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You Sir, have basically described what a lot of 'programmers' won't admit, and that is that a lot of them also don't know what is going on. I've come to realiz

You Sir, have basically described what a lot of 'programmers' won't admit, and that is that a lot of them also don't know what is going on. I've come to realize that in the world of real applications, the process is less about doing everything yourself and more about just Googling that shit until you find a solution. Heck, look at all the questions on SO that keep cropping up. They all ask these simple problems that either they've faced or someone else has too. Some guy even wrote (about why he stopped using SO) that in order to answer the questions, he'd just google the question and find the answer in some blog post. Copy/Paste and make it pretty and you'll get 600 upvotes from the thousand other Rails noobs who need that answer. That is why, if you want to build something real, just put all the pieces of the stuff together (like how people do in Rails) and launch the product. Better yet, just do it with WordPress too, or some site builder. At the end of the day, if you're learning for the sake of learning, you'll give your 10 000 hours of duty, but who the heck wants to live behind a computer for 10 years? Piecing shit together should be a philosophy that is encouraged, especially in elitist programmer world where if you mention anything of this sort (like this post) you immediately become an antagonist.

maxerickson 13y ago
The other day I was trying to imagine a website called "The House Fell Down" or "Steam explosion". What would the questions be like? Would there be people asking what a hammer looked like and which way to point a nail? (I don't think this is particularly useful criticism of anything, it's just an interesting parallel)
- mhurron 13y ago
  > imagine a website called "The House Fell Down" That's not very Web 2.0. It would have to be something like Ushr. Sorry, not very helpful, I just couldn't help myself.
- phantom_oracle 13y ago
  If that is all you got from my 'rant', then you've missed the point of my message. FYI, houses do fall down and pipes do burst too. Heck, if you want to go that far, let's talk about a company thats been around for a 100+ years, that is worth a couple hundred billion US dollars, that hires the best chemical, mechanical and civil engineers to build (or outsource) building an underwater pipe that bursts and floods the ocean with a black liquid that kills everything within its spill area. The guy obviously can't seem to get the mantra of going from bottom-up (because not everyone is like that), so putting the shit together and then plugging in where problems may exist is a simple alternate strategy to feel some sense of "completion". So until the day where the super-talented PhD folk at the big software companies can stop storing their passwords in .txt files or losing 5 million passwords on their holy-grail 140 character-limit app, then piecing things and facing a data breach simply becomes a 'cost', unless your PR firm sucks.
  - maxerickson 13y ago
    It was just a train of thought that popped back into my head.
dhfjgkrgjg 13y ago
isn't this the whole schtick for slackexchange? Answers for lazy programmers? Paint by numbers, google by functions. Both result in a seemingly finished product, created without any understanding at all!
- lagnarok 13y ago
  The purpose of Stack Exchange is for people to ask questions so that other people may answer them. At a base level, this is the purpose of all education. To impart knowledge. It is true that some may take what they learn and "Paint by numbers", but you should not fault a community for answering questions it was built to be asked. After all, some may take what they learn and build something amazing. The author of this article learned languages, which I suppose is the equivalent of somebody learning the technical skill of putting paint on a canvas with a brush. What he and others like him might need is for somebody to teach them how to make art, or in real terms: how to read and architect programs.
- buzaga41 13y ago
  Underground syndrome

maxerickson 13y ago

The other day I was trying to imagine a website called "The House Fell Down" or "Steam explosion". What would the questions be like? Would there be people asking what a hammer looked like and which way to point a nail? (I don't think this is particularly useful criticism of anything, it's just an interesting parallel)

mhurron 13y ago
> imagine a website called "The House Fell Down" That's not very Web 2.0. It would have to be something like Ushr. Sorry, not very helpful, I just couldn't help myself.
phantom_oracle 13y ago
If that is all you got from my 'rant', then you've missed the point of my message. FYI, houses do fall down and pipes do burst too. Heck, if you want to go that far, let's talk about a company thats been around for a 100+ years, that is worth a couple hundred billion US dollars, that hires the best chemical, mechanical and civil engineers to build (or outsource) building an underwater pipe that bursts and floods the ocean with a black liquid that kills everything within its spill area. The guy obviously can't seem to get the mantra of going from bottom-up (because not everyone is like that), so putting the shit together and then plugging in where problems may exist is a simple alternate strategy to feel some sense of "completion". So until the day where the super-talented PhD folk at the big software companies can stop storing their passwords in .txt files or losing 5 million passwords on their holy-grail 140 character-limit app, then piecing things and facing a data breach simply becomes a 'cost', unless your PR firm sucks.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  It was just a train of thought that popped back into my head.

dhfjgkrgjg 13y ago

isn't this the whole schtick for slackexchange? Answers for lazy programmers? Paint by numbers, google by functions. Both result in a seemingly finished product, created without any understanding at all!

lagnarok 13y ago
The purpose of Stack Exchange is for people to ask questions so that other people may answer them. At a base level, this is the purpose of all education. To impart knowledge. It is true that some may take what they learn and "Paint by numbers", but you should not fault a community for answering questions it was built to be asked. After all, some may take what they learn and build something amazing. The author of this article learned languages, which I suppose is the equivalent of somebody learning the technical skill of putting paint on a canvas with a brush. What he and others like him might need is for somebody to teach them how to make art, or in real terms: how to read and architect programs.
buzaga41 13y ago
Underground syndrome