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> Both are something your average first year CS student could put together in a weekend or two. Sometimes I see people and wonder which of these two things is

by lghh 8y ago

> Both are something your average first year CS student could put together in a weekend or two. Sometimes I see people and wonder which of these two things is true: 1. They have no idea what the average developer actually is. 2. They are lying to make it sound like they were elite when they were a freshman in college.

Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
I did not go to college so I have to admit I'm not actually familiar with the average freshman's skill level. That being said, these are basic and well-understood problems solvable by the average, say, junior developer in the industry. Less of a reach?
- mclehman 8y ago
  Far, far lower than you're envisioning. There are certainly a lot of freshmen who could easily do something at this level, but the average freshman would be hopelessly lost (at least in my (recent) experience). By the way, excellent work on Sway. I've been meaning to jump to i3 forever, and decided to move to Wayland on my most recent install. I do have some bug reports to send your way, though, I should get on that.
  - Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
    Thanks! Please do send those along, though a patch is worth a thousand bug reports.
    - mclehman 8y ago
      Indeed it is. I'm hoping to get the time to dig into it enough to submit a patch, but school has me pretty busy at the moment.
- screye 8y ago
  An average CS freshman knows how to write hello world and print Pascal's triangles on the command line. An above average freshman at an above average university can probably make Sudoku, Tetris or Brick breaker. Even the smartest students probably won't be able to make.minecraft in a weekend. Maybe as a semester long project. But not a weekend.
  - ddevault 8y ago
    I never suggested anyone could make Minecraft in a weekend. Microsoft only open sourced two small libraries that only represent maybe 0.1% of Minecraft.
- Double_a_92 8y ago
  At least half my class struggled (heavily) with recursion while implementing seach algorithms e.g. They all still got their degree as well...
- joebubna 8y ago
  Just chiming in to say that I agree with what you said. I found the released libraries to be underwhelming to the point of almost uselessness based on the descriptions. I've written stuff like that for projects back when I was in school, and if I needed such tools, making my own would likely take about as much time as implementing someone else's.
anonymousgal 8y ago
I suspect a bit of both in this case. SirCmpwn unfortunately has done this for many years, and is one of the people that pushed me outside of the Minecraft dev world, he can be really nasty :(.
- ddevault 8y ago
  I was a jerk the first few years I was involved in the Minecraft scene, and I'm still a jerk all too often today. I'm sorry for making you feel that way. If you want to talk, my email is in my profile.
  - cliffwarden 8y ago
    "I'm sorry for making you feel that way. If you want to talk, my email is in my profile." We should all so this more often.
    - prawnsalad 8y ago
      I wouldn't take this as a sincere gesture. So many people say this in the public eye just to save face without any intention to take it further. I realise I'm replying in context of Sir_Cmpwn specifically (and I have had my own interaction with him in the past on unrelated projects in very sour taste) but it is more common with anybody that promotes an apologetic-but-contact-me attitude. It's an all to familiar trait of people trying to sound good in threads of their topic.
      - Operyl 8y ago
        It seems a number of us have had bad run ins with Sir_Cmpwn. I too have had issues, it’s a shame because I think he’s a brilliant guy.
    - kapep 8y ago
      It looks like an apology on the surface but I don't think it is one. "I'm sorry for making you feel that way." That's very close to the classical non-apology apology "I'm sorry you felt that way". [1] He isn't sorry for his behavior, but sorry that his behavior caused certain feelings. The post he's responding to doesn't mention any feelings, so I assume he meant "Sorry for making you feel that you were pushed out of the scene". He's shifting the focus from his actions (for which he is responsible) to other people's feelings (for which he is not responsible, since he can't control other's feelings). "If you want to talk, my email is in my profile." Meaning: Please don't continue talking in public about this. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology_apology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology_apology
warent 8y ago
Usually I err on the side of the former (option 1). The more someone becomes an expert their field, the more they tend to underestimate their own knowledge/skill.
wolfgke 8y ago
> Sometimes I see people and wonder which of these two things is true: > 1. They have no idea what the average developer actually is. > 2. They are lying to make it sound like they were elite when they were a freshman in college. Concerning 1: they might really be living in some kind of filter bubble of really smart people. Smart people often attract and are surrounded by smart people.
- Tade0 8y ago
  A while ago I checked what's the rate at which code gets put down within the organization I'm working at. I went through a few repos and the result was a weirdly consistent 30-45 LOC(sans tests) daily for a 2-3 person team - at least on the front-end. Since then I'm sceptical of opinions saying that a 1500 LOC+ project could be put together "within a weekend". Not saying it doesn't happen, but good projects of this sort have to be rare.
  - tralarpa 8y ago
    The numbers you have found are the numbers averaged over all kind of projects (new projects, old projects). It is well known that the average daily LOC output in the industry is not high. Once a project has reached a certain complexity or maturity, people spend more and more time on debugging, refactoring, documenting, profiling etc. For a new project, 1500 LOC within a weekend sound possible if the goal is to quickly produce some kind of proof of concept. You would probably spend the following days on redesigning the whole thing, though :)
    - Double_a_92 8y ago
      Once I spent 2 days debugging something that got solved be deleting half a line (some hopefully unneeded condition in a long if)...
  - swiley 8y ago
    If you sit down for a weekend and write a one shot project that's never going to be used in production 1500 LOC is more than doable, especially as a college student where you sometimes can go many weeks without doing anything productive. Sitting at a desk for 6-8 hours every weekday with an editor in front of you has this weird demotivating effect. Add to that all the unit tests (and general need for stuff to actually work well the first time), documentation, and not being able to just run off and build what ever you feel like and you get closer to 30-45 LOC.
Coincoin 8y ago
It's just simple straight humblebrag.
dan-robertson 8y ago
Well programmers are well known for being bad at estimating how much work something is. I’m less sure about datafixerupper but a bunch of the functionality of the command parsing could be done in a few weekends. Making sure it works reliably and adding completion and ensuring a good interface would be harder and more work.
giancarlostoro 8y ago
Degrees is irrelevant. I have an associates in a related but not quite CS degree and show more quality of work than another junior (and sometimes senior developers) who has a bachelors degree. I have tried to teach him so many things numerous times and its all in one ear and out the other. Seen the same problem with a "senior" developer who claims to love some standards yet his code commits say the opposite. /endrant

