4 ms·

First comment: the link to recursiveuniver.se is broken as far as I can tell. Simple typo it looks like. [Edit: this has been fixed.] Second comment: the more

First comment: the link to recursiveuniver.se is broken as far as I can tell. Simple typo it looks like. [Edit: this has been fixed.] Second comment: the more I work with mathematicians and computer programmers, the better I get a sense for how long something will take. If the problem is in the normal range of difficultly, I can usually estimate within a few hours of how long it will take me to make something from scratch. I think the regime you are referring to one filled with the hard problems that fall outside the normal range. The ones were you have no idea how to make something work. There are no books that give you a rough recipe for what to do. It's just you and the computer trying to make sweet sweet music with your ideas. Whenever I run up into a problem like that, I switch my mindset over from mathematician or programmer and turn into a explorer and pirate with laughably low standards. I copy and try every idea I can think of. Oh, that one guy did something that looked like it might work? I steal the idea whole sale and see if it solves my problem. No such luck? Time to explore everything. There is no nook or cranny that gets left unexplored. Every other line is a printf or console.log. I need to see everything that the computer is doing. I will try anything once and forgive anything twice if it shows promise. Normal projects are just you doing some programming. Hard problems are you doing the footwork and experiments to understand what exactly is going on and then doing some programming at the very end.

raganwald 15y ago
Oh absolutely! If programming is like architecture, you aren’t always building the first suspension bridge to connect South Africa to Antarctica, most of the time you’re designing a collection of single family dwellings for a tract builder. I was just riffing off the observation that software development is a behavioural science, not a formal or empirical science. I hoped that this example, while clearly ridiculous (which client uses terms like “super-linear” but simultaneously demands that the unknowable be known by Friday?) would provide a chuckle while making the same point. Love the description of your approach. Speaking of sweet music, rock on!
Splines 15y ago
As I learn C++ I have a more than once written little toy programs (class Derived : public Base) to verify my understanding and test that what I plan to do will actually work.

raganwald 15y ago

Oh absolutely! If programming is like architecture, you aren’t always building the first suspension bridge to connect South Africa to Antarctica, most of the time you’re designing a collection of single family dwellings for a tract builder. I was just riffing off the observation that software development is a behavioural science, not a formal or empirical science. I hoped that this example, while clearly ridiculous (which client uses terms like “super-linear” but simultaneously demands that the unknowable be known by Friday?) would provide a chuckle while making the same point. Love the description of your approach. Speaking of sweet music, rock on!

Splines 15y ago

As I learn C++ I have a more than once written little toy programs (class Derived : public Base) to verify my understanding and test that what I plan to do will actually work.