6 ms·

It's always old people complaining that 20-year-olds didn't learn programming 40 years ago like they did when computers had 5 assembly instructions, and a beepe

by torlok 1y ago

It's always old people complaining that 20-year-olds didn't learn programming 40 years ago like they did when computers had 5 assembly instructions, and a beeper for peripherals.

palata 1y ago
I understand how it may sound like this, given that older people will talk about assembly and electronics which most young developers have absolutely no clue about today and are still considered "software developers". But it's not specifically about assembly, it's about software design. You can take a modern programming language (say Swift or Rust) and look at how software written with those languages is architected, and the points still stand: abstractions above abstractions above abstractions because people don't understand the lower levels. People routinely write completely wrong CMakeLists and then complain about CMake being "sooo bad". But give them Meson and they will make a mess as well. People have no clue about packaging and distribution, so they will say "it sucks sooo badly" and will distribute their code as a docker container, embedded in a 6GB Ubuntu image. Most emails you receive just contain a couple lines of useful information, yet they are generated by higher-level systems, full of HTML and bullshit and it's impossible to read in a simple client. Etc. Software quality is going down year after year, it is a fact. Probably because it is becoming more and more accessible, but the fact remains.
- scott_w 1y ago
  > I understand how it may sound like this, given that older people will talk about assembly and electronics which most young developers have absolutely no clue about today and are still considered "software developers". As a software engineer in his mid-30s now, I can assure you many "older people" will have little-to-no memory of messing around with assembly and electronics. When I was getting started, my boss told me about an engineer who had a deep knowledge of how to lay out data to efficiently read and process it. My response? "I just stick it in Postgres and it does it all for me!" No shade to that engineer but I do believe he was in his 50s/60s at the time, so it's quite likely he's retired on a decent pension by now!
  - palata 1y ago
    I am not sure exactly where you are going with that. But yeah, sure, not everybody needs assembly. My point is that because the author uses assembly as an example does not mean that their points are not valid.
    - scott_w 1y ago
      I think even this point about seeing through all the abstractions being "real engineers" still limits you to, basically, people in their 60s at the youngest. I just think it's a reductionist view and one that's not necessary. Practical example: beyond reading SQL ANALYZE, I have no idea how Postgres organises and queries data beyond a rough understanding of the model that it exposes. I guess I'm not a "real engineer" because I couldn't tell you how that data is laid out on the disk for efficiency. Yet I'm generally able to write pretty performant data models and query it. I know engineers who can't even do that, yet their knowledge of DOM and browser logic is so fucking insane, they fixed a shitload of longstanding issues in our product. Where is the line on them being "real engineers?" Is that good enough, or do they need to go deeper into the browser? I know engineers who don't have that level of depth in either, yet they're consistently able to write bug-free code that's extremely well tested. Do they understand how Python bytecode works? No, they don't have a clue (frankly, neither do I). Yet they solve every problem in their space.
- CoastalCoder 1y ago
  > People routinely write completely wrong CMakeLists and then complain about CMake being "sooo bad". I think this conflates a few issues. I believe you that some people have problems with both CMake and Meson. But in my opinion CMake's scripting language really is pretty poorly suited for it's role, e.g. because of its blurry distinction between strings and lists.
  - palata 1y ago
