4 ms·

>The author isn't claiming to have had an informed opinion of types. They're saying that they found learning about types to be difficult and stressful. That's a

>The author isn't claiming to have had an informed opinion of types. They're saying that they found learning about types to be difficult and stressful. That's a real problem that I think people who understand types forget. I don't understand how one can be a great (or even half-decent) SWE with such an aversion to learning something so common and foundational as types.

Frost1x 6y ago
After working in the industry for many years, I have aversions to learning many things. Usually, it's clearly a failed recycled idea with a small twist, poor approach to a problem, or someone selling new shiny. I have no aversion to learning something when it shows potential value, but you must explain the value without gimmicks. Maybe typing hasn't been well sold to this person. The new thing I learn should make my life easier, not harder. If you don't apply a filter, cargo cult and marketing nonsense will sweep you away in a world hidden in unnecessary complexity to make a few bucks. If learning and using something new adds more stress and difficulty and little-to-no benefit than life without it, I'll pass. When it comes to typing... I don't think that's the case. Typing can be annoying when you first use it (I'm sure I complained a lot) but it's well worth it when you need a stable maintainable codebase.
- johnbotris 6y ago
  I get your point, but I think it's misplaced. Types are not new, in fact from a CS perspective they are very old. I think it's a shame that learning about (even just basic) types is being taught as some new thing that can help to make your code better, rather one of the fundamentals that we should be learning from the beginning, which can still provide benefits even when writing in dynamically typed languages. Perhaps it's just a case of bad marketing and lazy educators.
munificent 6y ago
I'd be willing to bet money that if you were to list all your skills and non-skills, I could find at least one thing that you don't know that other SWEs would consider just as "common and foundational". Could be any of: data structures and algorithms, complexity analysis, operating systems, parsing, compilers, databases, networking, user interface programming, OOP, FP, MVC, markup languages, the web, graphics, manual memory management, pointers, computer architecture, etc.

Frost1x 6y ago

After working in the industry for many years, I have aversions to learning many things. Usually, it's clearly a failed recycled idea with a small twist, poor approach to a problem, or someone selling new shiny. I have no aversion to learning something when it shows potential value, but you must explain the value without gimmicks. Maybe typing hasn't been well sold to this person. The new thing I learn should make my life easier, not harder. If you don't apply a filter, cargo cult and marketing nonsense will sweep you away in a world hidden in unnecessary complexity to make a few bucks. If learning and using something new adds more stress and difficulty and little-to-no benefit than life without it, I'll pass. When it comes to typing... I don't think that's the case. Typing can be annoying when you first use it (I'm sure I complained a lot) but it's well worth it when you need a stable maintainable codebase.

johnbotris 6y ago
I get your point, but I think it's misplaced. Types are not new, in fact from a CS perspective they are very old. I think it's a shame that learning about (even just basic) types is being taught as some new thing that can help to make your code better, rather one of the fundamentals that we should be learning from the beginning, which can still provide benefits even when writing in dynamically typed languages. Perhaps it's just a case of bad marketing and lazy educators.

munificent 6y ago

I'd be willing to bet money that if you were to list all your skills and non-skills, I could find at least one thing that you don't know that other SWEs would consider just as "common and foundational". Could be any of: data structures and algorithms, complexity analysis, operating systems, parsing, compilers, databases, networking, user interface programming, OOP, FP, MVC, markup languages, the web, graphics, manual memory management, pointers, computer architecture, etc.