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I did start with C at university, C and Scheme. We didn't go very in depth in the "defensive programming" part, especially with C. We talked a bit about safety

by Zababa 4y ago

I did start with C at university, C and Scheme. We didn't go very in depth in the "defensive programming" part, especially with C. We talked a bit about safety when we were doing web and database stuff, but I think that's it. I am pretty lucky, one of my friend is in cybersecurity, another is very good with C, and there are lots of people online freely sharing their knowledge, so at least I kind of know what I don't know. On the other hand, not everyone had that luck. I've seen a good number of people that are very good at what they do but lack more general culture. But it's hard to keep up with everything. Software is a huge world, I think already way too big for everyone to know everything. And it's not just software too, it's important to learn about business too, and maybe a bit of maths here and there isn't a bad idea, and there's also the hardware part, networking, and every day there is more and more and more. What I mean by this is that I don't know how things were before, but today, for a lot of people that write code, it's not possible to know everything, have everything fit inside your head. In those cases, people usually start asking for more guardrails in their tools, because they're no longer manipulated only by experts. And sometimes the experts themselves ask for guardrails too. So some want tools to change, others don't want them to change, and both have a point. On one hand, I understand that blaming the tool isn't a good attitude to have. On the other hand, my job consists in building tools for other professionals, and I feel like I have way higher standards for the tools that I produce compared to the tools that I use.

robomartin 4y ago
> On one hand, I understand that blaming the tool isn't a good attitude to have. On the other hand, my job consists in building tools for other professionals, and I feel like I have way higher standards for the tools that I produce compared to the tools that I use. I think your view is of this is reasonably balanced. There is that element of someone without extensive experience not knowing what they don't know. Well, can we blame them for that? Thirty years ago, probably not. Today, I think the answer could be yes. A few days of time well spent web searching, reading and watching videos can bring someone from complete ignorance of a subject to having a very good starting point from which to grow. Today there's information on almost anything anyone might want to learn, free and widely available. What, generally speaking isn't widely present is the willingness and dedication to learn. I have friends my age who stopped learning twenty years ago, maybe even sooner. They just don't care enough. Or maybe they thought they were safe and did not need to. In at least one case I know, that was a huge mistake. He started life as a field service engineer with great prospects. He never bothered to learn anything new. Today he sits in a trailer at an oil field 24/7 manually logging various pressures and temperatures multiple times a day. I also blame the educational system for some of this. Maybe I was fortunate to have gone to school when I did. We started with assembler. Actually, machine language, raw 1's and 0's. By the time I learned C I had designed a few industrial control computers and fully coded them in assembler. The transition to C was very easy. And nobody had to tell me where the dangers were...because, coming from assembler, it was obvious.
- Zababa 4y ago
  That is a good point, we've never had so much information accessible. On the other hand, it's sometimes hard to know what actually matters. Maybe we (or I) don't know how to fully tap into its potential, but I still feel that I progress way faster when I can talk to someone that has experience. I can access their knowledge, but I can also start to see how they think, how they approach problems, how they solve them, what they value. I've also heard that for them, it can be valuable to have someone with a fresh outlook on things. You notice things that people got used to, and most of the time things make perfect sense considering the situation, but sometimes there's an opportunity to improve things for the better. You're right about learning, it's a lifelong process. I do think that doing this along other people helps. Sometimes working on something by yourself can be quite lonely, especially if the people around you are not that much into all of that. That kind of loops back into the discussion about tool. Blaming your environment is counterproductive, but it's still important to pick it carefully.

by Zababa 4y ago

robomartin 4y ago

> On one hand, I understand that blaming the tool isn't a good attitude to have. On the other hand, my job consists in building tools for other professionals, and I feel like I have way higher standards for the tools that I produce compared to the tools that I use. I think your view is of this is reasonably balanced. There is that element of someone without extensive experience not knowing what they don't know. Well, can we blame them for that? Thirty years ago, probably not. Today, I think the answer could be yes. A few days of time well spent web searching, reading and watching videos can bring someone from complete ignorance of a subject to having a very good starting point from which to grow. Today there's information on almost anything anyone might want to learn, free and widely available. What, generally speaking isn't widely present is the willingness and dedication to learn. I have friends my age who stopped learning twenty years ago, maybe even sooner. They just don't care enough. Or maybe they thought they were safe and did not need to. In at least one case I know, that was a huge mistake. He started life as a field service engineer with great prospects. He never bothered to learn anything new. Today he sits in a trailer at an oil field 24/7 manually logging various pressures and temperatures multiple times a day. I also blame the educational system for some of this. Maybe I was fortunate to have gone to school when I did. We started with assembler. Actually, machine language, raw 1's and 0's. By the time I learned C I had designed a few industrial control computers and fully coded them in assembler. The transition to C was very easy. And nobody had to tell me where the dangers were...because, coming from assembler, it was obvious.

Zababa 4y ago
That is a good point, we've never had so much information accessible. On the other hand, it's sometimes hard to know what actually matters. Maybe we (or I) don't know how to fully tap into its potential, but I still feel that I progress way faster when I can talk to someone that has experience. I can access their knowledge, but I can also start to see how they think, how they approach problems, how they solve them, what they value. I've also heard that for them, it can be valuable to have someone with a fresh outlook on things. You notice things that people got used to, and most of the time things make perfect sense considering the situation, but sometimes there's an opportunity to improve things for the better. You're right about learning, it's a lifelong process. I do think that doing this along other people helps. Sometimes working on something by yourself can be quite lonely, especially if the people around you are not that much into all of that. That kind of loops back into the discussion about tool. Blaming your environment is counterproductive, but it's still important to pick it carefully.