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Code does not exist in a vacuum. There are two flavors of this. Many get the first part well before twenty years: all code exists to serve someone else's need.

Code does not exist in a vacuum. There are two flavors of this. Many get the first part well before twenty years: all code exists to serve someone else's need. It might be another programmer at the next layer in the stack, all the way up to making a profit, furthering scientific discovery, or serving national security. You can not write good code without understanding why that code exists in the first place. But, as I said, most people get that before twenty years. The other way code doesn't live in a vacuum, which I've seen too many people fail to understand for far too long, is that code is the tip of your personal pyramid. The foundations of that are your mental health, your physical health, your family and friends, your professional connections, your civic connections, etc. If you don't look after those things, it will affect what code you write and how efficiently you write it, or possibly whether you can keep coding at all. Think about what it means to be doing this for 20+ years, from young adulthood through having a family and even to the empty-nest period. Don't burn your bridges or burn yourself out in five years. Learn to do what you do sustainably over the long haul.

yesenadam 8y ago
all code exists to serve someone else's need I've been programming since the 80s, it all existed & exists to 'serve my needs' alone. (Well, I have written a few things to help other people.) So obviously that doesn't seem right to me. Maybe you meant 'commercial/professional code' or something. I wonder what % of the LOC ever written were to serve the programmer and no-one else.
- notacoward 8y ago
  So what need did all this code serve? Pure amusement? If it was to support you in your job, then it was indeed to serve somebody else's purpose. If it was to support some hobby, then I suppose you "win" on the pedantic point, but you still won't be able to do it well without understanding whatever purpose outside of the code is driving it, and I suppose you don't even care about the more important point in the second paragraph. Congratulations, you've proven that something somebody else wrote on the internet wasn't 100% correct and perfectly phrased. Can you point out an example where you expressed an original idea in a way that meets that standard, so I can learn from it?
  - yesenadam 8y ago
    Gee, I have no idea what in what I said produced your extremely nasty, sarcastic, petty comment. You don't know me. So I looked at your page.. which says: This place is way too fucking full of trolls who have never produced anything themselves and don't even know how it's done but always want the last word anyway. So it sounds like I shouldn't take your nastiness personally. It's you, not me. But I don't think it's appropriate on here at all. You have 5000pts on here, I don't need to quote the guidelines at you, I guess, but it seems like you've forgotten a few. If I'm not allowed to say, about things that seem wrong to me on here, that they seem wrong, and explain why, without being nastily attacked, then it's not a place I want to be. Of course. No-one would.

yesenadam 8y ago

all code exists to serve someone else's need I've been programming since the 80s, it all existed & exists to 'serve my needs' alone. (Well, I have written a few things to help other people.) So obviously that doesn't seem right to me. Maybe you meant 'commercial/professional code' or something. I wonder what % of the LOC ever written were to serve the programmer and no-one else.

notacoward 8y ago
So what need did all this code serve? Pure amusement? If it was to support you in your job, then it was indeed to serve somebody else's purpose. If it was to support some hobby, then I suppose you "win" on the pedantic point, but you still won't be able to do it well without understanding whatever purpose outside of the code is driving it, and I suppose you don't even care about the more important point in the second paragraph. Congratulations, you've proven that something somebody else wrote on the internet wasn't 100% correct and perfectly phrased. Can you point out an example where you expressed an original idea in a way that meets that standard, so I can learn from it?
- yesenadam 8y ago
  Gee, I have no idea what in what I said produced your extremely nasty, sarcastic, petty comment. You don't know me. So I looked at your page.. which says: This place is way too fucking full of trolls who have never produced anything themselves and don't even know how it's done but always want the last word anyway. So it sounds like I shouldn't take your nastiness personally. It's you, not me. But I don't think it's appropriate on here at all. You have 5000pts on here, I don't need to quote the guidelines at you, I guess, but it seems like you've forgotten a few. If I'm not allowed to say, about things that seem wrong to me on here, that they seem wrong, and explain why, without being nastily attacked, then it's not a place I want to be. Of course. No-one would.