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What a Programmer Does (1967) [pdf]
- dang 10y agoAnybody know whose handwritten note appears at the top? The URL includes "Knuth" and "Baker" and the initials at the top look like "CLB". (Also, we changed the URL from http://videlalvaro.github.io/2014/09/a-programmers-role.html http://videlalvaro.github.io/2014/09/a-programmers-role.html to the original source, in keeping with the HN guidelines, which call for original sources. In this case the submitted article does add glosses, but not enough to be more substantive than the original. Historical material is particularly welcome on HN, especially when it hasn't appeared before, and this piece doesn't seem to have.)
- hcs 10y agoChuck Baker [0], according to the index [1], which also has a link to the cover letter [2] from when he sent this and some other papers to Knuth. [0] http://history.computer.org/pioneers/baker.html http://history.computer.org/pioneers/baker.html [1] http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Knuth_Don_X4100/PDF_index/KnuthDigitalArchive-Index.html#u2769-1 http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Knuth_Don_... [2] http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Knuth_Don_X4100/PDF_index/k-9-pdf/k-9-u2769-1-Baker-letter.pdf http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Knuth_Don_...
- dang 10y agoThanks!
- ozim 10y agoI am kind of dissapointed that posts about "good practices" dumbly enumerating those like SRP and DRY without adding any value get here a lot of upvotes. Where this paper stating why we should use best practices has like 10 points. You can also infer from it why you somethimes should not use "good practices".
- superJimmy64 10y ago> (A programmer does not primarily write code; rather, he primarily writes to another programmer about his problem solution.) An obvious concept that can so easily be forgotten at times.
- astrobe_ 10y agoNot so obvious. I have a couple problems with this statement. The first is that it confuses programmer (as in "coder") and developer (as in "designer"). But maybe that distinction didn't exist yet. To me, a programmer/coder is actually a translator - they translate the solution expressed in the specification of a program into a computer language (which is typically itself translated to machine code by a compiler). In reality, gaps in the specification or impedance mismatches between the specification language and the computer language can "force" a programmer to become a designer. In a way, one can still see this as a translator having to translate an idiomatic expression. The second problem with this statement is the same as with "readability": it is very subjective. That's why another claim in this text, that incomprehensible code written by bad programmers dies early, has been proven false in practice. Readability and viability are in practice separate concerns. For instance, highly optimized code is often less comprehensible than naive code yet it is more viable because the extra efficiency is required. Furthermore, human to human communication using a computer language is more or less efficient depending on the distance between then computer language and natural language; as an extreme example, it would be terrible to communicate using assembly language. So the H2H communication problem is better solved with documentation. That is, comments if we speak strictly about computer code. Now the question is: if comments solves the human to human communication problem, why would one has to write more comprehensible/readable code? To me the answer is: you don't write comprehensible code in order to better communicate with your fellow programmers, you write comprehensible code because you write the simplest possible code. It is comprehensible because it is simple, not because of the additional requirement that it has to be understood by someone else.
- jasonkostempski 10y agoIs there really 2 roles there? Who wants to design but not code or code but not design? I can't really imagine how you could even do either well without doing the other.
- SoulMan 10y agoI like the font in the PDF
- enthdegree 10y agolooks like Futura. great look It's the font on the Supreme logo (๐๐ช๐ฅ๐ง๐๐ข๐)
- kowdermeister 10y agoOh, I had to google what dybbuk is. I first thought it's debug, but it didn't make sense. "In Jewish mythology, a dybbuk (Yiddish: ืืืืืงโ, from the Hebrew verb ืึธึผืึทืง dฤแธaq meaning "adhere" or "cling") is a malicious possessing spirit believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person."
- sztwiorok 10y agoI don't agree! I know many programmers, that just write the code. For example: what problem is solved by the developer when he/she coding the login page? It just like any other profession, only a few people in the group are able to solve problems
- kowdermeister 10y agoHave you even read the article? TLDR; You are not only writing instructions for the compiler but for your future self and your fellow programmers. How can you disagree with that?
- sztwiorok 10y agoyes, I have red and I don't agree. I do not like such a generalization. a summary of the entire article is: "a programer does not primarily write code; rather, he primarily writes to another programer about his problem solution." I agree with one: there are good programers and there are bad programers. I don't agree, that bad programers die young ;) Today there are more bad than good programmers.
- kowdermeister 10y agoSummary is: communication is more important than writing syntactically correct programs. No offense, but you have some trouble understanding the language. If you re-read it, it say that young programmer'S code die young, not the programmers themselves :)
- sztwiorok 10y agono offence taken. I agree with this: "communication is more important than writing syntactically correct programs" but article is titled: "what a programmer does" not "what is the most important in a programer job"
- kowdermeister 10y ago
- bbcbasic 10y agoThat aerospace corporation job advertised there sounds might fine. Even if they are a little sexist!
- dasmoth 10y agoStill very much a going concern [1] (and a fair few open positions listed on their website...). They're an interesting organization -- basically, set up to provide long-term oversight over the ballistic missile program. [1] - http://www.aerospace.org/ http://www.aerospace.org/
- kowdermeister 10y agoIt seems HN has a vintage computing day. Two articles are besides each other on the front page :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12568829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12568829
- watwatwatwat 10y agoWhat is purpose of your comment? It's wasting my time with stupid comments.
- sctb 10y agoPlease stop posting like this. We ban accounts that continue to do so. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12570396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12570396 and marked it off-topic.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- lucb1e 10y agoThe job ad on the bottom mentions the following: > These are excellent opportunities for men who have two to six years experience with [some computer]. We prefer college graduates but will carefully consider all applicants. Uh, graduates with work experience? Am I missing something or is that a contradiction?
- cokernel 10y agoThere's no contradiction; it's just not an entry-level job. (Someone could get work experience then a degree, or a degree then work experience, or both simultaneously.)
- adrianratnapala 10y agoYour quotation doesn't says work experience. It says experiences with [some computer] -- you could get that at a university.
- lucb1e 10y agoSeems odd though, two to six years. If you used it in a few classes during 3 years, I'm not sure I'd even call that 3 years of work experience. And asking for six years is really weird in this context.
- charlieflowers 10y agoNo, they mean that all applicants must have years of work experience. Some applicants might be considered if they never got a college degree, but they prefer applicants who got a college degree before they got their six years of job experience.
- lucb1e 10y agoAh that makes sense. Graduates sounds to me like people who just graduated, but of course that's not what it technically means.