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Why Good Programmers are Lazy and Dumb (2005)

38 points by jeremybencken 13y ago

PeterisP 13y ago
In that regard, see the three classic virtues of a programmer - laziness, impatience and hubris. http://www.cranked.me/2008/07/laziness-impatience-hubris-three-great.html http://www.cranked.me/2008/07/laziness-impatience-hubris-thr...
sublimit 13y ago
- A paradoxical claim of "bad is good" in the title. Off to a good start. - The content is some neverheard's blog post with no substance to back up the claim. Getting there. - Analogies, personal stories, vaguely "motivational" Powerpoint lingo, rambling, self-contradictions... Bingo! Yes, I'm sure this will be quite successful on the HN front page.
- phpnode 13y ago
  Your post adds far less value. Please leave the snark at home.
hhenn 13y ago
The idea that being a "dumb" programmer helps with debugging reminds me of a tactic I see people use on StackOverflow. Some programmer will post a problem they're having, and lots of ultimately unhelpful solutions will be suggested until someone else asks "what are you trying to accomplish?" and then it's suddenly made clear that the programmer's problem was being approached in the wrong way. I've seen this happen so many times on SO, with good results, that it's become the way I want to think about other problems in life.
- 6chars 13y ago
  This is common enough on SO to have a name: the XY Problem. http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy-problem http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy...
nrivadeneira 13y ago
Efficient != lazy Inquisitive != dumb I agree with the overall gist of the article, but the title is obvious link-bait and his valid points have been twisted just to fit it.
thibauts 13y ago
So being smart equates to not being able to put oneself into question ? Not the way I'm used to think about intelligence. Though, programming cultivates the habit of rethinking your premises, I think we can all testify.
twic 13y ago
"a good programmer must be dumb. Why? Because if he’s smart, and he knows he is smart, he will: a) stop learning b) stop being critical towards his own work" No. Just, no.
- geon 13y ago
  Exactly. That is pretty much the opposite of the Dunning–Kruger effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

38 points by jeremybencken 13y ago

In that regard, see the three classic virtues of a programmer - laziness, impatience and hubris. http://www.cranked.me/2008/07/laziness-impatience-hubris-three-great.html http://www.cranked.me/2008/07/laziness-impatience-hubris-thr...

sublimit 13y ago

- A paradoxical claim of "bad is good" in the title. Off to a good start. - The content is some neverheard's blog post with no substance to back up the claim. Getting there. - Analogies, personal stories, vaguely "motivational" Powerpoint lingo, rambling, self-contradictions... Bingo! Yes, I'm sure this will be quite successful on the HN front page.

phpnode 13y ago
Your post adds far less value. Please leave the snark at home.

hhenn 13y ago

The idea that being a "dumb" programmer helps with debugging reminds me of a tactic I see people use on StackOverflow. Some programmer will post a problem they're having, and lots of ultimately unhelpful solutions will be suggested until someone else asks "what are you trying to accomplish?" and then it's suddenly made clear that the programmer's problem was being approached in the wrong way. I've seen this happen so many times on SO, with good results, that it's become the way I want to think about other problems in life.

6chars 13y ago
This is common enough on SO to have a name: the XY Problem. http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy-problem http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy...

nrivadeneira 13y ago

Efficient != lazy Inquisitive != dumb I agree with the overall gist of the article, but the title is obvious link-bait and his valid points have been twisted just to fit it.

thibauts 13y ago

So being smart equates to not being able to put oneself into question ? Not the way I'm used to think about intelligence. Though, programming cultivates the habit of rethinking your premises, I think we can all testify.

twic 13y ago

"a good programmer must be dumb. Why? Because if he’s smart, and he knows he is smart, he will: a) stop learning b) stop being critical towards his own work" No. Just, no.

geon 13y ago
Exactly. That is pretty much the opposite of the Dunning–Kruger effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect