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> The thing programmers do... The thing that programmers do is the exact same thing that your post says "normal people" do. Programmers build buggy systems th

by fogus 13y ago

> The thing programmers do... The thing that programmers do is the exact same thing that your post says "normal people" do. Programmers build buggy systems that lose data because someone's name has a ç in it and fail 5% of the time (or more) and rarely do they understand algorithms (and especially not the complexity characteristics) and very often they build the wrong thing, even if they get it done and few have a formal education in anything resembling engineering and very often programmers are indeed getting shit done, but it just turns out that what they got done was just shit. We have to stop putting programmers on a pedestal. There are great programmers and there are bad programmers. Just because someone slings some code doesn't make them a bastion of clear engineering practice. Many programmers that I've met would benefit greatly from the kinds of systems that Victor describes.

derefr 13y ago
Let me first say, I agree with every individual statement you made, here. However, let me put my argument another way: the ability to work with you to formalize your idea is what you're paying for when you hire a programmer. You're paying for a human compiler[1], a fully-intelligent REPL where you can give vague commands like "make me the next Facebook" and, through the programmer's Engineering knowledge, they will ask you questions and force you to make choices, until they've turned that informal idea into an actual capital-S System. Inasmuch as they have that Engineering knowledge, the resulting System will be a formalization of your own desires. And then, having the formal System, the programmer can go and implement it. That part is comparatively trivial, and increasingly done "by" the software compiler. Victor is noble for driving us further toward trivializing that part of the process, but it is only part of the process. But anyway, back to your points: Most "programmers" aren't programmers. If you're only as good at programming as a member of the general population, then you don't get a special job title, right? Otherwise, I would be right now a writer, actor, landscaper, game-designer, philosopher and life-coach, as well as a programmer. But in only one of those fields could I actually make more money than some schmoe who just decided to jump into the field last week, and the reason I'm "more of a programmer" than Bob-the-Accountant is a programmer, is that I can do the Engineering part better. If Bob-the-Accountant started calling himself a programmer, he'd be a white belt programmer--someone who just joined the Art, and must still unlearn their preconceived knowledge before they may begin--while my belt, at least, would have some color on it. Plenty of people calling themselves programmers are white-belts. That doesn't mean we should consider them when we speak of "the thing that programmers do." It would be like including people who write their own legal contracts when speaking about "the thing that lawyers do." So yes, if we're going to keep using the word "programmers" to refer to both the Engineer journeymen and the white-belts who produce misfeasance with their every step, then we should stop putting "programmers" on a pedestal. After all, what use is a pedestal where the people on it are exactly as high up as the general population around them? --- [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6131742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6131742
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  > Most "programmers" aren't programmers. So if you're paid to write programs you probably aren't a professional programmer? What's wrong with an operational definition?
  - derefr 13y ago
    Another way to say it: if we had any way to quantitatively measure the performance of programmers over time, most "programmers" wouldn't be programmers any more. There's a field with a similar problem to our own: public-school teaching. Teacher performance isn't quantified, and so teachers can pretty much get away with only being as good at imparting knowledge as any random member of the population--even though they took years of education-in-Education. Most "teachers" aren't teachers, any more than I'm a teacher; they're simply people paid to repeatedly attempt (and fail) to be teachers.† We pay a lot of people to repeatedly attempt (and fail) to be programmers. --- † Teachers' unions are right now fighting the introduction of actual metrics on how a student's achievement level's year-over-year velocity is affected by a teacher relative to the average of their peer-teachers in the same school. They are fighting this because the data clearly shows a bimodal distribution, where a lot of people are just extremely unfit to be teachers--their students actually reaching negative learning velocities by their presence in the class--and until now, the unions protected these people, since there was nothing to prove they sucked so very much. It's hard to go back on your decision to defend someone when you later find out that they're indefensible.
    - sanderjd 13y ago
      Your opinions on teachers are really easy to nod your head along with, until you actually talk to some teachers about the effects that they are able to observe, directly, of the in-vogue obsession with "actual metrics" (standardized tests) on the actual, ya know, education of their students. I'm sure many teachers disfavor more testing because they know they fear their unfitness, but I think most of them disfavor more testing because they feel we are already testing too damn much, thus trading off a tangible negative short-term effect for a speculative positive long-term effect. Every hour a student spends taking a test is an hour not spent learning. (Apologies for the totally off-topic response to your only mostly off-topic comment.)

