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> At the end of the day, writing code is not difficult. Understanding what it's actually doing is the hard part. That sounds nice in the abstract, but in pract

> At the end of the day, writing code is not difficult. Understanding what it's actually doing is the hard part. That sounds nice in the abstract, but in practice it's slow going trying to do web dev when your experience is nothing but command line C++.

anon291 2y ago
I guess my honest answer is that web dev is very far removed in general from computer science and touches on design, marketing, etc, more than computer science. There's computer science in the back end and in the implementation of the front end, but like a significant portion of web dev is just aesthetics, not any kind of CS work. Perhaps there should be someone making that obvious at some point.
jimbokun 2y ago
It's really not. So you are typing Javascript into your browser's console to see what it does instead of a text editor and compiler. The iterative process is still very similar. Write code -> get the syntax correct -> see if output matches your mental model -> repeat. You still want unit testing or some other system of reliably testing your code and detecting regressions. You need to use a distributed version control system to track your work over time and collaborate with others. You need to be able to figure out why your code is suddenly taking much longer to execute it than you thought it would. You need to figure out why the memory usage keeps going up and never comes down. You need to be able to gather requirements for the software you are writing. All of those things are skills you need to learn regardless of the specific programming language.
- PhasmaFelis 2y ago
  > It's really not. From personal experience, yes, it is. People spend years getting really good at Java, or Ruby, or SQL, or whatever. You'll get better quicker at all of those if you start with a solid grounding in basic coding principles, but basic principles alone are not enough. Maybe you're one of those 10x programmers I keep hearing about who can master any subfield instantly. That's lovely for you. Most of us do better with a bit of specialization, especially at the beginning of our careers.

anon291 2y ago

I guess my honest answer is that web dev is very far removed in general from computer science and touches on design, marketing, etc, more than computer science. There's computer science in the back end and in the implementation of the front end, but like a significant portion of web dev is just aesthetics, not any kind of CS work. Perhaps there should be someone making that obvious at some point.

jimbokun 2y ago

It's really not. So you are typing Javascript into your browser's console to see what it does instead of a text editor and compiler. The iterative process is still very similar. Write code -> get the syntax correct -> see if output matches your mental model -> repeat. You still want unit testing or some other system of reliably testing your code and detecting regressions. You need to use a distributed version control system to track your work over time and collaborate with others. You need to be able to figure out why your code is suddenly taking much longer to execute it than you thought it would. You need to figure out why the memory usage keeps going up and never comes down. You need to be able to gather requirements for the software you are writing. All of those things are skills you need to learn regardless of the specific programming language.

PhasmaFelis 2y ago
> It's really not. From personal experience, yes, it is. People spend years getting really good at Java, or Ruby, or SQL, or whatever. You'll get better quicker at all of those if you start with a solid grounding in basic coding principles, but basic principles alone are not enough. Maybe you're one of those 10x programmers I keep hearing about who can master any subfield instantly. That's lovely for you. Most of us do better with a bit of specialization, especially at the beginning of our careers.