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Learning to set up my environment to compile my first MUD back in 1999 was my first introduction to Autotools, ./configure, make, etc. I was motivated to solve

by ctoth 4y ago

Learning to set up my environment to compile my first MUD back in 1999 was my first introduction to Autotools, ./configure, make, etc. I was motivated to solve the problem because I wanted to tinker. I'm sure someone will say I'm gatekeeping, but seriously these low-level skills have served me my entire career, and I wonder what happens when every dev environment is just a docker pull away. Who learns how to build new environments? That said, I have recently been tinkering with the Flipperzero firmware, and compared to the old Rockbox days when you had to install an arm-elf-gcc toolchain yourself and pray, embedded development has gotten way easier and this doesn't seem like a bad thing. I don't have an answer, just something to think about!

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
vlan0 4y ago
>Who learns how to build new environments? Feels like this is happening already. There is no incentive to learn the fundamental concepts. We need more people interested in the why, and not just a quick buck. Folks interested in the why is the only reason we are here to begin with! On the other hand....it's great job security! Less and less people understand networking everyday it seems!
- bckr 4y ago
  In my experience, "tinkering" with an environment before getting any code working was a recipe for believing "this is too hard, maybe I'm not smart enough to do this". Getting a feedback loop early on is so important. Once you're convinced that you can write software, setting up an environment starts to look like a tractable problem.
- mikebenfield 4y ago
  The kinds of things people are talking about - fiddling with autotools or PYTHONPATH - are not “fundamental concepts” or “the why” behind anything. It’s just tedious, boring nonsense. There are plenty of intellectually curious people who would be turned off by this stuff.
  - vlan0 4y ago
    I agree.
madrox 4y ago
Think of it like a product funnel. If the goal is to get people to learn X, making them learn Y as a barrier first is unnecessary. You risk people abandoning the funnel that way. It's still entirely possible to learn these tools some other way.
- Kamq 4y ago
  Yes, but if learning X beforehand required learning Y, then we might be expecting the value of learning X to be the combined value of learning X + Y. It should be noted when adopting this approach, that you're lowering the expected value from the people who make it through the funnel. This may be counteracted by more people making it through the funnel, or it may not. The delta in total value is completely unknown.
  - conductr 4y ago
    Those who make it through the funnel with only X are likely more than the X+Y scenario simply because it's less learning and new concepts so drop out will be reduced. This cohort are probably more likely to go on to learn Y if we further assume it was so valuable as to have been "required". In reality requiring X+Y backfires as step 1 because X is all they want and X may be worth 10Y to the student at step 1. The value of Y may increase to >X after learning X. When I learned basic HTML, CSS and JS. On step 1, JS had essentially no value. CSS sounded like it had value but was a bit nebulous and optional sounding. HTML seemed like an obvious requirement for building a website, so that's where I started. Once I learned HTML, the value of CSS became obvious and I pursued it. JS still seemed esoteric but later once I got HTML/CSS down and wanted to do more JS kept coming up as the solution. So I learned it too. Now, I'd say JS is way more valuable to me than HTML/CSS even though I learned it last. This was in the 90s BTW and the path wasn't very clear back then. The first book I bought was actually a Perl book and quickly realized it was too advanced of a place for me to start. I learned about Perl after noticing the /cgi-bin/ portion of URLs and wondering what that meant. It had to be something most sites where doing similarly. This was before Google so whatever random SE I used back then told me cgi-bin was associated with Perl scripting for web development. I continued to struggle with the backend stuff (JS was FE only back then) until PHP3 came around. I'm self taught if that wasn't clear.
andrewflnr 4y ago
> wonder what happens when every dev environment is just a docker pull away They learn later, when/if they actually need it. And for those who turn out to be unwilling or unable, well, there wasn't much chance they'd have taken the same path as you, anyway. Speaking of paths, specifically path dependence, autotools and friends really are monstrosities and should rightfully be relegated to history. I hope that simpler, easier environment building really are the future, as you hinted.
- WWLink 4y ago
  In my experience, it would become "You're not allowed to deviate from the standard environment" lol.
  - andrewflnr 4y ago
    If they're so helpless they can't figure out how to even get to an environment other than their corporate standard one, then they have, again, already exited the pipeline before this conversation becomes relevant. Someone incapable of setting up a linux vm was never going to do original ops work, regardless of what the computing ecosystem around them looks like.
JamesSwift 4y ago
Its not necessarily gatekeeping, its just assuming that all others who come through are also motivated in the same way you are. Reality is that the same experience likely discouraged countless others and prevented them from pursuing development. I'm the same as you, but I recognize not everyone is.
bombcar 4y ago
Meanwhile I'm here completely able to build basically anything from source but for some reason unable to understand docker at all.
lmm 4y ago
> Autotools, ./configure, make, etc. I was motivated to solve the problem because I wanted to tinker. I'm sure someone will say I'm gatekeeping, but seriously these low-level skills have served me my entire career What skills? 95% of using autotools etc. is tedious memorization or copy-paste, not something you learn anything useful from.

