5 ms·

Why it's impossible to become a programming expert

32 points by baha_man 17y ago

juvenn 17y ago
"I find it quite frustrating at the personal level. I miss learning things in depth. I miss the sense of satisfaction from attaining a level of expertise. I miss getting to explore obtuse and obscure areas of knowledge."
- HeyLaughingBoy 17y ago
  How about getting to know your problem domain in depth instead? Gaining a sense of satisfaction from being an expert in the business and automating the work so knowledge of obtuse and obscure bits of data is no longer needed? I'd rather be known for having built an amazing product that anyone can use than for mastering some obscure bit of the technology.
  - gloob 17y ago
    How about getting to know your problem domain in depth instead? If I had wanted to be a biologist, or a businessman, or a banker, I would have become one of those things. My domain is computers, and computers are what I am interested in. I will take playing with pointers over $different_kind_of_work any day. I think it's just a personality thing, but that's the way it is for me. I would guess that a sizeable minority of programmers are like that.
gaius 17y ago
This definitely resonates with me. I got my first paying Java gig in 1996 (really). Back then, one person could be reasonably expected to know all of Java, and work on any project that was feasible to do in Java, whether that was applets, servers, fancy graphics, database access (no JDBC back then!), anything. Fast forward a few years, I knew JDBC and Swing pretty well, a little of the EJB stuff, there were whole vast swathes of the Java universe that were simply out of scope. I got out of Java a few years ago, but I imagine it must be even more so now. With my current main languages, Python and OCaml, I still feel as if I've barely scratched the surface (and in the company I count as an "expert"). But this isn't limited to languages, back then a DBA could know all of Oracle 7.3.4, now Oracle 11g is too big for any one person to know it all. There's no such thing as a generalist DBA anymore. You know enough to operate anything your organization uses day to day or fix it if it breaks in the middle of the night, but a tricky problem outside your specialist area will need to wait 'til whoever in the company specializes in that can take a look the next day.
scott_s 17y ago
Taking the time to learn things in-depth is what grad school is for.
- yannis 17y ago
  Taking the time to learn things in-depth is what L I F E school is for.
  - scott_s 17y ago
    That's a nice feel-good statement, but grad school gives you an environment where you can spend all day researching what you're interested in. Most people can't do that at their jobs or they'll get fired.
    - psyklic 17y ago
      Yes, but you can also say that most people become experts at whatever their specific job is.
    - moron4hire 17y ago
      that sort of grad school is for people who need their hands held to learn things.
      - scott_s 17y ago
        You'll have to elaborate on that. When I'm not on an internship, I'm supported by NSF grants to do my research. The support isn't much, but it's enough to pay rent, groceries and a few other things. The general area of research I do is of interest to many companies in industry, but what I do specifically is usually not. Put another way, most companies would not pay me to do what I'm doing. Being a grad student gives me the freedom to spend 50-60 hours a week on research that I find interesting, but may not directly benefit anyone financially. This circumstance is unique to people in academia, some industry research labs, and people wealthy enough that they no longer need to work for a living.
      - 17y ago
edw519 17y ago
OP is an expert, he just doesn't realize it. If you define "expert" as someone who has memorized all possible syntax, then the only experts would be autistic and would need help getting dressed. OTOH, if an expert is someone who knows how to find the right tool to get the right job done, then OP is clearly already there. As are many of us too, I suppose. That's the difference between theory and practice.
- Novash 17y ago
  When I studied C in College, I could tell you all functions on the ANSI library. More often than not, it meant that I knew if a library had something already done so we wouldn't need to do it again. Even simply things like using freopen to redirect standard output to a file, or using sscanf to parse an user input where outside of the class curriculum that I only got to know because I studied the language somewhat in depth. Now that I work with C#, nearly everytime I need a class that is somewhat uncommon, I am forced to do a research, and it usually DO exist in the framework (exception in mind, double indexed lists) somewhere. But I do not know it. Even the expert C# guys do not know it. We need to research. Because the framework is too big, it is not possible to know it. And because it is not possible to know it, every time I am coding, I feel like blind because of the possibility that of what I am doing is actually already there and I don't know it because I didn't think of the right words to research it for.
  - gaius 17y ago
    I wonder if we're any more productive - whether we spend more time doing research to find a library routine than it would take to just code it. This is one problem in the OCaml community. Uptake of the new "standard" libraries is lukewarm because everyone has already half-written their own standard library.
    - Novash 17y ago
      We are more productive. It is not simply a matter of have/not have the routine. It is also a matter of usability. If you did the routine yourself, you would make it specific. When you needed it again, you would need to either write it again from scratch or modify it. The framework has its methods coded in ways to be the least specific possible so to avoid rewrite (in an ideal world, everything would be like it).
yannis 17y ago
A programming expert is not a person who has memorized the contents of the programming equivalent of the Oxford Dictionary, but one that can write code the way Hemingway could write books.
- nkassis 17y ago
  I would call that a hacker. An expert in the real world just knows a lot of stuff.
  - Novash 17y ago
    An expert is someone that can code without using google to teach him how to make every other function.
    - brianto2010 17y ago
      from http://www.zedshaw.com/essays/master_and_expert.html http://www.zedshaw.com/essays/master_and_expert.html > The main thing I noticed about the experts I’ve encountered is they are into impressing you with their abilities. They are usually incredibly good, but their need for recognition gets in the way of mastery. Everything they do is an attempt to prove themselves An expert programmer is a knowledgeable, yet ostentatious programmer. :-)
  - yannis 17y ago
    You right an expert hacker! :)
- silentbicycle 17y ago
  The usual term for somebody who knows endless language details is 'language lawyer'. It's mentioned in _The Mythical Man-Month_ as a member of the "surgical team". Nowadays, the language lawyer role might include exhaustive knowledge of the dusty nooks and crannies of complex APIs.
  - Novash 17y ago
olliesaunders 17y ago
I focus less on knowledge and more on skill esp. API design. This makes me a good programmer, I hope, although often an uninformed one. In an "open book" world I can't help feeling like I made the right choice. The _right_ skills are resistant to change.
olliesaunders 17y ago
Interesting how he says he relies heavily on IDEs. If those IDEs weren't there as crutches how do you think those frameworks might be written differently?
- litewulf 17y ago
  I think the Rails super-over-loaded Do-What-I-Mean method would become more popular. Last night I tried to futz around with some of the form helpers, and almost every parameter is optional. It makes for some pretty challenging parameter munging at the beginning of the methods... but usually when coding there is a particular method you call, and you just kind of pile things on. (The plethora of form helpers notwithstanding)
hxa7241 17y ago
The difference is that the thinking process has become more 'externalised'. Ideas or structures are produced not so much by mental action, but by the mechanisms of external tools and representations. Instead of items being put together by knowing them well, they are connected by web linkage. We are being ever more subsumed into the community brain.
marze 17y ago
Is it possible to create an equally powerful modern programming environment with reduced complexity (as measured in pages of documentation or whatever)? If Apple, or someone else, were able to it would be a competitive advantage. I'm not suggesting that Apple hasn't already done so, but I don't have the first hand experience to make the comparison myself.
moron4hire 17y ago
To me, a lot of this is what the "design" process is for. You have a certain set of requirements that you need to fulfill, so before you set about coding it, you enumerate how it is possible to implement it. Now, I won't go into details like "Use a System.Web.UI.WebControls.Label here", but if it's something that I know my peers don't have much experience with (like apparently the entire System.Drawing namespace, dammit), then I'll specifically indicate in the design that that is an option. It makes for a much more streamlined process for development. No, it doesn't answer all of the questions that come up in coding, but it certainly slays the big dragons.

