Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy • Hacker News Board

Re: Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy

#91

Post by cynwoody » Sun, May 25, 2014, 8:42 AM UTC

psyklic wrote: post #45

ef4 wrote: post #7

> They don’t tell you that a lot of programming skill is about developing a knack for asking the right questions on Google and knowing which code is best to copy-paste. And they don’t let you in on a big secret: that there is no mastery, there is no final level. The anxiety of feeling lost and stupid is not something you learn to conquer, but something you learn to live with. Just because you haven't achieved mastery…

I disagree with the author -- I never feel lost and stupid. There is always a way of bringing an idea to life, even if there are compromises and tradeoffs. But nowadays, I am forced to rely on third-party libraries. These libraries often change constantly and have "in-development" nuances. So, the OP regrettably is correct that searching the Internet is a requirement for working on modern applications. I do reminisce…

>I do reminisce about the pre-Internet days, when all I needed was my brain and a simple reference book!

Once upon a time, I had a bookcase full of three-ring binders containing plural "reference books", updated frequently via snap-open, pop-out, slide in latest version.

These days, I find Chrome's location bar far faster and more convenient than that bookcase!

She is absolutely correct about the importance of "developing a knack for asking the right questions on Google".

And as for copy-paste, when and to what extent to do that is another knack, one which will likely accompany the acquisition of the first knack.

Re: Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy

#92

Post by cliveowen » Sun, May 25, 2014, 8:45 AM UTC

retrogradeorbit wrote: post #58

"They don’t tell you that a lot of programming skill is about developing a knack for asking the right questions on Google and knowing which code is best to copy-paste." No, no, no! This always frustrates me. This is not 'coding' (maybe it is, and we should be doing less of it, and more programming). This is gluing together pre-coded snippets and trying to make it work. Continuing to do this is an impediment to gettin…

I completely agree with you and frankly I'm shocked to see most of the responses here purporting copy-pasting someone else's code to be a legitimate practice. I also imagine that most if not all of these people are into web developed where there's a long history of copy-pasting snippets of code and no one knows what he's really doing. I've seen many people write a jQuery script for their website and calling themselves developers. You're not a developer, you're mashing together tools you don't really know how to use in the hope that everything works out. On the browser you're working with a single thread, in the real world you're always dealing with multi-process/multi-thread programs that inevitably lead to race conditions and deadlock. I doubt anyone involved in systems programming thinks is normal to copy and paste code to "get things done", it's just not gonna work.

Re: Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy

#93

Post by jesusmichael » Sun, May 25, 2014, 8:50 AM UTC

retrogradeorbit wrote: post #58

"They don’t tell you that a lot of programming skill is about developing a knack for asking the right questions on Google and knowing which code is best to copy-paste." No, no, no! This always frustrates me. This is not 'coding' (maybe it is, and we should be doing less of it, and more programming). This is gluing together pre-coded snippets and trying to make it work. Continuing to do this is an impediment to gettin…

wow... You must be from the school of re-inventing the wheel... most things that need to be coded have been done before by someone else and quite well... No one chops down their own tress when they want to build a deck. They take lumber that someone else preformed and make it fit their project. If you are writing all your own code every time on every project... You must get nothing done...

Re: Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy

#94

Post by soup10 » Sun, May 25, 2014, 8:53 AM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #69

soup10 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I copy and paste code all the time. I'm in the business of getting shit done, not learning everything ever, I don't need to learn the ins and outs of some obscure algorithm I'm only going to use once. I also don't need to memorize Apis and boilerplate for technologies I rarely use. Of course once i'm settled into a domain I don't need google anymore. But it's invaluable for quickly diving into new stuff.

Please never stop doing this. I get paid $$$++ to swoop in after people like you are done and whole teams grind to a halt productivity-wise because the codebase is so bad. You are doing god's work, son. Thank you.

Lol my code base is fine thanks. Maximizing productivity and writing maintainable code are not mutually exclusive.

Re: Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy

#95

Post by jesusmichael » Sun, May 25, 2014, 8:58 AM UTC

greenyoda wrote: post #46

bpatrianakos wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to be super technical, sure. But in the context of this article that quote rings true. The masters really are surprisingly few in our field. At least the sort of masters I think you're talking about. In my experience most programmers have a sense of imposter syndrome that is very tough to crack so including that quote in the article was something I liked and think is important for other developers to hear…

"The masters really are surprisingly few in our field." Contrary to what some readers here might expect, most highly competent developers don't have blogs or start their own companies. Most of the talented and experienced engineers who work in the bowels of Google optimizing search algorithms, or at Boeing writing avionics software or at Oracle designing database systems pursue their craft in obscurity and anonymity.…

Being a "Programming Master" has so little to do with coding, but the ability to analyze and automate real world processes and make them interact intelligently for the benefit of the user. Solving puzzles and memorizing algorithms it's taking someones project and giving it life.

