Talks that changed the way I think about programming • Hacker News Board

Re: Talks that changed the way I think about programming

#71

Post by vvanders » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 4:14 PM UTC

tinco wrote: post #27

These talks are a little skewed to the game/high performance programming side of the art, but still very interesting in general. Of the ones I've already seen I really like Mike Acton's talk. Since this has become such a nice thread some additions I'd add: * Sandi Metz going through the Gilded Rose or "All the small things" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bZh5LMaSmE I already subscribed to her programming style and…

> These talks are a little skewed to the game/high performance programming side of the art, but still very interesting in general.

I get the chance to interact with a pretty wide range of software engineers, the thing that constantly blows people's minds is how caches work and the fact that there's 10-50x performance waiting for you if know about it(and have the time to exploit it).

It's almost like they don't teach it in school or something, I agree there's a lot of gamedev/perf stuff but that lines up with my experience of things that change the way people approach programming.

Re: Talks that changed the way I think about programming

#72

Post by nurettin » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 4:27 PM UTC

Fuzzy_Logic wrote: post #60

pjc50 wrote: post #14

The theological second half of this is bizarre - I've never heard of this being considered a "problem", heaven (in the Christian tradition) is not a hall of fame that one nominates figures for. And the Mormon tradition of proxy-baptising people who are dead and never showed any sign of adherence to their tenets is highly questionable.

Mormon and long time lurker here. Just wanted to give clarity to this because it can be confusing. Mormons don't believe they are forcibly baptizing these people by proxy. They believe that everyone should have the opportunity to accept baptism and salvation through Jesus Christ, even if they did not receive the opportunity in the mortal stage of life: "Individuals can then choose to accept or reject what has been do…

Hi, sorry if this comes off as offensive, but is there a general consensus in mormonism about a gradual evolution of life on earth?

Re: Talks that changed the way I think about programming

#73

Post by johndubchak » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 4:36 PM UTC

thristian wrote: post #26

I suspect a lot of these video are the most powerful when you encounter them at exactly the time you happen to be wrestling with those same ideas yourself. Every time I design software, I'm think back to Gary Bernhardt's "Boundaries" talk¹ and his practical, concrete suggestions for writing testable code. But I've never met anybody else who seemed as impressed as I was by the idea. ¹: https://www.destroyallsoftware.c…

Thanks for posting this. I just finished watching it and thought it was a great talk with some really forward thinking on organizing functional designs.

Re: Talks that changed the way I think about programming

#74

Post by sctb » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 4:44 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #14

The theological second half of this is bizarre - I've never heard of this being considered a "problem", heaven (in the Christian tradition) is not a hall of fame that one nominates figures for. And the Mormon tradition of proxy-baptising people who are dead and never showed any sign of adherence to their tenets is highly questionable.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13129374 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Talks that changed the way I think about programming

#75

Post by icantdrive55 » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 4:48 PM UTC

paulddraper wrote: post #70

WhitneyLand wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you just criticize a religion for not making sense?

> The weirdest thing about Mitt Romney is that crazy religion. Mormons believe Joseph Smith received gold plates from an angel on a hill, when everybody knows Moses got stone tablets from a burning bush on a mountain. http://www.cc.com/video-clips/cw4el2/the-colbert-report-yahw...

That, and criticizing Obamacare, considering his state was the inventor of the flawed system to begin with. (Just letting for profit insurance companies call the shots, with no caps on premiums. I like most of Obamcare. I know Rebublicans wouldn't let anything through if Obama didn't allow for profit insurance essentially ruin the bill. Obama compromised to get a bill passed. It was this, or nothing. And look what insurance companies did. Shameful?)

And showing no moral integrity by kissing Trumps hand now.

I have never figured out what this guy really cares about. Yea, he was a nice young man. Most popele were once nice young men.

Re: Talks that changed the way I think about programming

#76

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 4:56 PM UTC

wheaties wrote: post #59

SonicSoul wrote: post #56

tried listening to why OOP is bad and it was painful. 10 minutes in and 0 insights. He kept saying things like "encapsulation doesn't work" and then moving on. Not willing to stay another 20 min to find out why.

There are many talks about why OOP is "bad" but they tend to come from the FP camp The decent talks of this nature are backed up by firm, fundamental reasoning showcasing the power of "better" abstractions. I, personally, find both OOP and FP compelling, depending on what I'm trying to model. Wish I could link a few examples, sorry.

[deleted]

Re: Talks that changed the way I think about programming

#77

Post by erikbye » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 5:05 PM UTC

tinco wrote: post #27

These talks are a little skewed to the game/high performance programming side of the art, but still very interesting in general. Of the ones I've already seen I really like Mike Acton's talk. Since this has become such a nice thread some additions I'd add: * Sandi Metz going through the Gilded Rose or "All the small things" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bZh5LMaSmE I already subscribed to her programming style and…

For some, there might be some valuables on these interviews:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVpSIdWE0do&list=PLEMXAbCVnm...

Again, it's game dev oriented, but there are good general advice as well, here and there.

Mike Acton is on there too. Jonathan Blow, Ron Gilbert, etc.

In general, I think more programmers should be concerned with learning how things work at a deeper level than the API for whatever web framework they are using. Web applications are god-awfully slow, it's like the programmers behind them just don't give a shit about performance, at all. It's not that much better on the desktop side either.

Re: Talks that changed the way I think about programming

#78

Post by nurettin » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 5:09 PM UTC

nurettin wrote: post #72

Fuzzy_Logic wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mormon and long time lurker here. Just wanted to give clarity to this because it can be confusing. Mormons don't believe they are forcibly baptizing these people by proxy. They believe that everyone should have the opportunity to accept baptism and salvation through Jesus Christ, even if they did not receive the opportunity in the mortal stage of life: "Individuals can then choose to accept or reject what has been do…

Hi, sorry if this comes off as offensive, but is there a general consensus in mormonism about a gradual evolution of life on earth?

I'll take the negative votes as a no :-)

Re: Talks that changed the way I think about programming

#79

Post by spacemanmatt » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 5:22 PM UTC

I gotta throw in one of my favorites, because I have not seen another that really speaks so directly to the value of craftsmanship in development. I also deeply enjoyed the allegory with woodworking tools.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShEez0JkOFw&t=13s

Re: Talks that changed the way I think about programming

#80

Post by dj-wonk » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 5:32 PM UTC

calebm wrote: post #65

edem wrote: post #17

I really like that my two favorites from Rich Hickey are present. If you don't watch any of these you should at least watch 'Simple made easy'.

I clicked the link just to see if I was correct in predicting that "Simple made easy" was on the list. It's on my list, and seems to be on everybody's list. It reminds me of that quote: "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead." (Mark Twain)

Rich has great talks.

However, I am not sure if what the author wrote ("Your most powerful problem solver is your subconscious mind.") is a spot-on articulation of what Rich means by hammock driven development. Here's my summary of what Rich means: immersive, focused thinking followed by unstructured, relaxed, open-ended thinking. It is the combination of the two that is so powerful.