4 ms·

Do you suffer from Programmer's Apathy?

16 points by dhotson 18y ago

hugh 18y ago
Ummm, what the hell was that? Sorry, usually I feel the need to make more intelligent comments than that, but in this case I'm just gonna have to go with "what the hell was that?"
- neilc 18y ago
  Yeah, honestly -- who would vote this article up? I wonder if we need something akin to meta-moderation, to account for people who vote up low-quality articles.
  - jcl 18y ago
    Perhaps I am being overly cynical, but I suspect that bad articles get voted up by people who have posted snarky comments, in hopes that more people will read the article and agree with them on how bad it is. Of course, this wouldn't explain the current score (more upvotes than posters), so perhaps some of the votes are from trolls, accidental clicks, people who only read titles, people who think the article is ironically amusing, or people who want to draw attention to bad content in hopes that mechanisms are put in place for its banning/removal.
  - JabavuAdams 18y ago
    network of trust?
  - Tichy 18y ago
    I liked it and voted it up. But I knew it would get lots of bad comments because of the spelling mistakes. That's just arrogance to me - you can't expect everybody to be a native speaker of English.
    - neilc 18y ago
      I thought the article was pretty terrible, but not because of the spelling mistakes. As an aside, just because you're not a native speaker of English is not an excuse for poor spelling: a foreigner can use a spellchecker just as well as a native speaker.
      - Tichy 18y ago
        Hm, but they don't get it right all the time, and the article was old. Maybe back then the options weren't as good.
- dhotson 18y ago
  I posted it mostly for nostalgia reasons. I read this years and years ago when I first started programming in QBasic. The article itself hasn't aged well (it's all over the place). I'm not sure why, but recently I was thinking about it because I've been unable to get anything done on my side projects. I still wanted to ask the question: Do you suffer from programmer's apathy?
  - dmoney 18y ago
    I, for one, enjoyed the article, even if it's not the type of stuff I'd want to see on the front page all the time. Even if none of the tips apply to the 1337 folks here, I think the problem of apathy developing toward projects you supposedly started for fun is worth thinking about. I've certainly experienced it. A couple random thoughts: Pseudocode is the ultimate high-level language. I can think of a few recent problems it might have have helped me think through. The article advocates focusing on one slice of the program at a time to avoid apathy. While nowadays vertical slices are trendy, this advocates horizontal slices, A.K.A., the Waterfall Model. Is this the answer to apathy?
endlessvoid94 18y ago
that was painful to read.
- coglethorpe 18y ago
  I quit in the middle. I guess I'm an apathetic reader of crappy posts.
DanHulton 18y ago
All the ellipses... They're getting to me... I can't seem to finish my th...
bdotdub 18y ago
man i couldn't get past "amateur" misspelled as "ametuer" three times in four sentences
qwph 18y ago
I read that halfway, and feel more apathetic now than I did when I started...
syntaxfree 18y ago
Dude, if that gets more points than my econometrics tutorial, I'll, uh, do nothing.
lvecsey 18y ago
Keep lots of notes and design info, which you can revise quickly, and program from that. Never the other way around or you'll end of with the dreaded programmers apathy.
jrockway 18y ago
Too long... Didn't read... Not because it was... too long... really.... but because... it didn't make... any sense... the information.... density.... was just too low... I understand... conversational writing style... but do people.... even talk like this.... I think not...
- yummyfajitas 18y ago
  Spock... I think... that some people... do... talk like this.
avinashv 18y ago
That's a blast from the past. Pete's QB Site was a big website in the QBasic online scene. But yeah...terrible article... ...
pavelludiq 18y ago
The st5rangest thing is that i actually have a /home/pavelludiq/dev/shit directory and i have all my unfinished stuff in there, actually, most of my code is in there. But the article still sucked. I have the most horrible handwriting, if i write my programs by hand it would take much longer and it would be a real pain to read, plus editing would be impossible, and copy\paste would not be present to aid me in time of need. And syntax highlighting would be missing, and debugging would be impossible. This guy is a real QBASIC hacker :D
ojbyrne 18y ago
5 word summary: Programming is hard, payment motivates.

