent a small comment chain to me as well on a topic like this on one of his blog posts. June 3, 2015 at 10:12 am I think software developers like to impress people with how many lines of code they can write. June 3, 2015 at 3:31 pm That is not true. A good day is when you leave the office with more powerful software, but fewer lines of code. June 4, 2015 at 4:31 am So why is software always getting bigger ?…

Many years ago I managed to convince my management that, if they had to use deltaLOC as a performance metric, that they at least use abs(deltaLoC).

I then spent the next year cutting huge chunks of crap out of a C++ application that I had inherited.

Was a most satisfying experience.

Re: What Is Code?

#325

Post by Dewie3 »

flashman wrote: post #263
notNow wrote: post #143

Watch it when capitalists pushing incessantly people to learn coding. They're trying very hard to cut the costs of their input "materials" and they will do everything that they could to devalue us in every way possible. So, if you're a talented and competent dev, be super aggressive with these predators and take everything your hands can grab before they have the upper hand and show us their true colors. Happy Coding…

This is a really ugly, selfish attitude. It's like opposing literacy because it will put pressure on jobs for those who can read and write. It's circling the wagons around people who had the privilege and opportunity to learn these things before everybody else.

> It's circling the wagons around people who had the privilege and opportunity to learn these things before everybody else.

The underprivileged Bloomberg readership.

Re: What Is Code?

#326

Post by meric »

lucozade wrote: post #324
cordite wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father sent a small comment chain to me as well on a topic like this on one of his blog posts. June 3, 2015 at 10:12 am I think software developers like to impress people with how many lines of code they can write. June 3, 2015 at 3:31 pm That is not true. A good day is when you leave the office with more powerful software, but fewer lines of code. June 4, 2015 at 4:31 am So why is software always getting bigger ?…

Many years ago I managed to convince my management that, if they had to use deltaLOC as a performance metric, that they at least use abs(deltaLoC). I then spent the next year cutting huge chunks of crap out of a C++ application that I had inherited. Was a most satisfying experience.

Hmm, shouldn't it be Sum(abs(deltaLoC per change))? Otherwise if you added 50 lines a day and removed 50, your abs(deltaLoC) will be 0.

Re: What Is Code?

#327

Post by m52go »

makeitsuckless wrote: post #126
m52go wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love it or hate it, Meteor has empowered a number of sales-types and small-business owners to create real tools to solve their own real problems. I've seen it happen in front of my own eyes!

I omitted: ...and create so many new problems there will be years of work in it to clean the mess up . Been in "IT" for a few decades, I've seen it happen in front of my own eyes time and time again. The only self-help tool that has lasted so far has been the spreadsheet, and even that has gone horribly off the rails in many companies.

Haha, agreed. I'd argue there's a strong chance of that happening with any tool meant to give non-professionals a 'professional' result.

WYSIWYG web editors, divorce 'kits', many DIY 'kits' for home improvement, etc. Something inevitably goes wrong and the lawyer / contractor wonders just why the hell the client didn't just call a professional in the first place.

Re: What Is Code?

#328

Post by jveld »

ForHackernews wrote: post #165
mc808 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Photoshop "program" would consist of the composition of image layers, adjustment layers, blend modes, styles, masks, text blocks, shapes, paths, and so on. You "run the program" when exporting to a bitmap format. It probably doesn't help to think about it that way when using Photoshop, but it might be a useful mental model for developing Photoshop, or as an example of how a general visual programming language UI mi…

Maybe. But by that standard, using a Xerox machine is programming because you can layer some pieces of paper and transparencies together and then copy it onto an image on a single sheet. I think to be programming, there has to be some kind "logic" (conditionals, mathematical functions, loops, etc.) embedded in the structure (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom ) and I'm not sure Photoshop qualifies.

To me, the defining feature is automation. A "programmable" system is one where smaller actions can be composed into larger ones and saved for invocation later (by name, in response to some event, etc). I don't know much about photoshop, but judging from what people have said, it seems to meet this definition.

I will concede that "programming," in the sense of "I've been programming for the last couple hours" or "He isn't very good at programming" implies the use of a Turing complete language. Photoshop would probably fail here, along with more programmer-y things like writing html.

Re: What Is Code?

#329

Post by SSLy »

tempestn wrote: post #313

Was the bit about PHP standing for Personal Home Page a joke? I always thought it was "PHP Hypertext Preprocessor". The coolest thing about PHP is the infinite recursion in its name!

Nope, it wasn't. recursive was later tackled on (probably still before 1.0)

Re: What Is Code?

#330

Post by meowface »

jheriko wrote: post #280
meowface wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen anything like this on a website before. The writing, the formatting, the structure, the animations; it's near perfect.

are we reading the same article??!?! the content is quite good but the layout, colour, animations etc. are a mess.

There is a fine line between mess and art. :)
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