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Coding Horror: Code: It's Trivial

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Re: Coding Horror: Code: It's Trivial

#41

Post by ktharavaad »

w1ntermute wrote: post #14
patio11 wrote: post #12

I really hope nobody with any industry experience thought SO could be cloned in a weekend. That notion screams "The longest program I have ever written was for a CS lab, and I got extra credit for it because I am the awesome." But, hypothetically supposing that it had been cloned in a weekend, then you'd be staring at the 90% of a software business which does not happen in an IDE. My app can be cloned in a weekend. I…

ktharavaad ( http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ktharavaad ), the user who said he could clone SO in a weekend ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=678501 ), hasn't commented on HN since before the weekend ( http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ktharavaad ), so I'm guessing he learnt his lesson. That said, I think people are making too big a deal out of this. Even the best of us occasionally end up shooting comme…

Actually.... If you look carefully enough.

This was posted 5 days ago:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=684343

That being said, yes, I did learn my lessons.

Thanks for keeping me honest!

Re: Coding Horror: Code: It's Trivial

#42

Post by jasonkester »

kragen wrote: post #35
jasonkester wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once worked a summer job at Nintendo in Redmond, screwing together refurbished Super Nintendos. One day, the Big Bosses came down and toured the GameBoy line, and they had a kid do a demo using this new "hand you screws" machine so they could see how much it increased productivity. He rolled up his sleves, took a deep breath, and screwed cases on something like 16 machines in the span of a minute (normal production…

That's really interesting! I didn't have any idea Nintendo had assembly lines for refurbishment. Is that a typical refurbishment process?

It was actually a pretty cool little assembly line. At one end were pallattes of SNES's that had come in for service. They'd get dropped onto the belt and dissassembled completely by the first 10 or so people, then the individual parts would be tested as they moved along the line. Good parts were collected in bins and eventually moved down the line to assembly stations. Bad parts, stickered lids, and cockroaches would be allowed to roll down the belt and eventually off the end.

Once the pieces were collected, the machines would be re-assembled from scratch as they moved down the line. Some jobs, like screwing on the razor-sharp "tins" were terrible. Routing wires and screwing on lids was OK. My second summer there, I got the prime job on the line: Testing.

My job for the entire summer was to essentially play the first level of Super Mario all day, every day, on every machine that came past. That, plus some simple control tests, plus 8 hours of sitting on a rack running the intro demo of Zelda was enough to verify that a machine was good. Every once in a while the line would stop for whatever reason and I'd keep on "testing" away. I got REALLY good at Super Mario that summer.

Re: Coding Horror: Code: It's Trivial

#43

Post by lucumo »

jussij wrote: post #38
dschobel wrote: post #11

That's the weird thing about the coding profession. I'd wager that the vast majority of people here work on solved / "trivial" problems which have established best practices and everything all laid out there for you to find if you bother to look. And yet we've all encountered so many developers who continually get it wrong. It's this weird recurring phenomena I've had throughout my career (and I'd wager I'm not alone…

I see a lot of this as well. I put it down to the fact that a lot of programmers take exception at being given advice on how to do things and hence they learn the hard way. I've been in situations where a programmer has asked me for help, I've given it, only to then be told I was wrong and their approach was much better.

> I put it down to the fact that a lot of programmers take exception at being given advice on how to do things and hence they learn the hard way.

Agreed, but on the other hand, I've noticed that from time to time the initial reaction is being annoyed, and then, after a while, they start to adopt what you told them. The initial reaction probably is an ego-thing, but after some private contemplation, they see things more rationally.

I'm no exception to this, BTW. I too have found things that I've done for years that in hindsight seemed stupid after somebody pointed them out. And yes, I got defensive and annoyed about it. Human nature, I suppose.

Re: Coding Horror: Code: It's Trivial

#44

Post by shin_lao »

Evgeny wrote: post #36

From "Open source software only comes in one edition: awesome" to "Open-source software remains such a horrible pain in the ass to use". How long did it take? Five days?

I reached the same conclusion. It just doesn't make any sense. It's as if two different people wrote the entry.

Re: Coding Horror: Code: It's Trivial

#45

Post by ruddzw »

Evgeny wrote: post #36

From "Open source software only comes in one edition: awesome" to "Open-source software remains such a horrible pain in the ass to use". How long did it take? Five days?

But they're both true, aren't they? With open source software, it's all there for you to see and use, in all its awesomeness. No pure-marketing limitations. Yet despite that advantage, it doesn't always rise over paid competitors because it's often such a pain to use.

The two opinions are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Re: Coding Horror: Code: It's Trivial

#46

Post by matthardcastle »

shin_lao wrote: post #44
Evgeny wrote: post #36

From "Open source software only comes in one edition: awesome" to "Open-source software remains such a horrible pain in the ass to use". How long did it take? Five days?

I reached the same conclusion. It just doesn't make any sense. It's as if two different people wrote the entry.

The quote quoted by OP is a quote in a quote.

Re: Coding Horror: Code: It's Trivial

#47

Post by jodrellblank »

Evgeny wrote: post #36

From "Open source software only comes in one edition: awesome" to "Open-source software remains such a horrible pain in the ass to use". How long did it take? Five days?

You missed the point? He wasn't claiming that open source software is universally awesome, he was saying it's awesome that it doesn't get split into home/premium/business/pro/basic/enterprise/ultimate/etc. editions.

It's always "awesome" edition - you get every part of it.

(Although, I'm not sure I agree - there is price and licensing segregation with commercial Open Source software).

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