5 ms·

I've been programming for 25 years now, about 20 of which as a developer at billion dollar companies, google, facebook and various high scale hedge funds, inclu

I've been programming for 25 years now, about 20 of which as a developer at billion dollar companies, google, facebook and various high scale hedge funds, including systems that serve billions of users a day. I have had a hobby in embedded programming and FPGA programming, compiler design and distributed deep learning. All of which used /usr/local/bin and $PATH. Every system, regardless of programming language across python, C, C++, java, go, erlang. Saying /usr/local/bin and/or $PATH "has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with programming" is total rubbish. Programming as a field doesn't just include domain and syntax knowledge of a programming language, it includes ALL of the system implementation details below it, and YOU ARE EXPECTED TO KNOW THEM. Saying something so basic and fundamental "has absolutely nothing to do with programming" only shows a terrible lack of systems knowledge, this is used in unix, linux, bsd, embedded and massive server scale deployments. Acting like this stuff is somehow below you, just shows intellectual laziness, this stuff both BASIC (easy to learn) and FUNDAMENTAL (applies almost universally in many systems), and if you acted like this during an interview or working at anywhere with non-trivial setups you'd be laughed out of the room.

user-the-name 6y ago
The reason I say it has nothing to do with programming is that none of all of these tools that make you rely on this stuff NEED to do so. They chose to. But they don't need to. This is an implementation detail that is entirely orthogonal to the rest of the task of programming. Superfluous, and could be replaced at any time. And I note you immediately jump to the conclusion that I am too stupid to know these things that you know because you are clever. And that is EXACTLY the problem.
- malux85 6y ago
  No, I was just saying that in my vast experience the two things that you described as: "absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with programming. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. It is completely superfluous knowledge" Were indeed critical components to all of these systems, and organisations, and that it's not a big ask to require a programmer to know them. Also, on what authority do you decide what is programming and what isn't?
  - user-the-name 6y ago
    The whole point is, there is no reason to require a programmer to know them. That is an arbitrary choice we have made. We could make a different choice, and not require a programmer to know these things. They could do everything just as well without knowing this, if we let them.
    - malux85 6y ago
      When I was travelling through Italy, I learnt a phrase from programmers there, "If my mother had wheels, she would have been a bike" - and it's a criticism of hypothetical situations like your answer above. Saying "This is arbitrary if we made a different choice things would be different" is a total meaningless statement because you just move the bar and then say if the bar is moved things are different. My argument is that eventually all implementations are embedded in reality, if not /usr/local/bin and $PATH then some other abstraction that is equally arbitrary - but in the real world, the one we live in, we have /usr/local/bin, $PATH and a bunch of other "arbitrary" lines that have to be somewhere because without these lines (or some lines) there is nothing. And you have to know them, whatever they are. Because you know what happens if you don't know them? You end up with people writing blog posts about how difficult programming is, ranting they cant install ruby or pip or node.js, like the article above. You have to learn the underlying system, whatever it is. In this case, it's /usr/local/bin and $PATH. I think you're not arguing that you shouldn't know the underlying system (correct me if I'm wrong) but you're more saying that these particular abstractions are inconsistent or distasteful - if that's the case, let me assure you that no implementation is perfect, and programmers for nearly 100 years now have been trying to come up with the perfect abstraction that requires no knowledge below, but in reality, it never works, because theres always exceptions, or the abstraction is not flexible enough to apply generally enough to be useful, thats like the two forces that push and pull the argument both ways. I've come to learn that you must just learn the underlying system, because you'll be able to diagnose better. To that end, you must learn sysadmin, you must know $PATH and you must know the underlying system. Go and have a look at the programmer competency matrix - this stuff is in there
      - 6y ago
mypalmike 6y ago
So I think what's happening is that there are people here who have maybe been programming longer than you have. And we remember when professional programs might be written in BASIC and sold on 5.25 inch floppies. On machines with no /usr/local or PATH. And then we programmed PCs using Borland or Symantec or whatever IDE and there was no /usr/local or (usually) PATH to be concerned about. And we programmed MacOS before it was Unix based using Think C or CodeWarrior and there was no /usr/local or PATH or even a CLI. And so when CLIs became popular with (broadly speaking) the early growth of the internet, we became more familiar with /usr/local and PATH (we probably had some exposure to these already). So while yes, these are found in most modern systems, we see these things as details. PATH simply doesn't feel "fundamental" to me because I've written exactly the same kind of code in environments where PATH is used and where it doesn't even exist as a concept. Of course, what is "fundamental" is rather a judgment call, and your perspective makes it so that these are fundamental for you. I won't defend the original post, particularly wrt nonsense like adding node to a browser. But I do think different perspectives are at play here, and disagreement on either side does not reflect intellectual laziness or people who should be laughed out of the room.
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- malux85 6y ago
  I started with BASIC on a second-hand VIC20, and then onto assembler on an 80286 running DOS. So I've been there. I define "fundamental" as something thats in wide use and deployment in actively running systems. Like $PATH being in every operating system used today and /usr/local/bin on every linux distribution running on literally hundreds of millions of servers globally, right now. And the requirement of understanding these are part of what's holding back the author of the article from not having a running ruby, pip and node.js
- deleted 6y ago
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user-the-name 6y ago

