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Why Programming is Difficult

joearms.github.io

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Re: Why Programming is Difficult

#91

Post by lutusp »

truthteller wrote: post #84
lutusp wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I attribute this to: 1) IQ 3 standard deviations above. (...) A person with an IQ at or above 145, who is also fully conversant with reality, would know that IQ testing has a reputation nearly as bad the field of psychology that popularized the activity in the first place. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man > 2) I've been practicing hard, 25 years. A person of your age should know better than to use…

"the mismeasure of man" is a garbage book by the noted fraud and liar steven jay gould. it certainly should not be used as any sort of reference on intelligence testing.

> "the mismeasure of man" is a garbage book by the noted fraud and liar steven jay gould.

When you post like this, do you ever stop to think how you're making psychology and its supporters look?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man#Awards

Quote: "The first edition of The Mismeasure of Man won the non-fiction award from the National Book Critics Circle; the Outstanding Book Award for 1983 from the American Educational Research Association; the Italian translation was awarded the Iglesias prize in 1991; and in 1998, the Modern Library ranked it as the 24th-best non-fiction book of all time.[10] In December 2006, Discover magazine ranked The Mismeasure of Man as the 17th-greatest science book of all time."

Re: Why Programming is Difficult

#92

Post by duwease »

Amen. When I think, "I love my job", I'm generally thinking about the "easy" part, where the tools are all under my control and well known, and I just have to build something with them using my knowledge of algorithms and architecture.

However, the reality tends more often to be: - Frantic Googling trying to figure out the magic code to pass to a black box 3rd party component that will prompt it to spit out exactly what I need - Banging 3rd party components together to see what happens to be compatible - Trying to figure out how to work around the limitations of an API without being too inefficient or complex - Spending 4 times longer on conference calls discussing a problem than actually fixing it

Re: Why Programming is Difficult

#93

Post by atwebb »

bovermyer wrote: post #73
sitharus wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After 10 years in the industry I relate to that second paragraph far too well. What makes programming hard is that people who aren't programmers don't understand what we do.

Part of the job is helping others understand what you do, in a way that's convivial and not condescending.

I think this really cannot be understated. It will help you get ahead and in many, many different ways while also strengthening your base knowledge and understanding of the subject matter.

Re: Why Programming is Difficult

#94

Post by mitochondrion »

psychometry wrote: post #66
benched wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I relate to straight shooters who say what they see. I understand that fronting, ass covering, being indirect, and speaking the mel[odious] language of business are ways to play the game. Mention of IQ induces reflexive invocation of multiple intelligences like ipecac, but IQ-style intelligence is directly relevant to programming. High emotional intelligence makes it worse when you're in a toxic corporate environment…

The only people who are overly concerned with IQ and take advantage of every opportunity to mention their own score are the people who have nothing to offer but an IQ score. You come across as incredibly haughty and condescending.

I agree that his comment seemed haughty, but I'd like to mention that yours does as well.

I disagree that "only people who are overly concerned with and take advantage of mentioning their IQ". More likely, it's just that smart people with empathic intelligence don't mention it. You know, because they realize that others don't like feeling "dumb".

Re: Why Programming is Difficult

#95

Post by yogo »

gaius wrote: post #79
shadowfiend wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than focusing on the IQ remark, I'll mention that the entire point of this post is that programming is not just “sit[ting] down to code something”. A program written in a vacuum when you're sitting in your chair is useful to precisely one person at precisely one point in time: you, right now. When you're working on teams, under managers, within organizations, you're working to build something that's useful for…

This is why, when I see 22-year-old kids in interviews claiming 10 years of programming experience, that's a negative signal for me. Commercial programming is solving problems you didn't choose, in a language that's not your favourite, using existing code you didn't write, for people you would never have met outside the job, in less time than you would like. In most real situations writing the code is the easy part,…

Well there's professional experience and non-professional/hobbyist experience. In your interview you should probably clarify that. They're both different but I think there is value to the things teenager might have learned working on some toy project.

