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I think there should be a level "I believe I've reached a level where I can speak wisely about programming ability". Followed by the "Oh, oops. Now I see I STIL

I think there should be a level "I believe I've reached a level where I can speak wisely about programming ability". Followed by the "Oh, oops. Now I see I STILL know nothing" level. ;)

DanielBMarkham 15y ago
Of course, the problem here is that by making that statement, you are both trying to wisely speak about programming ability while still claiming it's mostly unknown to you. Both bases effectively covered. Score! :) It's just a blog entry with observations. I make no claim on being an expert or creating the next standard. Just throwing some ideas out. I knew this would generate a bit of a stir on HN, so I thought it would be fun. What can I say? I like putting out ideas and having people throw rocks at them. If the criticism is poor, then I know I'm on to something. Having said all that, I think there is a level of symbols, symbol assembly, and abstraction involved, even if I did a poor job of grouping them together for this entry. Writing your own language is dealing with a problem from about 3 or 4 meta levels away. It's nothing like simple scripting. There has to be some kind of natural level involved there. EDIT: I restated the programming levels in a really short list posted to HN here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3562422 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3562422 I think this might be a case where more words are worse. That is, by providing concrete examples it just gave people a bunch of stuff to complain about. Hopefully the follow-up put it in generic enough terms to be more tractable.
- uberPhil 15y ago
  I'm sure those who have wrote complex scripts would probably disagree with you. Do you know what writing complex scripts in equally complex environments entails? I sure don't, therefore it makes me sufficiently unqualified to determine "meta levels" (whatever that means) for that skill. Unless you are deeply familiar with both, i'm not sure how you can say one is higher then the other.
  - encoderer 15y ago
    Complex scripts? I hit the "reply" button to tell you that no, no amount of "complex scripting" is as mentally challenging as developing a Turing complete language. But maybe you mean scripts as any program? In that case, I agree that developing things like, I don't know, database engines and file systems and such are equal in complexity to developing a language. I suppose the only caveat is that those things are usually teams -- sometimes huge teams. A language is often a 1-man or small team effort.
joshuahedlund 15y ago
I think those two levels run in an infinite loop.

I think there should be a level "I believe I've reached a level where I can speak wisely about programming ability". Followed by the "Oh, oops. Now I see I STILL know nothing" level. ;)

DanielBMarkham 15y ago

Of course, the problem here is that by making that statement, you are both trying to wisely speak about programming ability while still claiming it's mostly unknown to you. Both bases effectively covered. Score! :) It's just a blog entry with observations. I make no claim on being an expert or creating the next standard. Just throwing some ideas out. I knew this would generate a bit of a stir on HN, so I thought it would be fun. What can I say? I like putting out ideas and having people throw rocks at them. If the criticism is poor, then I know I'm on to something. Having said all that, I think there is a level of symbols, symbol assembly, and abstraction involved, even if I did a poor job of grouping them together for this entry. Writing your own language is dealing with a problem from about 3 or 4 meta levels away. It's nothing like simple scripting. There has to be some kind of natural level involved there. EDIT: I restated the programming levels in a really short list posted to HN here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3562422 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3562422 I think this might be a case where more words are worse. That is, by providing concrete examples it just gave people a bunch of stuff to complain about. Hopefully the follow-up put it in generic enough terms to be more tractable.

uberPhil 15y ago
I'm sure those who have wrote complex scripts would probably disagree with you. Do you know what writing complex scripts in equally complex environments entails? I sure don't, therefore it makes me sufficiently unqualified to determine "meta levels" (whatever that means) for that skill. Unless you are deeply familiar with both, i'm not sure how you can say one is higher then the other.
- encoderer 15y ago
  Complex scripts? I hit the "reply" button to tell you that no, no amount of "complex scripting" is as mentally challenging as developing a Turing complete language. But maybe you mean scripts as any program? In that case, I agree that developing things like, I don't know, database engines and file systems and such are equal in complexity to developing a language. I suppose the only caveat is that those things are usually teams -- sometimes huge teams. A language is often a 1-man or small team effort.

joshuahedlund 15y ago

I think those two levels run in an infinite loop.