How to Be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002) [pdf]
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Re: How to Be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002) [pdf]
#2Lots of previous discussions but not for four years:
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=How%20to%20Be%20a%20Programmer...
Re: How to Be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002) [pdf]
#3I read through some of the Beginner section that I thought seemed inappropriate for beginners and found a number of grammar and punctuation errors. While trying to navigate the file I found that the page numbering shown in the Table of Contents is off by two pages. His advice on "difficult people" sounds like he is talking about a single, specific person but is doing so in a vague way and expects that to function as actionable advice. That seems like a common pattern as I look back on the rest of the section. He talks about what were probably specific events or situations in a very non-specific way and by doing so falls short of providing useful insight. It would be more effective to write about the details than to try to adapt the story to a common experience.
Re: How to Be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002) [pdf]
#4I honestly don't even understand the title, write code?
How to become a better programmer makes some kind of sense, though the short answer is similar: write more code.
Which leaves no time to fill the ether with noise, so it's a double win.
How does this end up on the front page in the first place?
Re: How to Be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002) [pdf]
#5This appears to be an updated and edited version of this document: https://github.com/braydie/HowToBeAProgrammer
Re: How to Be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002) [pdf]
#6I honestly don't even understand the title, write code? How to become a better programmer makes some kind of sense, though the short answer is similar: write more code. Which leaves no time to fill the ether with noise, so it's a double win. How does this end up on the front page in the first place?
Saying you'll be a better programmer if you just write code is like saying you'll be a better mathematician if you just write more math.
Re: How to Be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002) [pdf]
#7Okay, I’m going to be a little bit far out there. A lot of this seems to be grounded in the negative. “How to deal with x” how to “do y when z has failed”. Some of it technical and some of it interpersonal. Why have we created this sphere around programming? What makes /this/ profession so different from any other? And my believe is: nothing. It’s not hard. It’s not better. It won’t “eat the world”. Heck it probably didn’t make that much of a difference in the grand scheme. It’s just sitting on your ass and either do as you’re told or come up with something better, like 90% of all work. Software is just like any other job, and chances are it is completely stupid like most other desk jobs out there. And if not, the same general skills apply. Stop feeling like it is difficult or even special.
Re: How to Be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002) [pdf]
#8I honestly don't even understand the title, write code? How to become a better programmer makes some kind of sense, though the short answer is similar: write more code. Which leaves no time to fill the ether with noise, so it's a double win. How does this end up on the front page in the first place?
Saying you'll be a better programmer if you just write code is like saying you'll be a better mathematician if you just write more math.
It’s another way to describe practice. Which is correct but not the most compelling of arguments.
Re: How to Be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002) [pdf]
#9Okay, I’m going to be a little bit far out there. A lot of this seems to be grounded in the negative. “How to deal with x” how to “do y when z has failed”. Some of it technical and some of it interpersonal. Why have we created this sphere around programming? What makes /this/ profession so different from any other? And my believe is: nothing. It’s not hard. It’s not better. It won’t “eat the world”. Heck it probably…
At some level of abstraction all jobs can be made to look similar. It's just not particularly useful to abstract to that degree.
I think if you look in the communities formed by any groups of people sharing professions, you'll find a similar magnification of the importance and uniqueness of that profession: humans generally have a tendency to find the stuff they spend the most time around more significant, and often forget that the significance-difference is in perception only.
That said, because of software's generality (in terms of the number of domains it's applicable to), it is relatively unique.
Re: How to Be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002) [pdf]
#10Okay, I’m going to be a little bit far out there. A lot of this seems to be grounded in the negative. “How to deal with x” how to “do y when z has failed”. Some of it technical and some of it interpersonal. Why have we created this sphere around programming? What makes /this/ profession so different from any other? And my believe is: nothing. It’s not hard. It’s not better. It won’t “eat the world”. Heck it probably…
No other profession has quite the same capacity to transform itself.
Like blacksmiths, programmers are capable of building tools that not only change the way they work but enable new kinds of work to be done, often by making previously onerous tasks trivial, and giving the individual a much large potential impact.
Unlike blacksmiths, programmers can share their inventions with the entire industry in the blink of an eye. So the rate at which the programmer's toolchain can change is indeed special.
Sure, it can also be glorified plumbing at times, but I think we think programming is special because it is.(Not that that will continue to be the case forever.)