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How does "low-level" imply difficulty? Why are low-level programming tasks considered harder than tasks higher on the abstraction ladder? I don't think the diff
by sofal 18y ago
How does "low-level" imply difficulty? Why are low-level programming tasks considered harder than tasks higher on the abstraction ladder? I don't think the difficulty of your job has anything to do with with the level of abstraction you're working at. If you hold job difficulty constant and vary the level of abstraction you'd probably see different salaries based on the supply and demand for programmers working at that level.
Low-level is not superior to high-level. They each have their own different challenges. I don't think it is a bad thing to focus on high-level for your career. That does not mean spitting out half-baked PHP web pages. Of course it's helpful to have been exposed to low-level concepts at some point.
This is the same tired old argument about how real engineers program in binary and you ignorant handicapped kiddies can only program in C. The only thing that changes is the level of abstraction at which the 'real engineers' work, and that just keeps going up.
Somewhat related: http://www.yosefk.com/blog/low-level-is-easy.html http://www.yosefk.com/blog/low-level-is-easy.html
- Maro 18y agoThe point is, low-level, as the name implies, is at a lower level than high-level. So every once in a while, you'll run into problems at the higher levels, and you have to dig into lower level stuff to solve a problem. So what do you do if you cannot because you have no conception about the lower-levels / overall architecture? I've seen PHP programmers run into bugs and throw up their hands and yell "It just doesn't work! But the bug cannot be in my code!". Of course the bug was in their code, they just have no deep understanding of even their own environment.