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I agree with this article, and further, there's too much googling and random coding these days. The joke about Google was meant to be that developers refused to

I agree with this article, and further, there's too much googling and random coding these days. The joke about Google was meant to be that developers refused to memorize data structures or something, not that we have no idea how to understand anything and should randomly use code from the internet. I use my share of code from the internet, don't get me wrong, but I try to figure out how it works first, as intended. Otherwise I'm just some monkey bashing two functions together to make sparks.

umvi 7y ago
Whenever I visit /r/programmerhumor I get kind of sad. I feel like 10 years ago there was a sense of pride and camaraderie among programmers. Programmers strove to understand both their code and the underlying system. Now that programming has "gone mainstream" there's a constant meme that programmers don't understand their own code and that it's a grand mystery why it works. Furthermore, programmers get 100% of their code from stack overflow or Google or Indian YouTubers. Or that programmers just randomly mash the keyboard until the errors go away. I get that it's just CS students commiserating with each other, but I just hate how self-deprecating it is.
- avgDev 7y ago
  Honestly, it is 100% students/fresh grads. Recently, I copied a SQL query and spend few hours trying to understand it, then DBA reviewed it. I can't imagine anyone just going to copy/paste from stackoverflow. However, I just remember that Nissan mobile app had code copy/pasted from stackoverflow. Going to read your old code takes some time to understand. Sometimes it even feels like someone else wrote it, but in order to provide fixes one must first understand it, then fix the bug. This cannot be copied from anywhere. That subreddit is either very fresh juniors or cs students or people who are just getting away with being "that guy" on the team.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    The subreddit is currently like that. About three years ago it was extremely high quality, but it ended up on the front page too many times, got overran by people who couldn’t understand the humor, and went through too many bad volume control/JavaScript bad posts. I’m extremely sad to see where it is now…
    - renewiltord 7y ago
      Hmm, looking through archive.org it looks like four years ago it was more The Daily WTF and today it's mostly like memegen. Top of front page (4 years ago): My teacher thinks he's a programmer http://i.imgur.com/32nfQXZ.png http://i.imgur.com/32nfQXZ.png Top now: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/fvhk9l/a_bridge_too_far/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/fvhk9l/a_b...
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        The actual posts were slightly better, but the comments were much better. Often you’d have some sort of silly joke but the comments would have extensive, detailed discussion by people who knew their stuff on tangential topics.
        renewiltord 7y ago
        Pulled the front page from Apr 5 2016 so folks can compare a few posts: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/4d6vl5/had_to_take_a_career_compatibility_test_for/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/4d6vl5/had... https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/4dd6nx/my_teacher_thinks_he_is_a_programmer/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/4dd6nx/my_... https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/4dcjfc/code_mode/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/4dcjfc/cod... https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/4dfjag/tell_me_its_not_what_i_think_it_is/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/4dfjag/tel...
- baby 7y ago
  I realized recently that we're all working on top of abstractions created from the people below us. You're working on assembly stuff? Cool, you're just using a tool that people created for you by designing the x86 instruction set. You're working on a compiler? Cool, you're just using a tool that people created for you by designing machine code. You're working on a system language? Cool, you're just using a tool that people created for you to translate some baby language into machine code. You're working on a high-level language? You're working with a web framework? You're working with ... ... In the end you realize that the people you're talking about are just the people in the layer above you, or sitting in the middle, and you're a noob to the people sitting below you.
