Please add [2005] to the title. You had my hopes up there for a moment.
Same here.
A letter from _why
51–60 of 104 posts
Re: A letter from _why
#52Please add [2005] to the title. You had my hopes up there for a moment.
[deleted]
Re: A letter from _why
#53My favorite _why-ism was how he would hand write and scan code snippets for his blog (often without any explanation of what it did). Then, when lazy people started OCR-ing the images, he would post code as animated GIFs. It was not only fun to look at, you actually had to type out the code yourself to find out what it did.
Which is a really, really, really awesome way to force people to learn code.
as demonstrated by http://learnpythonthehardway.org/
Re: A letter from _why
#54> I admire programmers who take risks. They aren’t afraid to write dangerous or "crappy" code. I can still remember the advice a guy at least 10 times smarter than me gave me at the start of my programming career: "One of the most important things for a programmer to have is courage". At that time I couldn't fully understand what he really meant, I was thinking that REST vs. SOAP or PHP vs. Java or OO vs. Functional…
Mind to elaborate a little bit on this?
I know exactly what he speaks of. Even in a project dealing with life-or-death problems, you have room to iterate and test and review, so it's OK to screw up on the first pass, as long as you're trying your best! Thus - you have nothing to fear, and yet fear is a big problem in programming!
Programming literature is rife with "thou shalt not" commandments, which produces an image of having to be some genius who always gets these things right the first time; but actually trying to follow all of them all the time will make you a scared and confused programmer, overarchitecting in various ways to push problems away from the surface, which - most of the time - only ends up adding brittleness and doesn't solve the actual problem. Similarly, there's always some uncertainty about trying any new technique or technology, which can only be resolved by putting it into practice.
Most applications today need mostly "sweat" code(UI, all the various feature behaviors, integration of outside assets and APIs) and a tiny amount of "clever" stuff. Serious problems with architecture or performance tend to only reveal themselves once you've integrated a sizable number of features and they start tripping over each other. So the best way to actually reach the real problems tends to be to code like a madman until the problem finally reveals itself, at which point you can stop to think about it and do the necessary maintenance to set things right. Once you've done this enough, you gain domain knowledge and can actually plan farther in advance. Until then you are kidding yourself.
Re: A letter from _why
#55Can someone write an explanation for why this is important? Who is this person?
He's a top notch high and low-level programmer with excellent taste for API design (and a language geek). He's also a talented poet/writer, painter/cartoonist/web designer and composer/singer/musician. From ~2002 to 2009, he released a tremendous amount of material (dozens of code projects, thousands of blog posts), then disappeared abruptly, deleting almost everything he had ever published. His blog posts were humor…
Nyan cat remembers me of _why.
Re: A letter from _why
#56> I admire programmers who take risks. They aren’t afraid to write dangerous or "crappy" code. I can still remember the advice a guy at least 10 times smarter than me gave me at the start of my programming career: "One of the most important things for a programmer to have is courage". At that time I couldn't fully understand what he really meant, I was thinking that REST vs. SOAP or PHP vs. Java or OO vs. Functional…
Mind to elaborate a little bit on this?
Most people don't have the courage to try and fail. The fear of failure holds them back from their true potential. Having courage advocates trying even though you will likely fail the first time and probably the next. The point is you keep pushing forward and learning. Through failure comes learning and finally success.
This same attitude is seen in those who are elite in any discipline. Athletes who want the ball at the end of the game, do not do so because they never fail. They do so because they have the courage to give it their best and still come up short. Michael Jordan said it best:
I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
Re: A letter from _why
#57My favorite _why-ism was how he would hand write and scan code snippets for his blog (often without any explanation of what it did). Then, when lazy people started OCR-ing the images, he would post code as animated GIFs. It was not only fun to look at, you actually had to type out the code yourself to find out what it did.
you actually had to type out the code yourself to find out what it did.
Or think.
Re: A letter from _why
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
He was "unmasked" at one point. Last I heard - shortly after his disappearance - he was alive and employed. My take on his disappearance is that he just wanted to bow out of the limelight. Fair enough, IMO.
People started digging too deep, trying to unmask him, so he pulled the plug. I admire the people who do know his identity but kept it under wraps: kind of like a geek code of omerta.
Bingo, this is, as an acquaintance of _why, the main reason. Though I think it is more complicated than just one thing. Before when he got outed he was able to talk to the person and get them to respect his anonymity, but this time around the person wouldn't budge. He wanted his artwork to stand on its own, and has his reasons and I respected them so that's as far as it went.
Re: A letter from _why
#59First, you have to learn the rules. Then you have to master the rules. You have to really know what they're for, how they make things better. Then, finally, you can start breaking the rules.
Re: A letter from _why
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for this. I can understand that people want to get out of the light because not everybody can take that.
Some people have jobs where it's discouraged to stand-out or draw attention outside of work. Doing so is looked-down upon and may lead to reprimand or termination. I have no idea if this was the case for _why, I just want to point that out.
Yeah can imagine there are jobs where it is required to stay "hidden". I think it is very interesting cause most times you can make a name in communities when good and at the same time popular people from the community are working for your company.
On the other side there are plenty of people who did or still do a lot to be popular in the community.
Last but not least I think the guy has earned some rest.