32 points by baha_man 17y ago

"I find it quite frustrating at the personal level. I miss learning things in depth. I miss the sense of satisfaction from attaining a level of expertise. I miss getting to explore obtuse and obscure areas of knowledge."

HeyLaughingBoy 17y ago
How about getting to know your problem domain in depth instead? Gaining a sense of satisfaction from being an expert in the business and automating the work so knowledge of obtuse and obscure bits of data is no longer needed? I'd rather be known for having built an amazing product that anyone can use than for mastering some obscure bit of the technology.
- gloob 17y ago
  How about getting to know your problem domain in depth instead? If I had wanted to be a biologist, or a businessman, or a banker, I would have become one of those things. My domain is computers, and computers are what I am interested in. I will take playing with pointers over $different_kind_of_work any day. I think it's just a personality thing, but that's the way it is for me. I would guess that a sizeable minority of programmers are like that.

gaius 17y ago

This definitely resonates with me. I got my first paying Java gig in 1996 (really). Back then, one person could be reasonably expected to know all of Java, and work on any project that was feasible to do in Java, whether that was applets, servers, fancy graphics, database access (no JDBC back then!), anything. Fast forward a few years, I knew JDBC and Swing pretty well, a little of the EJB stuff, there were whole vast swathes of the Java universe that were simply out of scope. I got out of Java a few years ago, but I imagine it must be even more so now. With my current main languages, Python and OCaml, I still feel as if I've barely scratched the surface (and in the company I count as an "expert"). But this isn't limited to languages, back then a DBA could know all of Oracle 7.3.4, now Oracle 11g is too big for any one person to know it all. There's no such thing as a generalist DBA anymore. You know enough to operate anything your organization uses day to day or fix it if it breaks in the middle of the night, but a tricky problem outside your specialist area will need to wait 'til whoever in the company specializes in that can take a look the next day.

scott_s 17y ago

Taking the time to learn things in-depth is what grad school is for.

