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To simply be a programmer, one must only write a program, nothing more. The essential skill I guess would be literacy, knowing how to read and follow directions

To simply be a programmer, one must only write a program, nothing more. The essential skill I guess would be literacy, knowing how to read and follow directions, knowing how to use a keyboard, not much. To be a good programmer, if I have to pick only one "skill" I would pick systemic thinking/understanding. This starts with the ability to learn and eventually understand how a system works. The next level is the ability to create a working model of that system in ones mind. Someone who can do that will be very successful at programming anything in any language on any platform given sufficient documentation.

catwind7 6y ago
literally true! I agree - so much of our time is spent coming up with working models of systems
baq 6y ago
i always call this exact distinction the difference between programmer and software developer. in my case, actual programming is 10% of the time, maybe 20% if you count staring at logs and/or monitoring trying to figure out what the hell happened. interns do the most programming since that's the easy part, the hard part is figuring out what interns should program next.
PostThisTooFast 6y ago
Yep, the ability to construct a mental model is the most critical. If you can then keep it organized when you translate it to code, I'd say you're well-suited to the work. I wonder how many people have this ability, especially when reading about organizations like the one that went to Appalachia to teach people in depressed areas to program.
ethbr0 6y ago
> systemic thinking / understanding I was going to phrase it as "simultaneously seeing the forest and the trees." The vast majority of my programming career has involved (1) taking a huge amount of information (specs, code), (2) building a mental model of it at 2+ levels of detail (high-level to fit a simplified holistic system in my mental swap space, and detail to have all the details about this problem at hand), (3) identifying the needle in the haystack, & (4) coming up with a simple solution. As the parable goes [1], it's knowing which bolt to turn & how far. [1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/know-where-man/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/know-where-man/
ezoe 6y ago
Yes. Literacy. I saw many beginners who treat a compiler like a black box and attempting hand fuzzing until it happened to match the well-formed syntax and behaviour they wanted, while they literally holding a paper text book or opening a browser tab for a tutorial which clearly explain how it works and what they should write in a plain natural and native language of theirs. One time, I was told by a beginner who copied an example code from a text book that it doesn't work. I looked at it. It was a fizzbuzz code, less than 10 lines. And she typed it wrong. Not just an ordinary typo. She conjured up really strange ill-formed syntax she believe it works somehow. There is a parse error message but she ignored. I pointed out the place on display with a finger and she still didn't get it. I place a text book beside the display but it requires a considerable effort convincing her the cause of the error. Other time, I was asked why for(;;) ; else ; doesn't work in JavaScript. I kept saying because there is no syntax like that in JavaScript. You have to accept it as is or create your own language. Sometimes, I wonder some people read natural language text by simple keyword pattern matching. People like above example weren't dumb. Far from it. They are smarter in their field than me. Yet, they failed at this basic literacy level.
oblib 6y ago
I've focused on learning on a want/need to know basis. This has allowed me to make things I want or get paid to make, but I think you nailed the "essential skill" spot on.
me_againnnnnn 6y ago
The base skill to effectively write code is the ability to think abstractly, to be able to reason about and create what can't be seen. A surprising large number of people really can only reason about the concrete things they can see and manipulate.

catwind7 6y ago

literally true! I agree - so much of our time is spent coming up with working models of systems

baq 6y ago

i always call this exact distinction the difference between programmer and software developer. in my case, actual programming is 10% of the time, maybe 20% if you count staring at logs and/or monitoring trying to figure out what the hell happened. interns do the most programming since that's the easy part, the hard part is figuring out what interns should program next.

PostThisTooFast 6y ago

Yep, the ability to construct a mental model is the most critical. If you can then keep it organized when you translate it to code, I'd say you're well-suited to the work. I wonder how many people have this ability, especially when reading about organizations like the one that went to Appalachia to teach people in depressed areas to program.

ethbr0 6y ago

> systemic thinking / understanding I was going to phrase it as "simultaneously seeing the forest and the trees." The vast majority of my programming career has involved (1) taking a huge amount of information (specs, code), (2) building a mental model of it at 2+ levels of detail (high-level to fit a simplified holistic system in my mental swap space, and detail to have all the details about this problem at hand), (3) identifying the needle in the haystack, & (4) coming up with a simple solution. As the parable goes [1], it's knowing which bolt to turn & how far. [1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/know-where-man/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/know-where-man/

ezoe 6y ago

Yes. Literacy. I saw many beginners who treat a compiler like a black box and attempting hand fuzzing until it happened to match the well-formed syntax and behaviour they wanted, while they literally holding a paper text book or opening a browser tab for a tutorial which clearly explain how it works and what they should write in a plain natural and native language of theirs. One time, I was told by a beginner who copied an example code from a text book that it doesn't work. I looked at it. It was a fizzbuzz code, less than 10 lines. And she typed it wrong. Not just an ordinary typo. She conjured up really strange ill-formed syntax she believe it works somehow. There is a parse error message but she ignored. I pointed out the place on display with a finger and she still didn't get it. I place a text book beside the display but it requires a considerable effort convincing her the cause of the error. Other time, I was asked why for(;;) ; else ; doesn't work in JavaScript. I kept saying because there is no syntax like that in JavaScript. You have to accept it as is or create your own language. Sometimes, I wonder some people read natural language text by simple keyword pattern matching. People like above example weren't dumb. Far from it. They are smarter in their field than me. Yet, they failed at this basic literacy level.

oblib 6y ago

I've focused on learning on a want/need to know basis. This has allowed me to make things I want or get paid to make, but I think you nailed the "essential skill" spot on.

me_againnnnnn 6y ago

The base skill to effectively write code is the ability to think abstractly, to be able to reason about and create what can't be seen. A surprising large number of people really can only reason about the concrete things they can see and manipulate.