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Burn the Programmer

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Re: Burn the Programmer

#81

Post by quotemstr »

b0rsuk wrote: post #36
stryan wrote: post #10

Considering how many programming abstractions most programmers work above now, I'd say it's more like magic now then ever before. Draw the circle (add the boiler plate code), recite the words (dig up the proper API method), perform the gestures (compile with certain flags) and your spell (desktop app) will work. If you don't, it'll do nothing or worse, blow up in your face. As a side note, if anyone's interested in l…

I feel disgust for programming domains where I have to use a lot of boilerplate. This is simply because... I can't remember arbitrary bits of information well. I memorize much better if it's something connected by logic.

The presence of large amounts of boilerplate signals an opportunity for abstraction wins.

Re: Burn the Programmer

#82

Post by jstewartmobile »

Only wizards in some kind of coastal ego bubble

More like "Burn the programmer! Adobe has crashed for the third time today!", or "Burn the programmer! YouTube has 100k+ likes on my copyrighted video (that someone else uploaded), and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!"

Re: Burn the Programmer

#83

Post by SilasX »

jimbokun wrote: post #52
stryan wrote: post #10

Considering how many programming abstractions most programmers work above now, I'd say it's more like magic now then ever before. Draw the circle (add the boiler plate code), recite the words (dig up the proper API method), perform the gestures (compile with certain flags) and your spell (desktop app) will work. If you don't, it'll do nothing or worse, blow up in your face. As a side note, if anyone's interested in l…

This is exactly the reason I despise Spring with a deep and abiding passion. "Just add this dependency, and add these annotations to your class, and it will all Just Work." "But...what do those annotations actually do ?" "Stop asking so many questions!" I mean, I know the answers are out there, it's open source after all. But so much of it seems deliberately designed to obfuscate the flow of execution and make reason…

That's exactly how I felt about Ruby on Rails.

Re: Burn the Programmer

#84

Post by shostack »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #15
stryan wrote: post #10

Considering how many programming abstractions most programmers work above now, I'd say it's more like magic now then ever before. Draw the circle (add the boiler plate code), recite the words (dig up the proper API method), perform the gestures (compile with certain flags) and your spell (desktop app) will work. If you don't, it'll do nothing or worse, blow up in your face. As a side note, if anyone's interested in l…

The books Daemon/Freedom by Daniel Suarez was pretty entertaining on that front. The idea that people could literally affect the world around them via "magic spells" which mapped aliases of a invented language that would be picked up by microphones and then executed on computers. There is a section that muses about the future of humanity and how in the near future, these would literally seem like magic to anyone who…

With always listening assistants, we're practically there with Google and Alexa. We just need cooler things to interact with than communication and divination (checking the weather) "spells."

As soon as we get some sort of grey goo with an API like in Big Hero 6 or wrist mounted fireball/lightning generators we're in business.

Re: Burn the Programmer

#85

Post by cname »

kardianos wrote: post #71

And this is why I program in Go. Hardware OS Program (no libc, no dynamic libs, no external runtime) Go specializes in "it runs like you read it". I hate magic in my program and I distrust programmers who program like a magician.

Go is still a pile of abstractions built on top of another pile of abstractions that almost no one fully groks. It doesn't seem significantly less "magical" than any other commonly-used language, especially from the perspective of non-wizards, even if it might be a better tool for casting certain spells.

Re: Burn the Programmer

#86

Post by tech2 »

coldcode wrote: post #54

I've never seen wizards in fantasy novels have to deal with myriads of JIRA tickets, attend interminable mind-numbing meetings and solve impossible dependency hells. I guess that's why they call it fantasy.

Allow me to introduce you to the wizards of the Unseen University...

Re: Burn the Programmer

#87

Post by endless1234 »

jimbokun wrote: post #52
stryan wrote: post #10

Considering how many programming abstractions most programmers work above now, I'd say it's more like magic now then ever before. Draw the circle (add the boiler plate code), recite the words (dig up the proper API method), perform the gestures (compile with certain flags) and your spell (desktop app) will work. If you don't, it'll do nothing or worse, blow up in your face. As a side note, if anyone's interested in l…

This is exactly the reason I despise Spring with a deep and abiding passion. "Just add this dependency, and add these annotations to your class, and it will all Just Work." "But...what do those annotations actually do ?" "Stop asking so many questions!" I mean, I know the answers are out there, it's open source after all. But so much of it seems deliberately designed to obfuscate the flow of execution and make reason…

I mean... Usually you could implement a simple dependency yourself pretty trivially, for the most common case. But will your implementation be as tested and cover your user base as well as the Generally Accepted dependency implementation that has a million monthly downloads?

Re: Burn the Programmer

#88

Post by shostack »

mindcrime wrote: post #63
stryan wrote: post #10

Considering how many programming abstractions most programmers work above now, I'd say it's more like magic now then ever before. Draw the circle (add the boiler plate code), recite the words (dig up the proper API method), perform the gestures (compile with certain flags) and your spell (desktop app) will work. If you don't, it'll do nothing or worse, blow up in your face. As a side note, if anyone's interested in l…

As a side note, if anyone's interested in looking a bit more into "programming as magic" there's a great book series called The Wizardry series about programmers being transported into a fantasy realm where magic works similarly to a programming language. Sounds a lot like the "Magic 2.0" series by Scott Meyer. https://www.goodreads.com/series/131379-magic-2-0 In that world, "magic" is very much a direct result of pr…

Just finished the third book. So far 1 and 2 (which takes place in Atlantis which may have borrowed heavily from Apple's design philosophy) are my favorites.

They definitely focus more on the programming nuance. It's also cool how they introduce technology and interfaces from different periods of computing due to the time traveling aspect.

Re: Burn the Programmer

#89

Post by kybernetikos »

jszymborski wrote: post #12

I find it at the very least a little ironic that the author used consumer technology to simulate magic abilities (to such an immersive state that he had to put a low-horror mode) and uses his success in this department as an argument that consumer technology doesn't very closely convey the feeling of magic. I appreciate the argument being made, but I can't say that I accept the premise that (sufficiently advanced) co…

There is something in the fact that consumer products often try to 'get out of the way'. So yes, the way it actually works is extremely magical, but it manages to hide it so well that people don't really think about it. The fact that the remote controls the TV is just a fact of life and the way the world works, while how to stop the radio from bleeping every night at midnight, that is magical.

Re: Burn the Programmer

#90

Post by proaralyst »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #15
stryan wrote: post #10

Considering how many programming abstractions most programmers work above now, I'd say it's more like magic now then ever before. Draw the circle (add the boiler plate code), recite the words (dig up the proper API method), perform the gestures (compile with certain flags) and your spell (desktop app) will work. If you don't, it'll do nothing or worse, blow up in your face. As a side note, if anyone's interested in l…

The books Daemon/Freedom by Daniel Suarez was pretty entertaining on that front. The idea that people could literally affect the world around them via "magic spells" which mapped aliases of a invented language that would be picked up by microphones and then executed on computers. There is a section that muses about the future of humanity and how in the near future, these would literally seem like magic to anyone who…

In the Quantum Thief (actually one of its sequels) by Hannu Rajaniemi, there are Secret Names that perform magic; one of them was 'Emergency Decompression Protection' and produced a shield around the incanter.
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