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A collection of things software developers should know

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Re: A collection of things software developers should know

#51

Post by ritchiea »

ATsch wrote: post #31
oldandtired wrote: post #26

This is what every programmer should know: 1. Life is too short, so get a life. 2. Know that you don't know everything, so get don't arrogant. 3. Don't get caught up in the various programming "religious" wars, there's more to life than a specific point of view. 4. Laugh and enjoy the the wonderful beauty in the world around us. 5. You're as much the idiot as the person you consider an idiot. 6. Sometimes the "import…

I find that saying the phrase "get a life" to people that enjoy what they are doing is extremely condescending. If I enjoy programming all day, or having huge flame wars, or maintaining a huge collection of antique watering cans sorted by volume, then who are you to judge me for that?

My guess is in this case the original commenter means "get a life" if you feel pressured to only think about programming or work.

If you are happy and fulfilled programming all day, go for it, program all day. Personally I would also encourage you to at least try and pursue some other interests because experiencing new things is fun & exciting, but if you're happy that's what's most important.

But many of us, especially those of us in the United States, live in a culture where we can be expected to think of our work as our life. A culture where we are encouraged to memorize CPU cache fetch times rather than picking up a novel, going to a museum or spending time with family. When we say "get a life" most of us are arguing against that culture, not telling you how to enjoy your time.

Re: A collection of things software developers should know

#52

Post by kraftman »

ATsch wrote: post #31
oldandtired wrote: post #26

This is what every programmer should know: 1. Life is too short, so get a life. 2. Know that you don't know everything, so get don't arrogant. 3. Don't get caught up in the various programming "religious" wars, there's more to life than a specific point of view. 4. Laugh and enjoy the the wonderful beauty in the world around us. 5. You're as much the idiot as the person you consider an idiot. 6. Sometimes the "import…

I find that saying the phrase "get a life" to people that enjoy what they are doing is extremely condescending. If I enjoy programming all day, or having huge flame wars, or maintaining a huge collection of antique watering cans sorted by volume, then who are you to judge me for that?

I'm not OP but I took it as 'get a life [outside of work]', i.e. don't get bogged down in the crazy 100-hour work weeks and stressing about climbing corporate ladders if it's not what you enjoy.

What you do with your free time is up to you, it's just a reminder that it's your free time not your companies.

Re: A collection of things software developers should know

#54

Post by pamqzl »

lambdas wrote: post #9

Stay humble. You don't know as much as you think you do. That's the takeaway from these IMO. Don't think anyone can commit all of these guides to memory but a very nice reference.

> Stay humble. You don't know as much as you think you do.

The other related takeaway I got from this is that programming looks very different from other corners of it.

Some things that one programmer thinks are required knowledge will be seen as completely obscure minutiae by someone else, and vice versa. For instance, this list seems to think I need to know about SEO, and "falsehoods about names", but I've never in my career had to deal with search engines or even names at all. The terrain looks very very different from where I'm standing... which just reminds me that I don't have a bird's eye view.

Re: A collection of things software developers should know

#55

Post by ATsch »

ritchiea wrote: post #51
ATsch wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that saying the phrase "get a life" to people that enjoy what they are doing is extremely condescending. If I enjoy programming all day, or having huge flame wars, or maintaining a huge collection of antique watering cans sorted by volume, then who are you to judge me for that?

My guess is in this case the original commenter means "get a life" if you feel pressured to only think about programming or work. If you are happy and fulfilled programming all day, go for it, program all day. Personally I would also encourage you to at least try and pursue some other interests because experiencing new things is fun & exciting, but if you're happy that's what's most important. But many of us, especia…

If this is how it was meant, perhaps a different phrase would have conveyed OPs opinion better. For me, "get a life" is strongly associated with "douchey jock" behaviour, bullying, nerd-shaming (is that word a thing? it is now) and phrases like "you like math? what a nerd, get a girlfriend bro", things I'm sure many people on HN have had to deal with.

Re: A collection of things software developers should know

#57

Post by mberger »

dqv wrote: post #14
bitshift955 wrote: post #6

Very glad to see "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names" included in this list [1]. I still struggle to always get this right. One thing I'd suggest including is something about not rolling your own crypto in the security section. Does anyone know a canonical article for this? I've got [2] bookmarked but not sure if a guide with the pitfalls of designing your own crypto scheme is right for this list. [1] http://…

>I still struggle to always get this right. I really like the FHIR Human Name data type[0]. It requires none of the fields... so it can represent someone without a name. It also has all the necessary fields for representing someone's name and their name in various forms and pretty much as many edge cases as possible. The only problem is turning it into a UI that makes sense. [0]: https://www.hl7.org/fhir/datatypes.ht…

May I ask where you work that you work with FHIR?

Re: A collection of things software developers should know

#58

Post by koolba »

oldandtired wrote: post #26

This is what every programmer should know: 1. Life is too short, so get a life. 2. Know that you don't know everything, so get don't arrogant. 3. Don't get caught up in the various programming "religious" wars, there's more to life than a specific point of view. 4. Laugh and enjoy the the wonderful beauty in the world around us. 5. You're as much the idiot as the person you consider an idiot. 6. Sometimes the "import…

While I agree with the rest, this one is flat out wrong:

> 5. You're as much the idiot as the person you consider an idiot.

I don't throw the word "idiot" around lightly but when I do, in a work / programming context, it's apt. I'd imagine I'm not the only one in that camp.

Re: A collection of things software developers should know

#59

Post by _pmf_ »

bitshift955 wrote: post #6

Very glad to see "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names" included in this list [1]. I still struggle to always get this right. One thing I'd suggest including is something about not rolling your own crypto in the security section. Does anyone know a canonical article for this? I've got [2] bookmarked but not sure if a guide with the pitfalls of designing your own crypto scheme is right for this list. [1] http://…

> Very glad to see "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names" included in this list [1]. I still struggle to always get this right.

In the real world, you'll constantly have to interact with external or internal systems that are based on the "wrong" concept, so implementing it "right" makes your system really awkward to work with.

Re: A collection of things software developers should know

#60

Post by ritchiea »

ATsch wrote: post #55
ritchiea wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is in this case the original commenter means "get a life" if you feel pressured to only think about programming or work. If you are happy and fulfilled programming all day, go for it, program all day. Personally I would also encourage you to at least try and pursue some other interests because experiencing new things is fun & exciting, but if you're happy that's what's most important. But many of us, especia…

If this is how it was meant, perhaps a different phrase would have conveyed OPs opinion better. For me, "get a life" is strongly associated with "douchey jock" behaviour, bullying, nerd-shaming (is that word a thing? it is now) and phrases like "you like math? what a nerd, get a girlfriend bro", things I'm sure many people on HN have had to deal with.

When I'm reading HN I assume the commenters are at least somewhat similar to myself until I have evidence to think otherwise. The culture here is neither anti-intellectual nor anti-math. Given that we're on HN I'd say it's safe to assume no one is telling you to quit coding or stop caring about math. On this forum issues around workaholism and burn out come up all the time, "getting a life" is a step toward not burning out.
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