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Why do we hack?

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Re: Why do we hack?

#41

Post by elektrontamer »

jraph wrote: post #31
buggythebug wrote: post #27

Because we don't have a girlfriend.

I know you are joking, but I think it's important that nobody feels excluded by assumptions on who "we" are, even in jokes. "we" are not necessarily interested in having a girlfriend. We could be interested in having boyfriends. One or several. Or none at all. Or someone not specifically characterized by a gender. Or by another gender not listed here.

> I know you are joking

Genuinely curious, then why not leave it be? It's just a joke as you admitted, with no ill intentions, based on a stereotype that's mostly based in reality. Stem fields are mostly sausage fests. It's also quite a stretch framing it as "exclusionary", it's a self deprecating joke.

Re: Why do we hack?

#42

Post by shanebellone »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #30
shanebellone wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"don't reinvent the wheel" The single worst piece of advice that I consistently see repeated. If you're product is a bunch of APIs, you're a user not a maker.

'Don't reinvent the wheel' is a big reason I've put off almost all side projects that I've wanted to do. Everything I've thought of, someone else has already written, and it's quite demoralising. I end up thinking, 'what's the point?'

Keep in mind economic leverage is never a frontend feature. Gold is always buried.

Re: Why do we hack?

#43

Post by blooalien »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #30
shanebellone wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"don't reinvent the wheel" The single worst piece of advice that I consistently see repeated. If you're product is a bunch of APIs, you're a user not a maker.

'Don't reinvent the wheel' is a big reason I've put off almost all side projects that I've wanted to do. Everything I've thought of, someone else has already written, and it's quite demoralising. I end up thinking, 'what's the point?'

If you cannot yourself come up with a truly original idea, consider this; There is always the opportunity and option to do a thing better than it's been done before. Choose a thing that excites you, but you see possibilities for improvement, or a unique way of doing it that may be better than those who have gone before. "Stand on the shoulders of giants" if that benefits you, but do it in the way that only you can do.

Re: Why do we hack?

#44

Post by TeMPOraL »

neilv wrote: post #14
dist1ll wrote: post #2

I think the "brutal pragmatism" and corpo SWEs have always been an opposing force to the hacking spirit. Catch phrases include, but not limited to: - don't reinvent the wheel - right tool for the job - use a library - time to market - customers don't care about X - premature optimization I hack because it's the expression of the exact freedom that made me interested in computers in the first place. Discouraging devel…

> premature optimization This reminds me of my first FAANG interview, about 2 decades ago. I was already accomplished, and I assumed it would be a normal software interview, which pretty much always went very well. But once in the interview, they wanted me to write some code on a whiteboard, which I'd only seen once before, and to talk as I'm doing it. OK, I'll try that. (I actually hadn't slept the night before, for…

I feel for you. I'd probably be just as distracted as you were if this happened in the middle of an interview, but in the off case I weren't, I'd probably talk the interviewers' ear off. What they seem to not understand is, this kind of correction is natural and perfectly normal when you're writing code. I do it all the time - I think of a small piece of code to write, I write it, and before I'm done I notice obvious improvements, which I do on the fly.

It's not "premature optimization", as it costs me nothing (on the contrary, not doing it will cost me my focus / peace of mind), improves performance of the code - or rather, avoids stupidity - and often improves readability, as the code is now closer to a "pure" description of what it's supposed to do.

I've long held that a big part of why software today sucks so badly is because people don't do this, or likely can't do this. They write stupid code, and never bother to learn how to write non-stupid version of the same code by default.

Re: Why do we hack?

#45

Post by progmetaldev »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #44
neilv wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> premature optimization This reminds me of my first FAANG interview, about 2 decades ago. I was already accomplished, and I assumed it would be a normal software interview, which pretty much always went very well. But once in the interview, they wanted me to write some code on a whiteboard, which I'd only seen once before, and to talk as I'm doing it. OK, I'll try that. (I actually hadn't slept the night before, for…

I feel for you. I'd probably be just as distracted as you were if this happened in the middle of an interview, but in the off case I weren't, I'd probably talk the interviewers' ear off. What they seem to not understand is, this kind of correction is natural and perfectly normal when you're writing code. I do it all the time - I think of a small piece of code to write, I write it, and before I'm done I notice obvious…

This is the same process that I follow. I think the best developers I've met are constantly going through this iterative approach as they code, instead of leaving it to come back to. Besides not having the time once a manager sees a working model, I think this makes you a better developer and allows you to focus on the problem more clearly with a "clean" initial solution.

Re: Why do we hack?

#46

Post by progmetaldev »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #30
shanebellone wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"don't reinvent the wheel" The single worst piece of advice that I consistently see repeated. If you're product is a bunch of APIs, you're a user not a maker.

'Don't reinvent the wheel' is a big reason I've put off almost all side projects that I've wanted to do. Everything I've thought of, someone else has already written, and it's quite demoralising. I end up thinking, 'what's the point?'