  - battery_cowboy 7y ago
    It blows my mind how many layers there are between us and the actual chip physics (the gates and other transistors). There's like 20 hardware layers of abstraction and another 20 software layers, probably, maybe more!
    - acemarke 7y ago
      One of my favorite classic articles is this post from 2003 by Eric Sink, "The .NET Abstraction Pile", which lists 46 separate abstractions that are involved from clicking the "Check In" button in a networked version control system: https://ericsink.com/Abstraction_Pile.html https://ericsink.com/Abstraction_Pile.html
bluedino 7y ago
System administration isn't any different. I run into examples all the time. I see "documentation" that is a saved website from some "How to install X on Y" blog entry. These blogs are so bad. If you google 'install x on ubuntu' you will get a bunch of hits on 'tech' blogs. Many of them just copy and paste from the same original source. Nothing gets explained, things are installed with terrible defaults, steps are performed that aren't necessary, and necessary steps are also performed! You'll see every bad habit in the book. StackOverflow is even worse. Well, ServerFault is where admin questions should be posted but they end up on SO. "I did xx and it if fixed it", usually xx has nothing to do with it or is something like 'chmod 777' Nobody takes any time to read the documentation, learn anything or even question, 'what does this actually do?'. It's sad.
- battery_cowboy 7y ago
  I've been writing an article like that, but I'm trying to go through every manual and ensure it's correct and current. You wouldn't believe the amount of work I'm putting into this, and for no reason but to practice writing or something,I don't even know anymore. I get why people write the shitty articles now, it's really hard to write a good article about a simple install. That's no excuse, they should just not be writing articles if they don't want to work, but I understand the reason behind the influx of crap.
- mschuster91 7y ago
  > Nobody takes any time to read the documentation That assumes many things: First: there is documentation available (many MANY stuff doesn't have docs, especially in the Javascript world, but it's become a "trend" in general software) Second: the docs are reasonably up to date (again, Javascript... webpack drove me nuts) and the software is backwards compatible so that docs/examples from the last version still work (again, webpack serves as a fine example) Third: the docs come with a reasonable amount of examples that cover common usage scenarios and edge cases that one may hit during implementation (Kubernetes on bare metal is just plain "fun") Fourth: the docs are legible and understandable without boatloads of domain knowledge and in coherent English (or if it's a regional thing, the locally dominant language)! When half the documentation suffers from typo errors, is badly formatted, or (common with offshored stuff) the reader needs more time to mentally translate the gibberish to "this is what the author could have meant", then a Google search is often enough the easier way. Understandability also includes organization: Unorganized wikis or "current version" scopes including stuff from years ago that clearly is outdated are a nightmare to use. Fifth (esp. applicable for new-ish GUI applications): documentation without illustration. No, your average user will not automatically associate your weird "flat design" button as "save". tl;dr: Docs aren't read 'cause they're unusable. Additionally, and this is another huge part: on Stackoverflow/Serverfault and many blogs there will be a comment section which I can glance over to see: is this answer correct/still applicable, what experiences did other people have, are there better alternatives... most docs don't have this proximity of documentation and feedback - except maybe PHP Core documentation, which on the other hand suffers from not being moderated (i.e. old/dangerous stuff isn't hidden)
ChrisClark 7y ago
Exactly, I don't directly copy and paste the code I find on Google. I search to find the answer, understand it and then implement it myself.