by lghh 8y ago

Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago

I did not go to college so I have to admit I'm not actually familiar with the average freshman's skill level. That being said, these are basic and well-understood problems solvable by the average, say, junior developer in the industry. Less of a reach?

mclehman 8y ago
Far, far lower than you're envisioning. There are certainly a lot of freshmen who could easily do something at this level, but the average freshman would be hopelessly lost (at least in my (recent) experience). By the way, excellent work on Sway. I've been meaning to jump to i3 forever, and decided to move to Wayland on my most recent install. I do have some bug reports to send your way, though, I should get on that.
- Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
  Thanks! Please do send those along, though a patch is worth a thousand bug reports.
  - mclehman 8y ago
    Indeed it is. I'm hoping to get the time to dig into it enough to submit a patch, but school has me pretty busy at the moment.
screye 8y ago
An average CS freshman knows how to write hello world and print Pascal's triangles on the command line. An above average freshman at an above average university can probably make Sudoku, Tetris or Brick breaker. Even the smartest students probably won't be able to make.minecraft in a weekend. Maybe as a semester long project. But not a weekend.
- ddevault 8y ago
  I never suggested anyone could make Minecraft in a weekend. Microsoft only open sourced two small libraries that only represent maybe 0.1% of Minecraft.
Double_a_92 8y ago
At least half my class struggled (heavily) with recursion while implementing seach algorithms e.g. They all still got their degree as well...
joebubna 8y ago
Just chiming in to say that I agree with what you said. I found the released libraries to be underwhelming to the point of almost uselessness based on the descriptions. I've written stuff like that for projects back when I was in school, and if I needed such tools, making my own would likely take about as much time as implementing someone else's.

anonymousgal 8y ago

I suspect a bit of both in this case. SirCmpwn unfortunately has done this for many years, and is one of the people that pushed me outside of the Minecraft dev world, he can be really nasty :(.