by fogus 13y ago

derefr 13y ago

Let me first say, I agree with every individual statement you made, here. However, let me put my argument another way: the ability to work with you to formalize your idea is what you're paying for when you hire a programmer. You're paying for a human compiler[1], a fully-intelligent REPL where you can give vague commands like "make me the next Facebook" and, through the programmer's Engineering knowledge, they will ask you questions and force you to make choices, until they've turned that informal idea into an actual capital-S System. Inasmuch as they have that Engineering knowledge, the resulting System will be a formalization of your own desires. And then, having the formal System, the programmer can go and implement it. That part is comparatively trivial, and increasingly done "by" the software compiler. Victor is noble for driving us further toward trivializing that part of the process, but it is only part of the process. But anyway, back to your points: Most "programmers" aren't programmers. If you're only as good at programming as a member of the general population, then you don't get a special job title, right? Otherwise, I would be right now a writer, actor, landscaper, game-designer, philosopher and life-coach, as well as a programmer. But in only one of those fields could I actually make more money than some schmoe who just decided to jump into the field last week, and the reason I'm "more of a programmer" than Bob-the-Accountant is a programmer, is that I can do the Engineering part better. If Bob-the-Accountant started calling himself a programmer, he'd be a white belt programmer--someone who just joined the Art, and must still unlearn their preconceived knowledge before they may begin--while my belt, at least, would have some color on it. Plenty of people calling themselves programmers are white-belts. That doesn't mean we should consider them when we speak of "the thing that programmers do." It would be like including people who write their own legal contracts when speaking about "the thing that lawyers do." So yes, if we're going to keep using the word "programmers" to refer to both the Engineer journeymen and the white-belts who produce misfeasance with their every step, then we should stop putting "programmers" on a pedestal. After all, what use is a pedestal where the people on it are exactly as high up as the general population around them? --- [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6131742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6131742

foobarbazqux 13y ago
> Most "programmers" aren't programmers. So if you're paid to write programs you probably aren't a professional programmer? What's wrong with an operational definition?
- derefr 13y ago
  Another way to say it: if we had any way to quantitatively measure the performance of programmers over time, most "programmers" wouldn't be programmers any more. There's a field with a similar problem to our own: public-school teaching. Teacher performance isn't quantified, and so teachers can pretty much get away with only being as good at imparting knowledge as any random member of the population--even though they took years of education-in-Education. Most "teachers" aren't teachers, any more than I'm a teacher; they're simply people paid to repeatedly attempt (and fail) to be teachers.† We pay a lot of people to repeatedly attempt (and fail) to be programmers. --- † Teachers' unions are right now fighting the introduction of actual metrics on how a student's achievement level's year-over-year velocity is affected by a teacher relative to the average of their peer-teachers in the same school. They are fighting this because the data clearly shows a bimodal distribution, where a lot of people are just extremely unfit to be teachers--their students actually reaching negative learning velocities by their presence in the class--and until now, the unions protected these people, since there was nothing to prove they sucked so very much. It's hard to go back on your decision to defend someone when you later find out that they're indefensible.
  - sanderjd 13y ago
    Your opinions on teachers are really easy to nod your head along with, until you actually talk to some teachers about the effects that they are able to observe, directly, of the in-vogue obsession with "actual metrics" (standardized tests) on the actual, ya know, education of their students. I'm sure many teachers disfavor more testing because they know they fear their unfitness, but I think most of them disfavor more testing because they feel we are already testing too damn much, thus trading off a tangible negative short-term effect for a speculative positive long-term effect. Every hour a student spends taking a test is an hour not spent learning. (Apologies for the totally off-topic response to your only mostly off-topic comment.)