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It's because the challenge he set himself isn't hard and he didn't do a particularly good job of it either (other comments have covered that so I wont reiterate

It's because the challenge he set himself isn't hard and he didn't do a particularly good job of it either (other comments have covered that so I wont reiterate it) yet he is soapboxing his experiences as if the topic isn't entry-level stuff. And I mean "entry-level" quite literally as you learn about event-driven programming in high school or equivalent IT classes. This isn't something you need a CS degree to learn. I mean kudos to the guy for trying something new but honestly I'd expect anyone working as a developer in IT to have learned this much before calling themselves a professional. And that includes Javascript devs since so much of frontend development is event-driven anyway. Personally I get a little fed up by just how _bad_ many frontend developers seem to be these days. I'm not tarring everyone with the same brush as I'm known some really amazing frontend devs too (though they ususally consider themselves full stack). But I've lost count of the number of Javascript developers who I've had to explain HTTP status codes and the difference between GET and POST. It feels like frontend development is a place where people go if they like the idea of coding but can't be bothered to learn how to actually programme nor any of the principles they're building their code on top of. Thankfully the topic author bucks that trend a little but even in his case the lessons he is learning are painfully basic. By the way it's a bank holiday (long weekend) in the UK so no Mondays blues from me. :D

fnl 9y ago
LOL! :-) As I said elsewhere, I think this is clearly an article for a junior audience. But I think he did an good enough job at explaining his main concepts to his peers/readers. In fact, the whole "I coded an editor in C" is at best a irrelevant eye-catcher, as you can copy-paste about a gazillion implementations from anywhere. So because of that, any seasoned dev should probably not fall for such a "catchy" header in the first place... :-) http://viewsourcecode.org/snaptoken/kilo/ http://viewsourcecode.org/snaptoken/kilo/ http://www.cprogramming.com/texteditors.html http://www.cprogramming.com/texteditors.html http://jwu.50webs.com/Archive/src/simted3/simted3.pdf http://jwu.50webs.com/Archive/src/simted3/simted3.pdf ... [ad nauseam]
jasode 9y ago
>I'd expect anyone working as a developer in IT to have learned this much before calling themselves a professional. According to author's webpage[1], he's a "student at the University of Waterloo, class of 2021". So probably age 17 or 18. He's not passing himself off as a "professional". If majority of HN readers feel this article was beneath their skill level and a waste of time, that's more on the submitter (mxstbr) for misjudging its value to the HN audience rather than the article's author. (Although at this time, the article does have 110 upvotes while simultaneously, the top-voted comment (poster mmjaa) is critical about its simplistic banality. So maybe the submitter got the pulse correct for half of the HN split-personality?) [1] http://lpan.io/ http://lpan.io/
- olddevanon 9y ago
  > According to author's webpage[1], he's a "student at the University of Waterloo, class of 2021". > So probably age 17 or 18. He's not passing himself off as a "professional". Fair enough, though I am still surprised he hadn't learned that in formal education already. I was taught about event driven programming before I got to university. The schools I went to weren't particularly good either so it's not like I had a "better" education or come from privilege. Maybe they just don't teach event-driven programming any more? :(
  - oblio 9y ago
    Assumption is...
    - olddevanon 9y ago
      I actually wasn't making an assumption, I was talking from my own experiences. Myself and my friends did learn about event-driven programming prior to university. We were taught both Visual Basic and Pascal and taught the difference between event driven (VB) and procedural (Pascal). Though weirdly we were never taught about OOP, but it was a fairly average UK college and a pretty general computing course so there was a lot to cover in 2 years.
  - robotresearcher 9y ago
clarry 9y ago
> It feels like frontend development is a place where people go if they like the idea of coding but can't be bothered to learn how to actually programme. Maybe they go into it because of the incredible demand.
simonh 9y ago
From the article. "viw helped me understand what UI development is really about." Nobody writes something like that if he is 'soap boxing his experiences as if the topic isn't entry level stuff'.
dang 9y ago
Would you please not tear other people down like this on Hacker News, regardless of what you think of their project? Even if you're right on some underlying points, it degrades the community badly.

fnl 9y ago

LOL! :-) As I said elsewhere, I think this is clearly an article for a junior audience. But I think he did an good enough job at explaining his main concepts to his peers/readers. In fact, the whole "I coded an editor in C" is at best a irrelevant eye-catcher, as you can copy-paste about a gazillion implementations from anywhere. So because of that, any seasoned dev should probably not fall for such a "catchy" header in the first place... :-) http://viewsourcecode.org/snaptoken/kilo/ http://viewsourcecode.org/snaptoken/kilo/ http://www.cprogramming.com/texteditors.html http://www.cprogramming.com/texteditors.html http://jwu.50webs.com/Archive/src/simted3/simted3.pdf http://jwu.50webs.com/Archive/src/simted3/simted3.pdf ... [ad nauseam]

jasode 9y ago

>I'd expect anyone working as a developer in IT to have learned this much before calling themselves a professional. According to author's webpage[1], he's a "student at the University of Waterloo, class of 2021". So probably age 17 or 18. He's not passing himself off as a "professional". If majority of HN readers feel this article was beneath their skill level and a waste of time, that's more on the submitter (mxstbr) for misjudging its value to the HN audience rather than the article's author. (Although at this time, the article does have 110 upvotes while simultaneously, the top-voted comment (poster mmjaa) is critical about its simplistic banality. So maybe the submitter got the pulse correct for half of the HN split-personality?) [1] http://lpan.io/ http://lpan.io/

olddevanon 9y ago
> According to author's webpage[1], he's a "student at the University of Waterloo, class of 2021". > So probably age 17 or 18. He's not passing himself off as a "professional". Fair enough, though I am still surprised he hadn't learned that in formal education already. I was taught about event driven programming before I got to university. The schools I went to weren't particularly good either so it's not like I had a "better" education or come from privilege. Maybe they just don't teach event-driven programming any more? :(
- oblio 9y ago
  Assumption is...
  - olddevanon 9y ago
    I actually wasn't making an assumption, I was talking from my own experiences. Myself and my friends did learn about event-driven programming prior to university. We were taught both Visual Basic and Pascal and taught the difference between event driven (VB) and procedural (Pascal). Though weirdly we were never taught about OOP, but it was a fairly average UK college and a pretty general computing course so there was a lot to cover in 2 years.
- robotresearcher 9y ago

clarry 9y ago

> It feels like frontend development is a place where people go if they like the idea of coding but can't be bothered to learn how to actually programme. Maybe they go into it because of the incredible demand.

simonh 9y ago

From the article. "viw helped me understand what UI development is really about." Nobody writes something like that if he is 'soap boxing his experiences as if the topic isn't entry level stuff'.

dang 9y ago

Would you please not tear other people down like this on Hacker News, regardless of what you think of their project? Even if you're right on some underlying points, it degrades the community badly.