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> they secretly dream about impressing mathematicians This made me chuckle, and then I read this: > systems researchers will light up when telling you that th

> they secretly dream about impressing mathematicians This made me chuckle, and then I read this: > systems researchers will light up when telling you that they have constructed a system that is twice as fast, half the size, and more powerful than its predecessor and thought "Oh God, that is me"! (I'm not in research) I almost don't want to read the rest. On a (possibly) less personal topic, I've found that non-computer science researchers who program will dismiss all help with "it doesn't need to be run by anyone else", (which is kind of scary considering the problems with reproducibility) or, if they are open to help but they don't understand what you've suggested/written/submitted etc, will try hard to drop it quietly. I think it's so they don't have to admit any lack of understanding, which is weird - I can barely understand code I wrote 6 months ago and I've written plenty of Perl in the past, too. The idea that code should be so easily understood that to ask a question would make one seem inadequate strikes me as a fanciful dream. Edit: don't want to mislead, I'm not a researcher, it just sounds like me :/ :)

CrLf 6y ago
In the past I've worked around non-computer science researchers and saw many places where having a programmer on-board would help greatly. It wasn't so much about understanding, I guess, but the apparent loss of ownership. Like if bits of the research get automated, then it isn't no longer their work, but the computer's.
- jrumbut 6y ago
  They fall victim to the same thing every programmer in over their head rushing to finish does. It looks to them like if they can just add one more floor to the house of cards it will be over, why bother explaining the whole project to someone else?
rocqua 6y ago
> they secretly dream about impressing mathematicians I read that, chuckled and felt offended because IT ME. > systems researchers will light up when telling you that they have constructed a system that is twice as fast, half the size, and more powerful than its predecessor Then I read this and I _also_ thought IT ME. I am not sure whether this means I have the skills of both sides or the foibles.
collyw 6y ago
> I've found that non-computer science researchers who program will dismiss all help with "it doesn't need to be run by anyone else", I used to work with bioinformaticians, and often wasn't impressed by a lot of the code that they churned out. But to be fair a lot of the work was just to produce a one off graph / heatmap to prove or disprove something, so most of the time it wasn't so important. > I can barely understand code I wrote 6 months ago and I've written plenty of Perl in the past, too. The idea that code should be so easily understood that to ask a question would make one seem inadequate strikes me as a fanciful dream. This was a big learning experience for me. I wrote and maintained a Django based system for four and a half years. When I couldn't understand my own code a few months later it was time to refactor. Ask yourself why you don't understand it and how you would expect it to be if it was written in an easier to understand way. It will save you time in the long run. Ex-colleagues commented that they found my code / database design fairly logical after I had left that job.

CrLf 6y ago

In the past I've worked around non-computer science researchers and saw many places where having a programmer on-board would help greatly. It wasn't so much about understanding, I guess, but the apparent loss of ownership. Like if bits of the research get automated, then it isn't no longer their work, but the computer's.

jrumbut 6y ago
They fall victim to the same thing every programmer in over their head rushing to finish does. It looks to them like if they can just add one more floor to the house of cards it will be over, why bother explaining the whole project to someone else?

rocqua 6y ago

> they secretly dream about impressing mathematicians I read that, chuckled and felt offended because IT ME. > systems researchers will light up when telling you that they have constructed a system that is twice as fast, half the size, and more powerful than its predecessor Then I read this and I _also_ thought IT ME. I am not sure whether this means I have the skills of both sides or the foibles.

collyw 6y ago

> I've found that non-computer science researchers who program will dismiss all help with "it doesn't need to be run by anyone else", I used to work with bioinformaticians, and often wasn't impressed by a lot of the code that they churned out. But to be fair a lot of the work was just to produce a one off graph / heatmap to prove or disprove something, so most of the time it wasn't so important. > I can barely understand code I wrote 6 months ago and I've written plenty of Perl in the past, too. The idea that code should be so easily understood that to ask a question would make one seem inadequate strikes me as a fanciful dream. This was a big learning experience for me. I wrote and maintained a Django based system for four and a half years. When I couldn't understand my own code a few months later it was time to refactor. Ask yourself why you don't understand it and how you would expect it to be if it was written in an easier to understand way. It will save you time in the long run. Ex-colleagues commented that they found my code / database design fairly logical after I had left that job.