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It's hard to write code for computers, but it's harder to write code for humans

erikbern.com

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Re: It's hard to write code for computers, but it's harder to write code for humans

#81

Post by 998244353 »

odieldomanie wrote: post #38
animal531 wrote: post #8

Bit of a side issue for me: I was working on my Unity game the other day and thought to myself, have IDE's really not progressed all that much in the last 10-20 years? Default intellisense has definitely gotten a lot better, but apart from that and a few other minor things the whole concept of coding feels pretty much the same today as back then. The biggest positive change for me is outside of the editor, it has bec…

The problem isn't the IDE, but that we are still using a programming language 24 years old.

What does a more recent language offer that C# doesn't and that would enable more powerful IDEs?

Re: It's hard to write code for computers, but it's harder to write code for humans

#82

Post by rustyminnow »

corytheboyd wrote: post #46
photonthug wrote: post #44

> “Humans learn from examples, not from “core concepts” Nitpicking maybe but I disagree with tfa on this point; not all humans work this way. Those of us who might actually prefer the general -> specific direction are already largely ignored in k12 and may only begin to thrive in higher education. Since we’re already kind of underserved, there’s no need to also deny that we exist!

I need both. Truly learning for me is learning core concepts, but examples are “known correct” cases I can test that understanding against. If something in the example is surprising, I know my model isn’t complete yet (or the example is wrong lol)

Yes! Both are valuable, and sometimes you need to iterate between and within each. Like if the conceptual components are mutually recursive (A is defined in terms of B, B in terms of A (SOLR anybody?)), skimming the docs can give you a "pencil sketch" level model, examples can flesh out the relationships between components, and re-visiting the docs with extra context can provide a more precise model.

Re: It's hard to write code for computers, but it's harder to write code for humans

#83

Post by osigurdson »

I've seen the aircraft / bullet heatmap diagram a few times. However, I'm always left wondering "was this a purely empirical analysis?". Clearly engineers would have some sense of what areas would bring an aircraft down (loss of engine, loss of tail strike me as obvious with no experience in aircraft design beyond paper planes). It is a great prop for survivorship bias of course!

Re: It's hard to write code for computers, but it's harder to write code for humans

#84

Post by photonthug »

masto wrote: post #60
photonthug wrote: post #44

> “Humans learn from examples, not from “core concepts” Nitpicking maybe but I disagree with tfa on this point; not all humans work this way. Those of us who might actually prefer the general -> specific direction are already largely ignored in k12 and may only begin to thrive in higher education. Since we’re already kind of underserved, there’s no need to also deny that we exist!

I'm with you on this. My learning style is to read the reference manual cover to cover (metaphorically now). I can recall numerous instances of wanting to get into a new thing and finding the vast majority of recommended introductions to be the polar opposite of what I was looking for. I'm going through this now as I decided to spend some time today learning the Drizzle ORM. The first things I found were all "here ar…

Query-language docs are a great example of this, especially proprietary ones. 3000 examples, many with blog post baggage and other distracting discussion, and when you try to find a description of the grammar, crickets.

Re: It's hard to write code for computers, but it's harder to write code for humans

#86

Post by bramblerose »

powersnail wrote: post #69

People learn things differently. I really need the "core concept" first, before diving into examples, (unless the core concept is extremely simple). Many tutorials are like hand-holding Lego building. Here's your Lego pieces, watch me and follow me in building this toy project, and you'll know how to Lego at the end of the day. I just don't function very well in this model. I want to know how and why decisions are ma…

I have the same (and ran into this trying to wrap my head around why Maven didn't work... I don't want a tutorial explaining how to get started, I need to understand the fundamentals to understand what's happening!).

I think, however, that starting from the examples might help with good API design: if you design your API to be "core concept first", this will likely lead to an API that _can only be used after you understand the core concepts_, which is not great when people are only occasional users.

Re: It's hard to write code for computers, but it's harder to write code for humans

#87

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

powersnail wrote: post #69

People learn things differently. I really need the "core concept" first, before diving into examples, (unless the core concept is extremely simple). Many tutorials are like hand-holding Lego building. Here's your Lego pieces, watch me and follow me in building this toy project, and you'll know how to Lego at the end of the day. I just don't function very well in this model. I want to know how and why decisions are ma…

I used to think I was a "core concept" kind of person, but later I realized I took that way too far and would refuse to do things outside of my comfort zone unless I felt like I truly understood everything ahead of time.

Nowadays I'm much more likely to just jump in and start working with examples directly, and I feel much more productive. It's partly a thing of trust: I just trust that the makers of high quality software have put in enough thought to make their interfaces easy to understand, for the common use cases, without digging too deep into the internals.

It frequently happens, of course, that I hit a roadblock where I do have to go deeper -- but that's only because there were 10 other things where I was successfully able to get by on surface impressions alone. So I find that even when I do dig in it's often time well spent.

Re: It's hard to write code for computers, but it's harder to write code for humans

#89

Post by fsndz »

powersnail wrote: post #69

People learn things differently. I really need the "core concept" first, before diving into examples, (unless the core concept is extremely simple). Many tutorials are like hand-holding Lego building. Here's your Lego pieces, watch me and follow me in building this toy project, and you'll know how to Lego at the end of the day. I just don't function very well in this model. I want to know how and why decisions are ma…

how do you manage when the core concept are too abstract ? I guess then you would need some examples to understand ?

Re: It's hard to write code for computers, but it's harder to write code for humans

#90

Post by fsndz »

austin-cheney wrote: post #41

There was an article similar to this less than 2 weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41566097 This whole issue of writing for people really distills down to two skills: 1. Empathy 2. Writing There is a world of difference between writing some code and writing an application, a product. That is all this article is about, though less explicitly. Empathy is a factor in this because its the difference between…

So true, and this is a dilemma, right? People who build frameworks do so to make it easier for others to ship products. In the process of building the framework, they become better developers themselves. However, others now have to learn their abstractions, which distances them from the underlying concepts. This can make it harder for them to master the core skills needed to surpass the framework. I had that feeling when I learned Rails, only to realize it hid so much from me that I eventually had to drop it and try doing things from scratch.
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