by ctoth 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

vlan0 4y ago

>Who learns how to build new environments? Feels like this is happening already. There is no incentive to learn the fundamental concepts. We need more people interested in the why, and not just a quick buck. Folks interested in the why is the only reason we are here to begin with! On the other hand....it's great job security! Less and less people understand networking everyday it seems!

bckr 4y ago
In my experience, "tinkering" with an environment before getting any code working was a recipe for believing "this is too hard, maybe I'm not smart enough to do this". Getting a feedback loop early on is so important. Once you're convinced that you can write software, setting up an environment starts to look like a tractable problem.
mikebenfield 4y ago
The kinds of things people are talking about - fiddling with autotools or PYTHONPATH - are not “fundamental concepts” or “the why” behind anything. It’s just tedious, boring nonsense. There are plenty of intellectually curious people who would be turned off by this stuff.
- vlan0 4y ago
  I agree.

madrox 4y ago

Think of it like a product funnel. If the goal is to get people to learn X, making them learn Y as a barrier first is unnecessary. You risk people abandoning the funnel that way. It's still entirely possible to learn these tools some other way.

Kamq 4y ago
Yes, but if learning X beforehand required learning Y, then we might be expecting the value of learning X to be the combined value of learning X + Y. It should be noted when adopting this approach, that you're lowering the expected value from the people who make it through the funnel. This may be counteracted by more people making it through the funnel, or it may not. The delta in total value is completely unknown.
- conductr 4y ago
  Those who make it through the funnel with only X are likely more than the X+Y scenario simply because it's less learning and new concepts so drop out will be reduced. This cohort are probably more likely to go on to learn Y if we further assume it was so valuable as to have been "required". In reality requiring X+Y backfires as step 1 because X is all they want and X may be worth 10Y to the student at step 1. The value of Y may increase to >X after learning X. When I learned basic HTML, CSS and JS. On step 1, JS had essentially no value. CSS sounded like it had value but was a bit nebulous and optional sounding. HTML seemed like an obvious requirement for building a website, so that's where I started. Once I learned HTML, the value of CSS became obvious and I pursued it. JS still seemed esoteric but later once I got HTML/CSS down and wanted to do more JS kept coming up as the solution. So I learned it too. Now, I'd say JS is way more valuable to me than HTML/CSS even though I learned it last. This was in the 90s BTW and the path wasn't very clear back then. The first book I bought was actually a Perl book and quickly realized it was too advanced of a place for me to start. I learned about Perl after noticing the /cgi-bin/ portion of URLs and wondering what that meant. It had to be something most sites where doing similarly. This was before Google so whatever random SE I used back then told me cgi-bin was associated with Perl scripting for web development. I continued to struggle with the backend stuff (JS was FE only back then) until PHP3 came around. I'm self taught if that wasn't clear.

andrewflnr 4y ago

> wonder what happens when every dev environment is just a docker pull away They learn later, when/if they actually need it. And for those who turn out to be unwilling or unable, well, there wasn't much chance they'd have taken the same path as you, anyway. Speaking of paths, specifically path dependence, autotools and friends really are monstrosities and should rightfully be relegated to history. I hope that simpler, easier environment building really are the future, as you hinted.

WWLink 4y ago
In my experience, it would become "You're not allowed to deviate from the standard environment" lol.
- andrewflnr 4y ago
  If they're so helpless they can't figure out how to even get to an environment other than their corporate standard one, then they have, again, already exited the pipeline before this conversation becomes relevant. Someone incapable of setting up a linux vm was never going to do original ops work, regardless of what the computing ecosystem around them looks like.

JamesSwift 4y ago

Its not necessarily gatekeeping, its just assuming that all others who come through are also motivated in the same way you are. Reality is that the same experience likely discouraged countless others and prevented them from pursuing development. I'm the same as you, but I recognize not everyone is.

bombcar 4y ago

Meanwhile I'm here completely able to build basically anything from source but for some reason unable to understand docker at all.

lmm 4y ago

> Autotools, ./configure, make, etc. I was motivated to solve the problem because I wanted to tinker. I'm sure someone will say I'm gatekeeping, but seriously these low-level skills have served me my entire career What skills? 95% of using autotools etc. is tedious memorization or copy-paste, not something you learn anything useful from.