Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A letter from _why

aberant.tumblr.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 104 posts

Re: A letter from _why

#81

Post by javadyan »

grimen wrote: post #29
javadyan wrote: post #6

> They aren’t afraid to write dangerous or “crappy” code. If you worry too much about being clean and tidy, you can’t push the boundaries. Yes, of course. You push the boundaries, move on, and at the end of the day, we have to maintain the stinking pile of "experiments" you left us with. Ugh.

Example: Do you paint and/or build because you feel like it, or because it pays your bills? I doubt a child got bills to pay, so why do they paint and/or build LEGO? Code can be art and play too.

I doubt that building LEGO's has anything to do with building actual houses out of concrete and glass. That's my point. You can't build a real house out of legos and playing with them will not teach you anything about how actual houses are built. Same with programming - you can't learn to build good software by just mucking around aimlessly (unless you are some sort of genius). You have to learn how high-quality software is built.

Or maybe it just seems so to me, because I'm really really stupid and have to work hard to grasp even the easiest concepts :-)

Re: A letter from _why

#82

Post by javadyan »

rbanffy wrote: post #70
javadyan wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, why are you so sure your "best practices" will remain best practices a couple years from now? It's the same as saying "but why are you so sure your science will remain science a couple years from now?". Sure, there is constant progress and change, but we have to know what is at our disposal right here, right now.

"Best practices" are neither a hard science nor immutable. They are derived from observations about what works and what doesn't and are, therefore, subject to change over time as technology evolves. It's important to remember science, as in "what we understand about the world" also changes. What doesn't is the scientific method. Did you read the text I pointed you to?

> "Best practices" are neither a hard science nor immutable Yes. So what? Does it mean we don't have to study and apply them just because they are going to become obsolete eventually?

And I did read that text. In fact, I had read it earlier.

Re: A letter from _why

#84

Post by technomancy »

mtogo wrote: post #75
wyclif wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto here. Too much excitement this early in the morning, only for a letdown.

Too much excitement? _why was generally a cool guy, but why (no pun intended) would you get yourself excited over his return? He's just a person, just another developer, not the messiah or anything.

Can't a guy look forward to seeing an old friend again?

Re: A letter from _why

#85

Post by grimen »

javadyan wrote: post #81
grimen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Example: Do you paint and/or build because you feel like it, or because it pays your bills? I doubt a child got bills to pay, so why do they paint and/or build LEGO? Code can be art and play too.

I doubt that building LEGO's has anything to do with building actual houses out of concrete and glass. That's my point. You can't build a real house out of legos and playing with them will not teach you anything about how actual houses are built. Same with programming - you can't learn to build good software by just mucking around aimlessly (unless you are some sort of genius). You have to learn how high-quality soft…

It has very much. I played with LEGO my entire childhood, and I can see it becoming useful for building things in a creative way - but without having to think much becuase I think it's so obvious how it can be solved. With this in mind it's important to try to build things in other ways of course, and that was _why's point - but only if you think it's fun though. In short - as mentioned in many comments now: Try to do things that you find enjoyful, then this play might become very valuable for you or for others in one or many ways.

Re: A letter from _why

#86

Post by code_duck »

mibbit wrote: post #69
bh42222 wrote: post #66

_why is not an average programmer. His advise is good for masters of programming. He is also a super nice guy and sounds like he thinks anyone could become a super programmer. I don't think so. And I fear his advice will be taken most to hart by below average programmers.

One of the worst thing about this industry is the constant idolization of programmers, and languages by below average programmers.

It happens in every group of people.

Re: A letter from _why

#87

Post by [deleted] »

technomancy wrote: post #84
mtogo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too much excitement? _why was generally a cool guy, but why (no pun intended) would you get yourself excited over his return? He's just a person, just another developer, not the messiah or anything.

Can't a guy look forward to seeing an old friend again?

[deleted]

Re: A letter from _why

#88

Post by j_baker »

chipsy wrote: post #54
d0m wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 alway…

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.

This is true, but deceptive in my opinion. Sure, the vast majority of your code may be "sweat" code if you look at it on a strictly line-by-line basis. But the "clever" code is where you really add business value. It's oftentimes your secret sauce that gives customers a reason to use you versus one of your competitors. It's usually the code you spend the most time worrying about.

Granted, this isn't true of all businesses. Some companies make their living writing CRUD software that wins due to brilliant design. These firms rarely need programmers to add much business value beyond their time and energy, which is fine. But I wouldn't say that's representative of all or even most software businesses.

Re: A letter from _why

#89

Post by mtogo »

jessedhillon wrote: post #4

Can someone write an explanation for why this is important? Who is this person?

He's a guy who wrote some programs and talked about programming and then deleted all his accounts.

Some people worship him for reasons i find myself unable to fathom.

Re: A letter from _why

#90

Post by mtogo »

wisty wrote: post #10
jessedhillon wrote: post #4

Can someone write an explanation for why this is important? Who is this person?

why (with an underscore) was a cool pseudonymous Ruby programmer / writer, who completely disappeared. He's like the Bobby Fisher of programming, without the crazy. (OK, he sounds a little ... artistic, but that's not really crazy). Some people say he stopped writing because he was in danger of being "outed" by people trying to find his identity. Or maybe he got sick of Ruby, and wanted to do something else (without…

> He's like the Bobby Fisher of programming

W H A T!? How is _why in any way the Bobby Fisher of programming? Bobby Fischer was a famous, amazing chess player. _why is a person that writes code and some people (some Ruby developers, rather) look up to. They're not comparable in any way.

Post reply on HN