yannis 17y ago
Taking the time to learn things in-depth is what L I F E school is for.
- scott_s 17y ago
  That's a nice feel-good statement, but grad school gives you an environment where you can spend all day researching what you're interested in. Most people can't do that at their jobs or they'll get fired.
  - psyklic 17y ago
    Yes, but you can also say that most people become experts at whatever their specific job is.
  - moron4hire 17y ago
    that sort of grad school is for people who need their hands held to learn things.
    - scott_s 17y ago
      You'll have to elaborate on that. When I'm not on an internship, I'm supported by NSF grants to do my research. The support isn't much, but it's enough to pay rent, groceries and a few other things. The general area of research I do is of interest to many companies in industry, but what I do specifically is usually not. Put another way, most companies would not pay me to do what I'm doing. Being a grad student gives me the freedom to spend 50-60 hours a week on research that I find interesting, but may not directly benefit anyone financially. This circumstance is unique to people in academia, some industry research labs, and people wealthy enough that they no longer need to work for a living.
    - 17y ago

edw519 17y ago

OP is an expert, he just doesn't realize it. If you define "expert" as someone who has memorized all possible syntax, then the only experts would be autistic and would need help getting dressed. OTOH, if an expert is someone who knows how to find the right tool to get the right job done, then OP is clearly already there. As are many of us too, I suppose. That's the difference between theory and practice.

Novash 17y ago
When I studied C in College, I could tell you all functions on the ANSI library. More often than not, it meant that I knew if a library had something already done so we wouldn't need to do it again. Even simply things like using freopen to redirect standard output to a file, or using sscanf to parse an user input where outside of the class curriculum that I only got to know because I studied the language somewhat in depth. Now that I work with C#, nearly everytime I need a class that is somewhat uncommon, I am forced to do a research, and it usually DO exist in the framework (exception in mind, double indexed lists) somewhere. But I do not know it. Even the expert C# guys do not know it. We need to research. Because the framework is too big, it is not possible to know it. And because it is not possible to know it, every time I am coding, I feel like blind because of the possibility that of what I am doing is actually already there and I don't know it because I didn't think of the right words to research it for.
- gaius 17y ago
  I wonder if we're any more productive - whether we spend more time doing research to find a library routine than it would take to just code it. This is one problem in the OCaml community. Uptake of the new "standard" libraries is lukewarm because everyone has already half-written their own standard library.
  - Novash 17y ago
    We are more productive. It is not simply a matter of have/not have the routine. It is also a matter of usability. If you did the routine yourself, you would make it specific. When you needed it again, you would need to either write it again from scratch or modify it. The framework has its methods coded in ways to be the least specific possible so to avoid rewrite (in an ideal world, everything would be like it).

yannis 17y ago

A programming expert is not a person who has memorized the contents of the programming equivalent of the Oxford Dictionary, but one that can write code the way Hemingway could write books.

nkassis 17y ago
I would call that a hacker. An expert in the real world just knows a lot of stuff.
- Novash 17y ago
  An expert is someone that can code without using google to teach him how to make every other function.
  - brianto2010 17y ago
    from http://www.zedshaw.com/essays/master_and_expert.html http://www.zedshaw.com/essays/master_and_expert.html > The main thing I noticed about the experts I’ve encountered is they are into impressing you with their abilities. They are usually incredibly good, but their need for recognition gets in the way of mastery. Everything they do is an attempt to prove themselves An expert programmer is a knowledgeable, yet ostentatious programmer. :-)
- yannis 17y ago
  You right an expert hacker! :)
silentbicycle 17y ago
The usual term for somebody who knows endless language details is 'language lawyer'. It's mentioned in _The Mythical Man-Month_ as a member of the "surgical team". Nowadays, the language lawyer role might include exhaustive knowledge of the dusty nooks and crannies of complex APIs.
- Novash 17y ago

olliesaunders 17y ago

I focus less on knowledge and more on skill esp. API design. This makes me a good programmer, I hope, although often an uninformed one. In an "open book" world I can't help feeling like I made the right choice. The _right_ skills are resistant to change.

olliesaunders 17y ago

Interesting how he says he relies heavily on IDEs. If those IDEs weren't there as crutches how do you think those frameworks might be written differently?

litewulf 17y ago
I think the Rails super-over-loaded Do-What-I-Mean method would become more popular. Last night I tried to futz around with some of the form helpers, and almost every parameter is optional. It makes for some pretty challenging parameter munging at the beginning of the methods... but usually when coding there is a particular method you call, and you just kind of pile things on. (The plethora of form helpers notwithstanding)

hxa7241 17y ago

The difference is that the thinking process has become more 'externalised'. Ideas or structures are produced not so much by mental action, but by the mechanisms of external tools and representations. Instead of items being put together by knowing them well, they are connected by web linkage. We are being ever more subsumed into the community brain.

marze 17y ago

Is it possible to create an equally powerful modern programming environment with reduced complexity (as measured in pages of documentation or whatever)? If Apple, or someone else, were able to it would be a competitive advantage. I'm not suggesting that Apple hasn't already done so, but I don't have the first hand experience to make the comparison myself.

moron4hire 17y ago

To me, a lot of this is what the "design" process is for. You have a certain set of requirements that you need to fulfill, so before you set about coding it, you enumerate how it is possible to implement it. Now, I won't go into details like "Use a System.Web.UI.WebControls.Label here", but if it's something that I know my peers don't have much experience with (like apparently the entire System.Drawing namespace, dammit), then I'll specifically indicate in the design that that is an option. It makes for a much more streamlined process for development. No, it doesn't answer all of the questions that come up in coding, but it certainly slays the big dragons.