ddevault 8y ago
I was a jerk the first few years I was involved in the Minecraft scene, and I'm still a jerk all too often today. I'm sorry for making you feel that way. If you want to talk, my email is in my profile.
- cliffwarden 8y ago
  "I'm sorry for making you feel that way. If you want to talk, my email is in my profile." We should all so this more often.
  - prawnsalad 8y ago
    I wouldn't take this as a sincere gesture. So many people say this in the public eye just to save face without any intention to take it further. I realise I'm replying in context of Sir_Cmpwn specifically (and I have had my own interaction with him in the past on unrelated projects in very sour taste) but it is more common with anybody that promotes an apologetic-but-contact-me attitude. It's an all to familiar trait of people trying to sound good in threads of their topic.
    - Operyl 8y ago
      It seems a number of us have had bad run ins with Sir_Cmpwn. I too have had issues, it’s a shame because I think he’s a brilliant guy.
  - kapep 8y ago
    It looks like an apology on the surface but I don't think it is one. "I'm sorry for making you feel that way." That's very close to the classical non-apology apology "I'm sorry you felt that way". [1] He isn't sorry for his behavior, but sorry that his behavior caused certain feelings. The post he's responding to doesn't mention any feelings, so I assume he meant "Sorry for making you feel that you were pushed out of the scene". He's shifting the focus from his actions (for which he is responsible) to other people's feelings (for which he is not responsible, since he can't control other's feelings). "If you want to talk, my email is in my profile." Meaning: Please don't continue talking in public about this. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology_apology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology_apology

warent 8y ago

Usually I err on the side of the former (option 1). The more someone becomes an expert their field, the more they tend to underestimate their own knowledge/skill.

wolfgke 8y ago

> Sometimes I see people and wonder which of these two things is true: > 1. They have no idea what the average developer actually is. > 2. They are lying to make it sound like they were elite when they were a freshman in college. Concerning 1: they might really be living in some kind of filter bubble of really smart people. Smart people often attract and are surrounded by smart people.

Tade0 8y ago
A while ago I checked what's the rate at which code gets put down within the organization I'm working at. I went through a few repos and the result was a weirdly consistent 30-45 LOC(sans tests) daily for a 2-3 person team - at least on the front-end. Since then I'm sceptical of opinions saying that a 1500 LOC+ project could be put together "within a weekend". Not saying it doesn't happen, but good projects of this sort have to be rare.
- tralarpa 8y ago
  The numbers you have found are the numbers averaged over all kind of projects (new projects, old projects). It is well known that the average daily LOC output in the industry is not high. Once a project has reached a certain complexity or maturity, people spend more and more time on debugging, refactoring, documenting, profiling etc. For a new project, 1500 LOC within a weekend sound possible if the goal is to quickly produce some kind of proof of concept. You would probably spend the following days on redesigning the whole thing, though :)
  - Double_a_92 8y ago
    Once I spent 2 days debugging something that got solved be deleting half a line (some hopefully unneeded condition in a long if)...
- swiley 8y ago
  If you sit down for a weekend and write a one shot project that's never going to be used in production 1500 LOC is more than doable, especially as a college student where you sometimes can go many weeks without doing anything productive. Sitting at a desk for 6-8 hours every weekday with an editor in front of you has this weird demotivating effect. Add to that all the unit tests (and general need for stuff to actually work well the first time), documentation, and not being able to just run off and build what ever you feel like and you get closer to 30-45 LOC.

Coincoin 8y ago

It's just simple straight humblebrag.

dan-robertson 8y ago

Well programmers are well known for being bad at estimating how much work something is. I’m less sure about datafixerupper but a bunch of the functionality of the command parsing could be done in a few weekends. Making sure it works reliably and adding completion and ensuring a good interface would be harder and more work.

giancarlostoro 8y ago

Degrees is irrelevant. I have an associates in a related but not quite CS degree and show more quality of work than another junior (and sometimes senior developers) who has a bachelors degree. I have tried to teach him so many things numerous times and its all in one ear and out the other. Seen the same problem with a "senior" developer who claims to love some standards yet his code commits say the opposite. /endrant