3 ms·

People of ACM – Russ Cox

172 points by signa11 2mo ago

shaftoe444 2mo ago
> Software engineering is what happens to programming when you add time and other people.
- pstuart 2mo ago
  An amazing distillation of the craft.
- Cthulhu_ 2mo ago
  The book Software Engineering at Google goes into this (all factors of programming at scale / over time), worth a read.
  - tmoertel 2mo ago
    It's available online for free: https://abseil.io/resources/swe-book https://abseil.io/resources/swe-book And, yep, it's worth a read.
- ignoramous 2mo ago
  Then a new term is warranted for what happens to programming when we add prompts & agents.
  - arccy 2mo ago
    don't we already have the words slop and vibecode
dchest 2mo ago
I recently learned that Russ also wrote software for The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (https://oeis.org https://oeis.org) and is the president of the OEIS Foundation.
pbohun 2mo ago
Russ also has a great blog, with the most recent entry on fast floating-point printing and parsing. I believe these performance improvements have landed in the latest version of Go. https://research.swtch.com/fp https://research.swtch.com/fp
SA9G 2mo ago
I love the "Tornado" term and "software debt"... worked with a few over the years, fixed the bug but broke the paradigm. Well articulated wisdom.
Transformanshen 2mo ago
Solid interview but honestly a bit boilerplate in parts. The bit about "program death" and Naur's theory is gold though, even worth re-reading every few years. His take on AI feels a bit cautious though. I think he's underestimating how fast tactical tornadoes are gonna become the default just because managers love seeing shit get done fast, even if it's messy...
pluralmonad 2mo ago
Cloudflare says I'm not allowed to view the page. At least they are protected from "attacks."
fenestella 2mo ago
[flagged]
eka1 2mo ago
He puts words around what I've been feeling for the past 6 months or more: > Ousterhout introduces the term “tactical tornado” for a programmer who churns out tons of working but overly complex code that doesn’t fit well into the existing system. Worse, a bad manager often sees a tactical tornado as the most productive programmer on a team, failing to recognize the complexity and code debt left behind for the rest of the team to clean up. If we aren’t careful managers, AI agents can easily become the ultimate tactical tornadoes.
unpopularopp 2mo ago
[flagged]
mr_big_bowls 2mo ago
[dead]
vdm 2mo ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmq6veCFo0Y&list=PLrwpzH1_9ufMLOB6BAdzO08Qx-9jHGfGg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmq6veCFo0Y&list=PLrwpzH1_9u...
jruohonen 2mo ago
A good read. Except this weird remark: "It used to be that if you could get a basic operating system coded and running, that was an indirect proof that you understood the basics of how operating systems worked." How many -- and we are even supposedly talking about students -- have coded an operating system and got it running?
- AnimalMuppet 2mo ago
  I know of schools where that was part of the CS curriculum. I don't know if you couldn't graduate without it, but most people didn't.
  - jruohonen 2mo ago
    > part of the CS curriculum Well, maybe in the old days, when computers were simple (and even then, it would've been a very tough take in a curriculum).
    - pjmlp 2mo ago
      Depends if you consider 1990's computers simple. On my degree, we had to implement compilers, db system with B-Tree indexes mapping into i-nodes, extend an existing toy OS with cooperative multi-threadeding, and device drivers for PC floppies. In digital circuits design, we got to create our own tiny CPU, and besides the digital design, some folks did the optional part of actually implementing it on a breadboard. Among several other projects. When a Software Engineering degree is 5 years, there is plenty of time for such stuff.
      - jruohonen 2mo ago
        While not explicitly related to the topic any more: yes, things surely have changed, and I am not sure for the better. I suppose that was also what Cox was saying between the lines at least to some extent.
    - tracerbulletx 2mo ago

172 points by signa11 2mo ago

shaftoe444 2mo ago

> Software engineering is what happens to programming when you add time and other people.

pstuart 2mo ago
An amazing distillation of the craft.
Cthulhu_ 2mo ago
The book Software Engineering at Google goes into this (all factors of programming at scale / over time), worth a read.
- tmoertel 2mo ago
  It's available online for free: https://abseil.io/resources/swe-book https://abseil.io/resources/swe-book And, yep, it's worth a read.
ignoramous 2mo ago
Then a new term is warranted for what happens to programming when we add prompts & agents.
- arccy 2mo ago
  don't we already have the words slop and vibecode

dchest 2mo ago

I recently learned that Russ also wrote software for The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (https://oeis.org https://oeis.org) and is the president of the OEIS Foundation.

pbohun 2mo ago

Russ also has a great blog, with the most recent entry on fast floating-point printing and parsing. I believe these performance improvements have landed in the latest version of Go. https://research.swtch.com/fp https://research.swtch.com/fp

SA9G 2mo ago

I love the "Tornado" term and "software debt"... worked with a few over the years, fixed the bug but broke the paradigm. Well articulated wisdom.

Transformanshen 2mo ago

Solid interview but honestly a bit boilerplate in parts. The bit about "program death" and Naur's theory is gold though, even worth re-reading every few years. His take on AI feels a bit cautious though. I think he's underestimating how fast tactical tornadoes are gonna become the default just because managers love seeing shit get done fast, even if it's messy...

pluralmonad 2mo ago

Cloudflare says I'm not allowed to view the page. At least they are protected from "attacks."

fenestella 2mo ago

[flagged]

eka1 2mo ago

He puts words around what I've been feeling for the past 6 months or more: > Ousterhout introduces the term “tactical tornado” for a programmer who churns out tons of working but overly complex code that doesn’t fit well into the existing system. Worse, a bad manager often sees a tactical tornado as the most productive programmer on a team, failing to recognize the complexity and code debt left behind for the rest of the team to clean up. If we aren’t careful managers, AI agents can easily become the ultimate tactical tornadoes.

unpopularopp 2mo ago

[flagged]

mr_big_bowls 2mo ago

[dead]

vdm 2mo ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmq6veCFo0Y&list=PLrwpzH1_9ufMLOB6BAdzO08Qx-9jHGfGg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmq6veCFo0Y&list=PLrwpzH1_9u...

jruohonen 2mo ago

A good read. Except this weird remark: "It used to be that if you could get a basic operating system coded and running, that was an indirect proof that you understood the basics of how operating systems worked." How many -- and we are even supposedly talking about students -- have coded an operating system and got it running?

AnimalMuppet 2mo ago
I know of schools where that was part of the CS curriculum. I don't know if you couldn't graduate without it, but most people didn't.
- jruohonen 2mo ago
  > part of the CS curriculum Well, maybe in the old days, when computers were simple (and even then, it would've been a very tough take in a curriculum).
  - pjmlp 2mo ago
    Depends if you consider 1990's computers simple. On my degree, we had to implement compilers, db system with B-Tree indexes mapping into i-nodes, extend an existing toy OS with cooperative multi-threadeding, and device drivers for PC floppies. In digital circuits design, we got to create our own tiny CPU, and besides the digital design, some folks did the optional part of actually implementing it on a breadboard. Among several other projects. When a Software Engineering degree is 5 years, there is plenty of time for such stuff.
    - jruohonen 2mo ago
      While not explicitly related to the topic any more: yes, things surely have changed, and I am not sure for the better. I suppose that was also what Cox was saying between the lines at least to some extent.
  - tracerbulletx 2mo ago