If you can't reinvent the wheel on company time, I would urge you to try and do it on your own time. You don't necessarily have to use the solution you come up with, but it helps to get a deeper understanding of the code beneath the libraries you use. Using this technique definitely made me a better developer when I was younger. I still like to take small portions of libraries I use and try to code them myself, just to get a better feeling for how things work (even if the code is vastly different from the library I use).

Re: Why do we hack?

#47

Post by neilv »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #44
neilv wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> premature optimization This reminds me of my first FAANG interview, about 2 decades ago. I was already accomplished, and I assumed it would be a normal software interview, which pretty much always went very well. But once in the interview, they wanted me to write some code on a whiteboard, which I'd only seen once before, and to talk as I'm doing it. OK, I'll try that. (I actually hadn't slept the night before, for…

I feel for you. I'd probably be just as distracted as you were if this happened in the middle of an interview, but in the off case I weren't, I'd probably talk the interviewers' ear off. What they seem to not understand is, this kind of correction is natural and perfectly normal when you're writing code. I do it all the time - I think of a small piece of code to write, I write it, and before I'm done I notice obvious…

I suppose it might be more normal for C and C++ programmers to get in the habit of meticulous thinking through the code as we write it, since that's more a necessity than in most other languages. (If we're not careful, we risk having to pay with painful debugging sessions, and expensive correctness/stability/security problems.)

But meticulous coding is still useful for nontrivial code in any language that we want to work well. And it's not that hard; it's just something we practice and get better at over time.

Re: Why do we hack?

#48

Post by delta_p_delta_x »

progmetaldev wrote: post #46
delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Don't reinvent the wheel' is a big reason I've put off almost all side projects that I've wanted to do. Everything I've thought of, someone else has already written, and it's quite demoralising. I end up thinking, 'what's the point?'

If you can't reinvent the wheel on company time, I would urge you to try and do it on your own time. You don't necessarily have to use the solution you come up with, but it helps to get a deeper understanding of the code beneath the libraries you use. Using this technique definitely made me a better developer when I was younger. I still like to take small portions of libraries I use and try to code them myself, just…

> on company time

Heh, I wish I had 'company time'. I am a final-year undergraduate with a mediocre GPA and no job offers. Ergo all my time is 'own time', and most of what I do is interview preparation by grinding Leetcode problems.

Re: Why do we hack?

#49

Post by maxbond »

elektrontamer wrote: post #41
jraph wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you are joking, but I think it's important that nobody feels excluded by assumptions on who "we" are, even in jokes. "we" are not necessarily interested in having a girlfriend. We could be interested in having boyfriends. One or several. Or none at all. Or someone not specifically characterized by a gender. Or by another gender not listed here.

> I know you are joking Genuinely curious, then why not leave it be? It's just a joke as you admitted, with no ill intentions, based on a stereotype that's mostly based in reality. Stem fields are mostly sausage fests. It's also quite a stretch framing it as "exclusionary", it's a self deprecating joke.

Jokes of this kind are funny because they reference an unstated truth that performer & audience know. They are one of the vehicles by which culture is created. If you think that a joke is communicating a mistruth (by which I mean something disputed, I do not mean a lie) or creating a negative culture - regardless of the intent of the author - it's okay to discuss that.

So in this case, I don't think there's any reason to believe there was an exclusionary intent, and I don't interpret GP as saying that or as calling GGP out, but there may be an exclusionary effect, and I give it's totally reasonable for GP to respectfully add this footnote to mitigate any unintended negative impact.

Some may say this is being a wet blanket or ruining the humor, but people always call you paranoid or a safety Sally or whatever when you try to mitigate unintended harm in any context; you learn to ignore it.

I used to be involved in a biology lab, and people loved to stand on these rickety tables that fell apart at the drop of a hat. So I would bring them a stepladder and politely insist that, if they were in my lab, they were going to use a stepladder. They called me a safety Sally everytime. Doesn't mean I was going to let them smash their heads on the cement floor.

Re: Why do we hack?

#50

Post by skelpmargyar »

maxbond wrote: post #49
elektrontamer wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know you are joking Genuinely curious, then why not leave it be? It's just a joke as you admitted, with no ill intentions, based on a stereotype that's mostly based in reality. Stem fields are mostly sausage fests. It's also quite a stretch framing it as "exclusionary", it's a self deprecating joke.

Jokes of this kind are funny because they reference an unstated truth that performer & audience know. They are one of the vehicles by which culture is created. If you think that a joke is communicating a mistruth (by which I mean something disputed, I do not mean a lie) or creating a negative culture - regardless of the intent of the author - it's okay to discuss that. So in this case, I don't think there's any reaso…

In your example you are replacing the labmates dangerous solution with a much safer one. How would you replace their "dangerous" phrasing with "safer" phrasing while still retaining the slight?
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