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We are done with “Hacking”

cacm.acm.org

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Re: We are done with “Hacking”

#91

Post by Latteland »

I think there are different kinds of programming jobs, and this article is referring to the kind of dev job that puts together pieces to solve problems, but it doesn't work at the fundamental level. to build a new operating system using the capabilities of some new hardware aspect, or say writing a new database that uses nvram and vector instructions to go fast, instead of the older dbs that generated a query and interpreted it row by row. You can't always get there by putting packages together.

There are still people creating fundamental new infrastructure or building blocks. But probably a lot more people are just gluing things together to solve a problem.

Re: We are done with “Hacking”

#92

Post by antod »

mmt wrote: post #90
antod wrote: post #32

As an aside, was a gigabyte of memory only $1000 back in 2000? I seem to remember it being higher than that.

You may be remembering proprietary (e.g. Sun) versus commodity (the prices for which were even lower, according to the table in the sibling comment). This sort of markup still exists in "enterprise" hardware today, which is why moving to the cloud actually is a cost savings for some places. Of course, operating their own operating their own commodity hardware instead would save even more, but this is typically a poli…

Thinking back it was probably due to currency swings for NZD USD. There was a period of few years back then when the exchange rate could be anywhere between $0.40 USD and $0.75 USD. So $1000 USD could mean very different amounts in NZD depending on exactly when my hazy memories were thinking about.

There were also various Taiwanese earthquakes and resin factory fires etc that probably caused me to remember the price spikes better than the average prices. Well that's my excuse :)

Re: We are done with “Hacking”

#93

Post by gjvc »

afandian wrote: post #47

Long shot, as this is a CACM article. Does anyone in Oxford UK want a 2ft foot worth of paper CACM editions from 2012 to 2015 in Oxford UK? I have been avoiding throwing them out but now getting round to it. Let me know.

Yes, I'm in Oxford and will gladly take them off your hands.

Re: We are done with “Hacking”

#94

Post by AstralStorm »

Volt wrote: post #77
calahad wrote: post #31

"Programmers do not need to write much code anymore; all they need to do in most cases is wire together already available components." As a general statement, I feel like this is objectively false. Just look at how much code gets added to Github daily.

You're ignoring the operative word, which is need . You can't say much about that point without actually doing some analysis. For instance, how much of that code is wiring? How much of that code is rewriting existing solutions for educational purposes? And so on.

Easy enough to figure out. Count dependencies in given selection of software, compare to older software in the same area.

I'm certain someone did such surveys.

Software isn't entirely driven by need, sometimes politics or licensing preclude the use of libraries. Sometimes libraries are not specific for your area and cannot be used - typical when handling hard real time applications or when otherwise microseconds matter.

Re: We are done with “Hacking”

#95

Post by wilsonnb3 »

slededit wrote: post #56
wilsonnb3 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unreasonable to expect people to retain knowledge of every little corner of a programming language when there's an easily available reference they could use instead. "How often they need to refer to reference material" is a pretty terrible metric for measuring the abilities of a programmer.

Its not an unreasonable metric, if a round trip through Stack Overflow is in your thought loop then you will be significantly more limited than someone who doesn't need that. If you are doing something very obscure then its reasonable, but most programmers don't do obscure things on a daily basis. Its similar to being unable to do math in your head. You can get away with always using the calculator but you'll be outp…

This is somewhat similar to the reasoning that leads people to use tiling window managers. It's more efficient than a traditional window manager so they think it makes them more productive.

They're not wrong about the first part. Tiling window managers are very efficient. They are wrong about that making them more productive, though. It certainly makes them feel more productive, but this kind of micro-optimization is solving something that wasn't actually a huge productivity problem to begin with. You can add up all the time I spend switching windows in a slightly suboptimal manner on Gnome or Windows and all of that time will be lost by an extra 5 minute coffee break or the mental deficit from sleeping less than 8ish hours a night.

Similarly, a person who doesn't have to look at Stack Overflow may seem more productive, but the tiny amount of time it takes to look something up instead of remembering it is a very, very small part of the developers day. Even if they have to do it 100 times a day it's unlikely to make any meaningful difference in the big picture.

Not needing documentation would be helpful in a world where a programmer sat down and didn't stop typing for 8 hours, but that's not the world that we live in.

Re: We are done with “Hacking”

#96

Post by slededit »

wilsonnb3 wrote: post #95
slededit wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not an unreasonable metric, if a round trip through Stack Overflow is in your thought loop then you will be significantly more limited than someone who doesn't need that. If you are doing something very obscure then its reasonable, but most programmers don't do obscure things on a daily basis. Its similar to being unable to do math in your head. You can get away with always using the calculator but you'll be outp…

This is somewhat similar to the reasoning that leads people to use tiling window managers. It's more efficient than a traditional window manager so they think it makes them more productive. They're not wrong about the first part. Tiling window managers are very efficient. They are wrong about that making them more productive, though. It certainly makes them feel more productive, but this kind of micro-optimization is…

How long would you estimate it takes to search your question, find the result and read the answer? I think it's optimistic to think it can be done in a minute if you actually time it.

100*1 minute is an hour and 40 minutes. That is not a trivial portion of the work day. Even if it were 30 seconds that's still almost an hour.

If that is truly a micro optimization then I shudder to think of the waste elsewhere.

Re: We are done with “Hacking”

#97

Post by Volt »

AstralStorm wrote: post #94
Volt wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're ignoring the operative word, which is need . You can't say much about that point without actually doing some analysis. For instance, how much of that code is wiring? How much of that code is rewriting existing solutions for educational purposes? And so on.

Easy enough to figure out. Count dependencies in given selection of software, compare to older software in the same area. I'm certain someone did such surveys. Software isn't entirely driven by need, sometimes politics or licensing preclude the use of libraries. Sometimes libraries are not specific for your area and cannot be used - typical when handling hard real time applications or when otherwise microseconds matt…

>I'm certain someone did such surveys.

Sure, it's easy enough. But until you can actually point to the surveys, we can't say anything about the code on Github relating to the point being made.

Re: We are done with “Hacking”

#98

Post by dang »

paulie_a wrote: post #41
calahad wrote: post #31

"Programmers do not need to write much code anymore; all they need to do in most cases is wire together already available components." As a general statement, I feel like this is objectively false. Just look at how much code gets added to Github daily.

I'll take it a step further, the author is an idiot. I am a huge proponent of using existing libraries and plugins but it actually takes real code to make it function. Again this person is an idiot and clearly shouldn't be writing code or articles.

Personal attacks aren't ok regardless of how wrong someone is, so please don't post them to HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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