Re: Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy

#96

Post by jesusmichael » Sun, May 25, 2014, 9:00 AM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #88

twelvechairs wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are being offensive here - going all as hominem rather than actually demonstrating any reason parent comment is wrong.

You missed this part of the post then: > whole teams grind to a halt productivity-wise because the codebase is so bad

I've seen that more from guys that "start from scratch" than guys who cut and paste... most guys who cut and paste also annotate and comment... most geniuses can't be bothered to both code and comment...

Re: Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy

#97

Post by nandemo » Sun, May 25, 2014, 9:06 AM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #9

I'll hijack here a bit (sorry). A good friend of mine in in a PhD program at UCLA. She's into solid-state physics and modeling. They use IgorPRO a lot in this field (oddly, also audiology). However, she can't use it a lick. She tries, she really does, but she just can't. Why? Dyslexia. She has dyslexia. All the variables on the screen just look the same. i++ and i--, or +i and 'hi', or for() and if(). Just the same s…

The first google result suggests that IDEs and code-coloring might help:

http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/9657/programm...

Out of curiosity, does she not have a problem reading (or writing) physics papers?

Re: Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy

#98

Post by Shivetya » Sun, May 25, 2014, 9:15 AM UTC

retrogradeorbit wrote: post #58

"They don’t tell you that a lot of programming skill is about developing a knack for asking the right questions on Google and knowing which code is best to copy-paste." No, no, no! This always frustrates me. This is not 'coding' (maybe it is, and we should be doing less of it, and more programming). This is gluing together pre-coded snippets and trying to make it work. Continuing to do this is an impediment to gettin…

I will disagree with your copy and paste assessment. While it will hinder a junior programmer its a godsend to the senior developer. Someone who can quickly recognize what the code is doing and integrate it into the final solution.

There are more than enough APIs just on the platform I work with daily that I can imagine how much fun it must be sorting through all those available to Windows developers must not be a joy. Well Google lets me search quickly for established solutions and combined with my knowledge I can quickly identify which if any will do what I want to do and adapt if not drop into my coding style.

TL;DR

Copy/Paste might not be good for new programmers, but time savings for experienced programmers warrants its use

Re: Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy

#99

Post by Kiro » Sun, May 25, 2014, 9:20 AM UTC

retrogradeorbit wrote: post #58

"They don’t tell you that a lot of programming skill is about developing a knack for asking the right questions on Google and knowing which code is best to copy-paste." No, no, no! This always frustrates me. This is not 'coding' (maybe it is, and we should be doing less of it, and more programming). This is gluing together pre-coded snippets and trying to make it work. Continuing to do this is an impediment to gettin…

> Then I'll throw them all away and code my own. Possibly it will share a lot with one of the answers, what I would consider a good approach

So basically you're in the business of reinventing the wheel all the time. I feel sorry for your employer.

Re: Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Learning To Code Is Easy

#100

Post by lazyjones » Sun, May 25, 2014, 9:20 AM UTC

retrogradeorbit wrote: post #58

"They don’t tell you that a lot of programming skill is about developing a knack for asking the right questions on Google and knowing which code is best to copy-paste." No, no, no! This always frustrates me. This is not 'coding' (maybe it is, and we should be doing less of it, and more programming). This is gluing together pre-coded snippets and trying to make it work. Continuing to do this is an impediment to gettin…

> Copy and paste doesn't help you at all with this. In some cases it may prevent you learning essential lessons and hinder your improvement.

It annoys the heck out of me too when people apply for a programming job and cannot implement even trivial CS methods (like integer => string conversion with base N), then point out that they would just Google for a solution if they needed something like this.

But to be honest, a lot of programming wisdom is buried somewhere on the web as well as inside libraries that do not warrant reimplementation. Much of this googling and copy-pasting simply represents the fact that our traditional programming library approach isn't sufficient anymore for distributing correct implementations of particular functionality - probably too much overhead. SO is much like a large library with mediocre code, imprecise interface specification and without working imports, but it also contains many solutions to trivial problems that competent engineers should be able to implement straighforwardly...