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I don't want to be a Real Programmer

verybadalloc.com

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Re: I don't want to be a Real Programmer

#81

Post by julesbond007 »

By saying you don't want to be a real programmer, I'm hoping you don't mean a good/great programmer.

Isn't it interesting how we're telling everyone to learn how to code, but then people feel like impostors? Well you can't learn good programming and cs standards in a few days or weeks, even in a few years. So no wonder a lot of people feel like impostors.

Having said that, it takes quite some time to really develop as a software engineer into a real software engineer. You need to know architecture, design, best decisions, security, caching and more. That's what I call a real programmer. Can you design a search service? If you can't, can you learn enough to design it? How would you even start? Everyone can code, but not everyone can design a system that is scalable, fast, robust and secure.

In addition, to be a real programmer, I think you need to start thinking about the future...how will people want to use a browser in the future? If I'm a developer, how can I make XYZ easier and faster to build for other developers? How can I make it so that the code is reusable? Will a framework make it easy? How should that framework be built? How are people going to use it? Etc...

Some of it is deliberate thinking and some of it is work experience.

So a lot of this kind of thinking comes from real problems software engineers faced while working. Discussions, debates, etc... They found a solution and it was elegant enough for others to use.

That's how I think someone goes from an impostor to a real programmer.

Re: I don't want to be a Real Programmer

#82

Post by tdees40 »

goldenkey wrote: post #46

The viewpoint in this article is disillusioned at best. A real programmer is not someone who loves programming and attends hackathons to build iOS apps that map the sewer rats in NYC for fun. That stuff might be fun to the hipster who just learned iOS, sure. But I doubt someone who's been programming for 15+ years wants to build an app for bullshit. Every line counts more, because the capability is higher. Wasting ti…

This might be the single greatest comment in the history of Hacker News.

Re: I don't want to be a Real Programmer

#83

Post by MaysonL »

pdubs wrote: post #74
CmonDev wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sufficiently high-level static-typed language is similar to Math. Are mathematicians 'just end-users' to someone? In your world of abstractions you are the god.

Never more relevant... http://xkcd.com/435/

He forgot category theorists...

Re: I don't want to be a Real Programmer

#84

Post by kayoone »

jbeja wrote: post #79
kayoone wrote: post #26

Newsflash, your hero TJ Holowaychuk probably does not even exist. Seriously imo this guy tries to compare himself to everybody else on the internet, which is dangerous.

Huh?

http://www.quora.com/TJ-Holowaychuk-1/How-is-TJ-Holowaychuk-...

Re: I don't want to be a Real Programmer

#85

Post by marcosscriven »

I enjoyed reading this. I must have 10 to 15 years on Anas, but I can confirm the feeling doesn't dwindle all that much. The important thing is that you make sure you're enjoying it.

Incidentally, think the presentation on that page is excellent. And I like the domain name too.

Re: I don't want to be a Real Programmer

#86

Post by splintercell »

pdubs wrote: post #74
CmonDev wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sufficiently high-level static-typed language is similar to Math. Are mathematicians 'just end-users' to someone? In your world of abstractions you are the god.

Never more relevant... http://xkcd.com/435/

My friends made an improvisation to the comic:

http://i.imgur.com/etuhc8z.jpg

Re: I don't want to be a Real Programmer

#87

Post by jimmaswell »

unoti wrote: post #57
k__ wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol, I know this problem. I wrote frameworks in PHP. But if someone on an interview would ask me to _code_ a solution to a simple problem in PHP on paper, I would probably fail.

Like everything else, that is a matter of practice. Coding on paper or whiteboards is a skill you can become proficient with. Get a whiteboard, get something like skienna's algorithm book, and start practicing coding problems there while talking through what you are doing. Start simple then go more complex. After enough hours, this will become second nature. I realize this is a silly exercise, but if want to work in…

I don't get the big deal about whiteboard coding and such. I have to write code on paper for my CompSci class exams and it's never been really difficult. If it were PHP it would be though because it's hard to predict the argument lists and function names.

Re: I don't want to be a Real Programmer

#88

Post by collyw »

jff wrote: post #63
collyw wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

coming to the industry? I am working with a bioinformatics team leader who seems to be obsessed with his hipster stack Mongo, Node , Angular, hang on... nope, changed to Tokyo Cabinet, Nope, its Elastic Search this week. Its basically a relational problem we are trying to solve, but because it is moderately big data (will be a few terabytes in the end), we NEED to use NoSQL.

Don't worry, it won't be Node for long either.

The filesystem is the database. Because we need to use NoSQL.

Re: I don't want to be a Real Programmer

#89

Post by zaccus »

amirmc wrote: post #27
adamors wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (Most) humans aren't supposed to work 80+ a week. I say most because there are always those superhumans you come across that just seem to be able to do it I don't think they're superhuman, they are people who have no lives and will burn out in a short period of time. I can only feel sorry for them.

This thread seems to assume that there's a clear distinction between 'work' and 'not-work'. That isn't always the case as it's entirely possible that someone can love what they do to the extent that the lines completely blur (yes, that means those people could be exploited for that passion). An example of this is academia where every prof I've met 'works' insane hours but are completely (and happily) absorbed in thei…

>This thread seems to assume that there's a clear distinction between 'work' and 'not-work'.

If I'm coding for someone else in exchange for money, that's work. If I do it on my own time for free, it's not work. That's a pretty clear distinction, since I can't do both at once.

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