16 points by dhotson 18y ago

hugh 18y ago

Ummm, what the hell was that? Sorry, usually I feel the need to make more intelligent comments than that, but in this case I'm just gonna have to go with "what the hell was that?"

neilc 18y ago
Yeah, honestly -- who would vote this article up? I wonder if we need something akin to meta-moderation, to account for people who vote up low-quality articles.
- jcl 18y ago
  Perhaps I am being overly cynical, but I suspect that bad articles get voted up by people who have posted snarky comments, in hopes that more people will read the article and agree with them on how bad it is. Of course, this wouldn't explain the current score (more upvotes than posters), so perhaps some of the votes are from trolls, accidental clicks, people who only read titles, people who think the article is ironically amusing, or people who want to draw attention to bad content in hopes that mechanisms are put in place for its banning/removal.
- JabavuAdams 18y ago
  network of trust?
- Tichy 18y ago
  I liked it and voted it up. But I knew it would get lots of bad comments because of the spelling mistakes. That's just arrogance to me - you can't expect everybody to be a native speaker of English.
  - neilc 18y ago
    I thought the article was pretty terrible, but not because of the spelling mistakes. As an aside, just because you're not a native speaker of English is not an excuse for poor spelling: a foreigner can use a spellchecker just as well as a native speaker.
    - Tichy 18y ago
      Hm, but they don't get it right all the time, and the article was old. Maybe back then the options weren't as good.
dhotson 18y ago
I posted it mostly for nostalgia reasons. I read this years and years ago when I first started programming in QBasic. The article itself hasn't aged well (it's all over the place). I'm not sure why, but recently I was thinking about it because I've been unable to get anything done on my side projects. I still wanted to ask the question: Do you suffer from programmer's apathy?
- dmoney 18y ago
  I, for one, enjoyed the article, even if it's not the type of stuff I'd want to see on the front page all the time. Even if none of the tips apply to the 1337 folks here, I think the problem of apathy developing toward projects you supposedly started for fun is worth thinking about. I've certainly experienced it. A couple random thoughts: Pseudocode is the ultimate high-level language. I can think of a few recent problems it might have have helped me think through. The article advocates focusing on one slice of the program at a time to avoid apathy. While nowadays vertical slices are trendy, this advocates horizontal slices, A.K.A., the Waterfall Model. Is this the answer to apathy?

endlessvoid94 18y ago

that was painful to read.

coglethorpe 18y ago
I quit in the middle. I guess I'm an apathetic reader of crappy posts.

DanHulton 18y ago

All the ellipses... They're getting to me... I can't seem to finish my th...

bdotdub 18y ago

man i couldn't get past "amateur" misspelled as "ametuer" three times in four sentences

qwph 18y ago

I read that halfway, and feel more apathetic now than I did when I started...

syntaxfree 18y ago

Dude, if that gets more points than my econometrics tutorial, I'll, uh, do nothing.

lvecsey 18y ago

Keep lots of notes and design info, which you can revise quickly, and program from that. Never the other way around or you'll end of with the dreaded programmers apathy.

jrockway 18y ago

Too long... Didn't read... Not because it was... too long... really.... but because... it didn't make... any sense... the information.... density.... was just too low... I understand... conversational writing style... but do people.... even talk like this.... I think not...

yummyfajitas 18y ago
Spock... I think... that some people... do... talk like this.

avinashv 18y ago

That's a blast from the past. Pete's QB Site was a big website in the QBasic online scene. But yeah...terrible article... ...

pavelludiq 18y ago

The st5rangest thing is that i actually have a /home/pavelludiq/dev/shit directory and i have all my unfinished stuff in there, actually, most of my code is in there. But the article still sucked. I have the most horrible handwriting, if i write my programs by hand it would take much longer and it would be a real pain to read, plus editing would be impossible, and copy\paste would not be present to aid me in time of need. And syntax highlighting would be missing, and debugging would be impossible. This guy is a real QBASIC hacker :D

ojbyrne 18y ago

5 word summary: Programming is hard, payment motivates.