The reason I say it has nothing to do with programming is that none of all of these tools that make you rely on this stuff NEED to do so. They chose to. But they don't need to. This is an implementation detail that is entirely orthogonal to the rest of the task of programming. Superfluous, and could be replaced at any time. And I note you immediately jump to the conclusion that I am too stupid to know these things that you know because you are clever. And that is EXACTLY the problem.

malux85 6y ago
No, I was just saying that in my vast experience the two things that you described as: "absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with programming. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. It is completely superfluous knowledge" Were indeed critical components to all of these systems, and organisations, and that it's not a big ask to require a programmer to know them. Also, on what authority do you decide what is programming and what isn't?
- user-the-name 6y ago
  The whole point is, there is no reason to require a programmer to know them. That is an arbitrary choice we have made. We could make a different choice, and not require a programmer to know these things. They could do everything just as well without knowing this, if we let them.
  - malux85 6y ago
    When I was travelling through Italy, I learnt a phrase from programmers there, "If my mother had wheels, she would have been a bike" - and it's a criticism of hypothetical situations like your answer above. Saying "This is arbitrary if we made a different choice things would be different" is a total meaningless statement because you just move the bar and then say if the bar is moved things are different. My argument is that eventually all implementations are embedded in reality, if not /usr/local/bin and $PATH then some other abstraction that is equally arbitrary - but in the real world, the one we live in, we have /usr/local/bin, $PATH and a bunch of other "arbitrary" lines that have to be somewhere because without these lines (or some lines) there is nothing. And you have to know them, whatever they are. Because you know what happens if you don't know them? You end up with people writing blog posts about how difficult programming is, ranting they cant install ruby or pip or node.js, like the article above. You have to learn the underlying system, whatever it is. In this case, it's /usr/local/bin and $PATH. I think you're not arguing that you shouldn't know the underlying system (correct me if I'm wrong) but you're more saying that these particular abstractions are inconsistent or distasteful - if that's the case, let me assure you that no implementation is perfect, and programmers for nearly 100 years now have been trying to come up with the perfect abstraction that requires no knowledge below, but in reality, it never works, because theres always exceptions, or the abstraction is not flexible enough to apply generally enough to be useful, thats like the two forces that push and pull the argument both ways. I've come to learn that you must just learn the underlying system, because you'll be able to diagnose better. To that end, you must learn sysadmin, you must know $PATH and you must know the underlying system. Go and have a look at the programmer competency matrix - this stuff is in there
    - 6y ago

mypalmike 6y ago

So I think what's happening is that there are people here who have maybe been programming longer than you have. And we remember when professional programs might be written in BASIC and sold on 5.25 inch floppies. On machines with no /usr/local or PATH. And then we programmed PCs using Borland or Symantec or whatever IDE and there was no /usr/local or (usually) PATH to be concerned about. And we programmed MacOS before it was Unix based using Think C or CodeWarrior and there was no /usr/local or PATH or even a CLI. And so when CLIs became popular with (broadly speaking) the early growth of the internet, we became more familiar with /usr/local and PATH (we probably had some exposure to these already). So while yes, these are found in most modern systems, we see these things as details. PATH simply doesn't feel "fundamental" to me because I've written exactly the same kind of code in environments where PATH is used and where it doesn't even exist as a concept. Of course, what is "fundamental" is rather a judgment call, and your perspective makes it so that these are fundamental for you. I won't defend the original post, particularly wrt nonsense like adding node to a browser. But I do think different perspectives are at play here, and disagreement on either side does not reflect intellectual laziness or people who should be laughed out of the room.

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malux85 6y ago
I started with BASIC on a second-hand VIC20, and then onto assembler on an 80286 running DOS. So I've been there. I define "fundamental" as something thats in wide use and deployment in actively running systems. Like $PATH being in every operating system used today and /usr/local/bin on every linux distribution running on literally hundreds of millions of servers globally, right now. And the requirement of understanding these are part of what's holding back the author of the article from not having a running ruby, pip and node.js
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