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The difference between my experience and some expressed in the article (and here in some of the comments) is interesting. I'm in my first programming job. I am

The difference between my experience and some expressed in the article (and here in some of the comments) is interesting. I'm in my first programming job. I am the lead (and only) programmer and lead game design for a very small new games startup. I'm basically doing what I have been doing by myself in my bedroom for a while, and I dont have to deal with other people. So, I think of programming like carpentry. Working on a game project I feel like a master carpenter, an artisan, who designs and builds. If I had been tasked with building a nice desk say, I am free to design it, choose my tools and materials and build it how I see fit. If the finished product is fit for purpose and built on time my boss will be happy. Also, in a former life I used to be an architect (with real life buildings) the bridge metaphor in the article reminds me of that. Perhaps the phenomena described in it are simply inherent to any large project that requires multiple people to cooperate in order to design it.

snorkel 13y ago
Programming is very much like carpentry. You have your tools you're familiar with, shiny new tools you just bought and learning to use, and some tools you've heard about that might be better but meh, and you have a vision of what to build ... now start cutting some wood and see what happens. Just like in carpentry you're busy thinking of several things at once: Where did I put my hammer? How will I clamp this to that? Wouldn't it be easier if I cut all these pieces together? I know I should glue this here but screws are good enough ... make a big mess then stand back and admire it all. It's a practiced art of using tools to make something, it's just the end result appears on a computer screen. It's not hard to learn either, just start simple. Put a word on the screen. Now draw circle on the screen. Now try to make the circle bounce. Now find shortest path between N number of cities in constant time.

snorkel 13y ago

Programming is very much like carpentry. You have your tools you're familiar with, shiny new tools you just bought and learning to use, and some tools you've heard about that might be better but meh, and you have a vision of what to build ... now start cutting some wood and see what happens. Just like in carpentry you're busy thinking of several things at once: Where did I put my hammer? How will I clamp this to that? Wouldn't it be easier if I cut all these pieces together? I know I should glue this here but screws are good enough ... make a big mess then stand back and admire it all. It's a practiced art of using tools to make something, it's just the end result appears on a computer screen. It's not hard to learn either, just start simple. Put a word on the screen. Now draw circle on the screen. Now try to make the circle bounce. Now find shortest path between N number of cities in constant time.