umvi 7y ago

Whenever I visit /r/programmerhumor I get kind of sad. I feel like 10 years ago there was a sense of pride and camaraderie among programmers. Programmers strove to understand both their code and the underlying system. Now that programming has "gone mainstream" there's a constant meme that programmers don't understand their own code and that it's a grand mystery why it works. Furthermore, programmers get 100% of their code from stack overflow or Google or Indian YouTubers. Or that programmers just randomly mash the keyboard until the errors go away. I get that it's just CS students commiserating with each other, but I just hate how self-deprecating it is.

avgDev 7y ago
Honestly, it is 100% students/fresh grads. Recently, I copied a SQL query and spend few hours trying to understand it, then DBA reviewed it. I can't imagine anyone just going to copy/paste from stackoverflow. However, I just remember that Nissan mobile app had code copy/pasted from stackoverflow. Going to read your old code takes some time to understand. Sometimes it even feels like someone else wrote it, but in order to provide fixes one must first understand it, then fix the bug. This cannot be copied from anywhere. That subreddit is either very fresh juniors or cs students or people who are just getting away with being "that guy" on the team.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  The subreddit is currently like that. About three years ago it was extremely high quality, but it ended up on the front page too many times, got overran by people who couldn’t understand the humor, and went through too many bad volume control/JavaScript bad posts. I’m extremely sad to see where it is now…
  - renewiltord 7y ago
    Hmm, looking through archive.org it looks like four years ago it was more The Daily WTF and today it's mostly like memegen. Top of front page (4 years ago): My teacher thinks he's a programmer http://i.imgur.com/32nfQXZ.png http://i.imgur.com/32nfQXZ.png Top now: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/fvhk9l/a_bridge_too_far/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/fvhk9l/a_b...
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      The actual posts were slightly better, but the comments were much better. Often you’d have some sort of silly joke but the comments would have extensive, detailed discussion by people who knew their stuff on tangential topics.
      - renewiltord 7y ago
        Pulled the front page from Apr 5 2016 so folks can compare a few posts: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/4d6vl5/had_to_take_a_career_compatibility_test_for/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/4d6vl5/had... https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/4dd6nx/my_teacher_thinks_he_is_a_programmer/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/4dd6nx/my_... https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/4dcjfc/code_mode/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/4dcjfc/cod... https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/4dfjag/tell_me_its_not_what_i_think_it_is/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/4dfjag/tel...
baby 7y ago
I realized recently that we're all working on top of abstractions created from the people below us. You're working on assembly stuff? Cool, you're just using a tool that people created for you by designing the x86 instruction set. You're working on a compiler? Cool, you're just using a tool that people created for you by designing machine code. You're working on a system language? Cool, you're just using a tool that people created for you to translate some baby language into machine code. You're working on a high-level language? You're working with a web framework? You're working with ... ... In the end you realize that the people you're talking about are just the people in the layer above you, or sitting in the middle, and you're a noob to the people sitting below you.
- battery_cowboy 7y ago
  It blows my mind how many layers there are between us and the actual chip physics (the gates and other transistors). There's like 20 hardware layers of abstraction and another 20 software layers, probably, maybe more!
  - acemarke 7y ago
    One of my favorite classic articles is this post from 2003 by Eric Sink, "The .NET Abstraction Pile", which lists 46 separate abstractions that are involved from clicking the "Check In" button in a networked version control system: https://ericsink.com/Abstraction_Pile.html https://ericsink.com/Abstraction_Pile.html

bluedino 7y ago

System administration isn't any different. I run into examples all the time. I see "documentation" that is a saved website from some "How to install X on Y" blog entry. These blogs are so bad. If you google 'install x on ubuntu' you will get a bunch of hits on 'tech' blogs. Many of them just copy and paste from the same original source. Nothing gets explained, things are installed with terrible defaults, steps are performed that aren't necessary, and necessary steps are also performed! You'll see every bad habit in the book. StackOverflow is even worse. Well, ServerFault is where admin questions should be posted but they end up on SO. "I did xx and it if fixed it", usually xx has nothing to do with it or is something like 'chmod 777' Nobody takes any time to read the documentation, learn anything or even question, 'what does this actually do?'. It's sad.

battery_cowboy 7y ago
I've been writing an article like that, but I'm trying to go through every manual and ensure it's correct and current. You wouldn't believe the amount of work I'm putting into this, and for no reason but to practice writing or something,I don't even know anymore. I get why people write the shitty articles now, it's really hard to write a good article about a simple install. That's no excuse, they should just not be writing articles if they don't want to work, but I understand the reason behind the influx of crap.
mschuster91 7y ago
> Nobody takes any time to read the documentation That assumes many things: First: there is documentation available (many MANY stuff doesn't have docs, especially in the Javascript world, but it's become a "trend" in general software) Second: the docs are reasonably up to date (again, Javascript... webpack drove me nuts) and the software is backwards compatible so that docs/examples from the last version still work (again, webpack serves as a fine example) Third: the docs come with a reasonable amount of examples that cover common usage scenarios and edge cases that one may hit during implementation (Kubernetes on bare metal is just plain "fun") Fourth: the docs are legible and understandable without boatloads of domain knowledge and in coherent English (or if it's a regional thing, the locally dominant language)! When half the documentation suffers from typo errors, is badly formatted, or (common with offshored stuff) the reader needs more time to mentally translate the gibberish to "this is what the author could have meant", then a Google search is often enough the easier way. Understandability also includes organization: Unorganized wikis or "current version" scopes including stuff from years ago that clearly is outdated are a nightmare to use. Fifth (esp. applicable for new-ish GUI applications): documentation without illustration. No, your average user will not automatically associate your weird "flat design" button as "save". tl;dr: Docs aren't read 'cause they're unusable. Additionally, and this is another huge part: on Stackoverflow/Serverfault and many blogs there will be a comment section which I can glance over to see: is this answer correct/still applicable, what experiences did other people have, are there better alternatives... most docs don't have this proximity of documentation and feedback - except maybe PHP Core documentation, which on the other hand suffers from not being moderated (i.e. old/dangerous stuff isn't hidden)

ChrisClark 7y ago

Exactly, I don't directly copy and paste the code I find on Google. I search to find the answer, understand it and then implement it myself.