3 ms·

> The Max of the interval [7, ∞) is 7!? What!? And (-∞, 7] and [7, ∞) are both OK but (-∞, ∞) isn't? Yup, you got it, both of those are exactly correct. I need

by hwayne 4y ago

> The Max of the interval [7, ∞) is 7!? What!? And (-∞, 7] and [7, ∞) are both OK but (-∞, ∞) isn't? Yup, you got it, both of those are exactly correct. I needed it for Beamer `\onslide`-like functionality in another context. > I would literally refuse to write this code, and so should you. A programmer says "yup, sure, interval, got it", and a software engineer says "hell no, that's insane, something is very wrong." This was for a personal tool that cut down on a lot of repetitive work for me. > Seriously, this code is absolutely terrifying. This was for a weekly email newsletter, I wasn't going to spend hours finding the perfect example of data invariants when a simple one was enough to showcase the idea.

feoren 4y ago
When I read blog posts about software engineering subjects, I automatically go into "let's learn about the discipline of software engineering" mode, and there's where that very critical eye comes from. I don't want to discourage people from writing informative blog posts, but I also think there is a lot of really mediocre information out there for a discipline that is struggling to find its "professionalism". So your sentiment of "I wasn't going to spend hours thinking hard about the best possible example to illustrate my point" really has me at odds with myself. I'd much prefer that people who write purportedly informative posts about deep subjects in the discipline do spend hours and hours thinking about it. On the other hand, I've spend thousands of hours thinking on these subjects and I've never written a blog post myself because I always fall into a spiral of feeling like it's not good enough to publish. Software developers are reading your post, and if they enter into a mode of "here's a new concept to learn from an obvious expert", they may subconsciously (or consciously) absorb bad habits from your examples. Your blog post may actually do more harm than good to the discipline. It might be different if you had outright stated "hey these examples are from hobby project and not good examples of actual good code and you should not copy what I'm doing because it's not suitable for a professional environment." But that would rather weaken the entire effect of the blog post, wouldn't it? If your examples are not appropriate for a professional context, shouldn't you have a disclaimer that says "this blog post is only for hobbyists and is potentially misinformative for professional software developers"? Otherwise simply saying "well this is just a hobby project so it doesn't need to be good code" is a cop-out. You published this, and professional software developers are reading it. There's not an easy answer. I want people to blog about software engineering concepts, and I don't want the bar to be set so high that nobody ever feels like their post is good enough to publish. Yet spending a couple hours finding the best possible example to illustrate their point (instead of code that is literally inappropriate in a professional context) does not seem like too high a bar to me. The best I can do is rip apart things I see as serious problems in educational posts, in the hopes that developers can read both points and take the best from each.

by hwayne 4y ago

feoren 4y ago

When I read blog posts about software engineering subjects, I automatically go into "let's learn about the discipline of software engineering" mode, and there's where that very critical eye comes from. I don't want to discourage people from writing informative blog posts, but I also think there is a lot of really mediocre information out there for a discipline that is struggling to find its "professionalism". So your sentiment of "I wasn't going to spend hours thinking hard about the best possible example to illustrate my point" really has me at odds with myself. I'd much prefer that people who write purportedly informative posts about deep subjects in the discipline do spend hours and hours thinking about it. On the other hand, I've spend thousands of hours thinking on these subjects and I've never written a blog post myself because I always fall into a spiral of feeling like it's not good enough to publish. Software developers are reading your post, and if they enter into a mode of "here's a new concept to learn from an obvious expert", they may subconsciously (or consciously) absorb bad habits from your examples. Your blog post may actually do more harm than good to the discipline. It might be different if you had outright stated "hey these examples are from hobby project and not good examples of actual good code and you should not copy what I'm doing because it's not suitable for a professional environment." But that would rather weaken the entire effect of the blog post, wouldn't it? If your examples are not appropriate for a professional context, shouldn't you have a disclaimer that says "this blog post is only for hobbyists and is potentially misinformative for professional software developers"? Otherwise simply saying "well this is just a hobby project so it doesn't need to be good code" is a cop-out. You published this, and professional software developers are reading it. There's not an easy answer. I want people to blog about software engineering concepts, and I don't want the bar to be set so high that nobody ever feels like their post is good enough to publish. Yet spending a couple hours finding the best possible example to illustrate their point (instead of code that is literally inappropriate in a professional context) does not seem like too high a bar to me. The best I can do is rip apart things I see as serious problems in educational posts, in the hopes that developers can read both points and take the best from each.