Re: Why Programming is Difficult

#96

Post by Aco- »

eurleif wrote: post #83
gaius wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why, when I see 22-year-old kids in interviews claiming 10 years of programming experience, that's a negative signal for me. Commercial programming is solving problems you didn't choose, in a language that's not your favourite, using existing code you didn't write, for people you would never have met outside the job, in less time than you would like. In most real situations writing the code is the easy part,…

How do you know you're not underestimating what a 12 year old can do?

because labor laws.

He's talking about work experience and that requires a work environment. Not the semblance of one.

Re: Why Programming is Difficult

#97

Post by mitochondrion »

benched wrote: post #65
psychometry wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that your inability to relate to other people in your organization is related to your obvious superiority complex? No one cares what your IQ is. There are many different kinds of intelligence and some of them, like social and emotional intelligence, also contribute to your personal success within any particular organization.

I relate to straight shooters who say what they see. I understand that fronting, ass covering, being indirect, and speaking the mel[odious] language of business are ways to play the game. Mention of IQ induces reflexive invocation of multiple intelligences like ipecac, but IQ-style intelligence is directly relevant to programming. High emotional intelligence makes it worse when you're in a toxic corporate environment…

Straight shooters are great, but you will NEVER have a positive reaction when you talk with people about your IQ. Especially when 145 is so much higher than most. If you have a 145 IQ and you mention it to 1,000 people, you've just pissed off 998 of them.

Re: Why Programming is Difficult

#98

Post by jodrellblank »

psychometry wrote: post #66
benched wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I relate to straight shooters who say what they see. I understand that fronting, ass covering, being indirect, and speaking the mel[odious] language of business are ways to play the game. Mention of IQ induces reflexive invocation of multiple intelligences like ipecac, but IQ-style intelligence is directly relevant to programming. High emotional intelligence makes it worse when you're in a toxic corporate environment…

The only people who are overly concerned with IQ and take advantage of every opportunity to mention their own score are the people who have nothing to offer but an IQ score. You come across as incredibly haughty and condescending.

http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html - disagreement level 0 or 1, you're just throwing insults without addressing their position at all.

Re: Why Programming is Difficult

#99

Post by jodrellblank »

iqdummy wrote: post #59
benched wrote: post #40

I think programming is easy. When I sit down to code something, it feels deterministic, and everything falls into place. I attribute this to: 1) IQ 3 standard deviations above. If I hadn't been this way when I started, I probably wouldn't have started. 2) I've been practicing hard, 25 years. That's a lot of time to try a lot of ways to do a lot of things, and find what works. Here's what's difficult for me, and what…

"I attribute this to IQ 3 standard deviation above..". Did you really just say that? If you're so smart why didn't you complete the sentence?

Did you really just create an account to insult someone?

Re: Why Programming is Difficult

#100

Post by yogo »

joe_the_user wrote: post #61
benched wrote: post #40

I think programming is easy. When I sit down to code something, it feels deterministic, and everything falls into place. I attribute this to: 1) IQ 3 standard deviations above. If I hadn't been this way when I started, I probably wouldn't have started. 2) I've been practicing hard, 25 years. That's a lot of time to try a lot of ways to do a lot of things, and find what works. Here's what's difficult for me, and what…

When you start your post with "I have a high IQ so programming's easy for me", I indeed believe that working with other people might be a problem for you. But I would still add that I'm doubtful that someone can work on large projects and not have communicating and working with other people be an actual part of programming (rather than that "other problem", "people"). If your projects need you to produce code that ot…

Spot on. For the most part I think you can take anyone on HN to build 90% of the applications out there. After all, it mostly boils down CRUD (different levels), with the other 10% requiring specialized knowledge of algorithms and certain systems. All this to say that coding is the easy part. The more time-consuming part is figuring out exactly what the end users need, whether that involves communicating directly with them or with a project manager. After it's shipped? Even more communication because there will be some bug that you, or your test suite, would not have caught from an everyday user, and there's only one way to find out how to reproduce it...
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