    > CMake's scripting language really is pretty poorly suited for it's role The vast majority of projects only need a handful of features from CMake. Sure, it's a weird language and there is enough to criticise. The fact remains that 99% of the complaints I see are from people who write very bad CMakeLists. First learn how to not make a big mess with it, and then you can start complaining, IMHO. I have had that with other technologies that "everybody hates but is forced to use". The technology is never perfect, so there are always reasons for criticism. But I see a lot more invalid criticisms from people who don't use the technology correctly than valid ones. Because Javascript is not perfect does not mean that the developers can't possibly be responsible for a bad Javascript codebase.
- BillyTheMage 1y ago
  > Most emails you receive just contain a couple lines of useful information No matter how many times I do it, I'm always re-shocked by the sheer size of email headers from mainstream email providers. Maybe it's a non-issue but just holy god that's a lot of crap that means absolutely nothing to me. > [...] and then complain about CMake being "sooo bad" OoOh yeah I'm one of those. I gave the whole heck up on C++ years ago because of the many many interlocking compilers and compiler-compilers and meta-compilers and makers and whatever else is going on. SOOOOO confusing. Like dude I just want to take this code I have right here... and compile it. Such a simple task but first I have to learn 3 layers of compilers and builder and uggggghhhh. And don't even get me started on "projects" (i.e. in Visual Studio or whatever). "Project" is not inherent to the language, but they don't teach that to beginners. Everything is taught so anti-agnostically.
  - palata 1y ago
    > Such a simple task but first I have to learn 3 layers of compilers and builder and uggggghhhh. I just write a few lines in a CMakeLists and compile C++ code, I don't see where you need "3 layers of compilers and builder and ugggggghhhh". But I see a lot of C++ projects out there that have a mess of CMakeLists and are impossible to compile. When that happens inside my company, I just rewrite the CMakeLists and remove all the mess, and voila. Then guess what? Some other developer suddenly needs to add a dependency, doesn't take 10s to see how I dealt with dependencies and adds 200 lines of mess for their own dependency. And then they complain about CMake. And I have actually seen that: I "fixed" a project to bring it down to something like 40 lines of CMakeLists for 10 dependencies. The next dev changed that to 250 lines by adding an 11th dependency and complained about CMake. I changed it back to 43 lines for 11 dependencies. I did it in 3 lines, they did it in 210 and didn't even realised they were wrong. You could say "sure, but they learned from the next time". Nope, they did the same mess in other projects.
    - BillyTheMage 1y ago
      It's been a long time since then, but IIRC it was like... there's a compiler for every conceivable CPU ever made, and then there's a layer on top of that for... groupings? and then there's the compiler that bundles all that crap together into something that can run across all the CPUs of the same architecture. And then another layer for something that I can just go "make this for all computers". Bear in mind I was adamant about not using some fancy I-dont-know-whats-happening IDE with their fancy "projects" and "run buttons". Those are just more confusing. I wanted to WRITE CODE, and then COMPILE THAT CODE, and then RUN THE RESULTING EXECUTABLE. With commands. I found a Reddit post I made [1] when I was trying to learn C++. Maybe it sheds more light on what I was confused about? - [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskProgramming/comments/uc2p5q/i_know_about_the_secret_programming_org_in_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskProgramming/comments/uc2p5q/i_kn... edit: I'm famously (among friends) bad at the beginner stage. I get angry at things that are obviously more confusing than they need to be. Current thing is CloudFlare tunnels. Just like why does it need to be this hard? I have server. I have domain. Just dammit let me slap a pipe between them.

by torlok 1y ago

It's always old people complaining that 20-year-olds didn't learn programming 40 years ago like they did when computers had 5 assembly instructions, and a beeper for peripherals.

palata 1y ago

I understand how it may sound like this, given that older people will talk about assembly and electronics which most young developers have absolutely no clue about today and are still considered "software developers". But it's not specifically about assembly, it's about software design. You can take a modern programming language (say Swift or Rust) and look at how software written with those languages is architected, and the points still stand: abstractions above abstractions above abstractions because people don't understand the lower levels. People routinely write completely wrong CMakeLists and then complain about CMake being "sooo bad". But give them Meson and they will make a mess as well. People have no clue about packaging and distribution, so they will say "it sucks sooo badly" and will distribute their code as a docker container, embedded in a 6GB Ubuntu image. Most emails you receive just contain a couple lines of useful information, yet they are generated by higher-level systems, full of HTML and bullshit and it's impossible to read in a simple client. Etc. Software quality is going down year after year, it is a fact. Probably because it is becoming more and more accessible, but the fact remains.

scott_w 1y ago
> I understand how it may sound like this, given that older people will talk about assembly and electronics which most young developers have absolutely no clue about today and are still considered "software developers". As a software engineer in his mid-30s now, I can assure you many "older people" will have little-to-no memory of messing around with assembly and electronics. When I was getting started, my boss told me about an engineer who had a deep knowledge of how to lay out data to efficiently read and process it. My response? "I just stick it in Postgres and it does it all for me!" No shade to that engineer but I do believe he was in his 50s/60s at the time, so it's quite likely he's retired on a decent pension by now!
- palata 1y ago
  I am not sure exactly where you are going with that. But yeah, sure, not everybody needs assembly. My point is that because the author uses assembly as an example does not mean that their points are not valid.
  - scott_w 1y ago
    I think even this point about seeing through all the abstractions being "real engineers" still limits you to, basically, people in their 60s at the youngest. I just think it's a reductionist view and one that's not necessary. Practical example: beyond reading SQL ANALYZE, I have no idea how Postgres organises and queries data beyond a rough understanding of the model that it exposes. I guess I'm not a "real engineer" because I couldn't tell you how that data is laid out on the disk for efficiency. Yet I'm generally able to write pretty performant data models and query it. I know engineers who can't even do that, yet their knowledge of DOM and browser logic is so fucking insane, they fixed a shitload of longstanding issues in our product. Where is the line on them being "real engineers?" Is that good enough, or do they need to go deeper into the browser? I know engineers who don't have that level of depth in either, yet they're consistently able to write bug-free code that's extremely well tested. Do they understand how Python bytecode works? No, they don't have a clue (frankly, neither do I). Yet they solve every problem in their space.
CoastalCoder 1y ago
> People routinely write completely wrong CMakeLists and then complain about CMake being "sooo bad". I think this conflates a few issues. I believe you that some people have problems with both CMake and Meson. But in my opinion CMake's scripting language really is pretty poorly suited for it's role, e.g. because of its blurry distinction between strings and lists.
- palata 1y ago
  > CMake's scripting language really is pretty poorly suited for it's role The vast majority of projects only need a handful of features from CMake. Sure, it's a weird language and there is enough to criticise. The fact remains that 99% of the complaints I see are from people who write very bad CMakeLists. First learn how to not make a big mess with it, and then you can start complaining, IMHO. I have had that with other technologies that "everybody hates but is forced to use". The technology is never perfect, so there are always reasons for criticism. But I see a lot more invalid criticisms from people who don't use the technology correctly than valid ones. Because Javascript is not perfect does not mean that the developers can't possibly be responsible for a bad Javascript codebase.
BillyTheMage 1y ago
> Most emails you receive just contain a couple lines of useful information No matter how many times I do it, I'm always re-shocked by the sheer size of email headers from mainstream email providers. Maybe it's a non-issue but just holy god that's a lot of crap that means absolutely nothing to me. > [...] and then complain about CMake being "sooo bad" OoOh yeah I'm one of those. I gave the whole heck up on C++ years ago because of the many many interlocking compilers and compiler-compilers and meta-compilers and makers and whatever else is going on. SOOOOO confusing. Like dude I just want to take this code I have right here... and compile it. Such a simple task but first I have to learn 3 layers of compilers and builder and uggggghhhh. And don't even get me started on "projects" (i.e. in Visual Studio or whatever). "Project" is not inherent to the language, but they don't teach that to beginners. Everything is taught so anti-agnostically.
- palata 1y ago
  > Such a simple task but first I have to learn 3 layers of compilers and builder and uggggghhhh. I just write a few lines in a CMakeLists and compile C++ code, I don't see where you need "3 layers of compilers and builder and ugggggghhhh". But I see a lot of C++ projects out there that have a mess of CMakeLists and are impossible to compile. When that happens inside my company, I just rewrite the CMakeLists and remove all the mess, and voila. Then guess what? Some other developer suddenly needs to add a dependency, doesn't take 10s to see how I dealt with dependencies and adds 200 lines of mess for their own dependency. And then they complain about CMake. And I have actually seen that: I "fixed" a project to bring it down to something like 40 lines of CMakeLists for 10 dependencies. The next dev changed that to 250 lines by adding an 11th dependency and complained about CMake. I changed it back to 43 lines for 11 dependencies. I did it in 3 lines, they did it in 210 and didn't even realised they were wrong. You could say "sure, but they learned from the next time". Nope, they did the same mess in other projects.
  - BillyTheMage 1y ago
    It's been a long time since then, but IIRC it was like... there's a compiler for every conceivable CPU ever made, and then there's a layer on top of that for... groupings? and then there's the compiler that bundles all that crap together into something that can run across all the CPUs of the same architecture. And then another layer for something that I can just go "make this for all computers". Bear in mind I was adamant about not using some fancy I-dont-know-whats-happening IDE with their fancy "projects" and "run buttons". Those are just more confusing. I wanted to WRITE CODE, and then COMPILE THAT CODE, and then RUN THE RESULTING EXECUTABLE. With commands. I found a Reddit post I made [1] when I was trying to learn C++. Maybe it sheds more light on what I was confused about? - [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskProgramming/comments/uc2p5q/i_know_about_the_secret_programming_org_in_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskProgramming/comments/uc2p5q/i_kn... edit: I'm famously (among friends) bad at the beginner stage. I get angry at things that are obviously more confusing than they need to be. Current thing is CloudFlare tunnels. Just like why does it need to be this hard? I have server. I have domain. Just dammit let me slap a pipe between them.