3 ms·

The problem isn't with him, it's with programmers who have an inflated view of how smart you have to be to be a programmer. There are plenty of smart programme

by delecti 12y ago

The problem isn't with him, it's with programmers who have an inflated view of how smart you have to be to be a programmer. There are plenty of smart programmers, and there are plenty of problems that would benefit from smart programmers, but the vast majority of problems just need a spark of creativity and a lot of hard work from a person with a reasonable base of knowledge.

raverbashing 12y ago
And then people don't know where impostor syndrome come from... With a lot of BS being spewed on the net like "everybody needs to know how to unit test", "everybody should learn how to use Vagrant", "everybody should know Ruby", "knowing the SOLID principles is essential" And then you ask them how to write a regular expression and they fall flat on their face. Or the basics of how to do a Fourier transform. Or how to draw something on a canvas.
- philangist 12y ago
  Programmers SHOULD know how to write tests for their code. And how to write clean, well designed code (even if they don't call it SOLID). And they should know how to use regexps as well. These are skills that are transferrable whether you're doing frontend work for a small ad agency or crunching numbers for the NSA.
- arenaninja 12y ago
  Yea I also think people mistake the tools for the trade. The fact is, two programmers can exist who know nothing of about each other's toolset, and they aren't necessarily better or worse, simply in different domains. Vagrant is (can be) great if you need heavily spec'd out VMs, but with python I believe virtualenv would suffice. In the end, they are only tools
- klibertp 12y ago
  You realize that regexes, fft and canvas APIs can be seen as the same kind of thing - as simply tools - as unit tests, Ruby and SOLID (whatever that is)? Some tools are usable in more contexts, but you can still lead a perfectly healthy life if you are in a domain where the ones you don't know are not needed.
  - raverbashing 12y ago
    Yes, that's the point. My issue is the developers that say "true developers should know tool X" when for a large group of developers X is irrelevant.
  - kazagistar 12y ago
    SOLID is a set of (possibly questionable) religious principles often espoused by OOP programmers. It tends to boil down to "keep things modular and don't break abstractions", with specifics guidelines for dealing with objects and inheritance.
    - raverbashing 12y ago
      > SOLID is a set of (possibly questionable) religious principles often espoused by OOP programmers Exactly my opinion There's a good side to it, but it's mostly used for people to (in a cargo-cult way) abuse OO and replace simple computations with something spread over 5 levels of inheritance and lots of different types.
Arcanum-XIII 12y ago
Whats more, I question the validity of equating smartness with puzzle solving abilities. It's a bit like equating quality work with having academic credential : no obvious link. Being able to discriminate the worker quality is still a non solved problem - at least not with number. Good judge of character are still way better at that - and well, they're pretty exceptional.

by delecti 12y ago

raverbashing 12y ago

And then people don't know where impostor syndrome come from... With a lot of BS being spewed on the net like "everybody needs to know how to unit test", "everybody should learn how to use Vagrant", "everybody should know Ruby", "knowing the SOLID principles is essential" And then you ask them how to write a regular expression and they fall flat on their face. Or the basics of how to do a Fourier transform. Or how to draw something on a canvas.

philangist 12y ago
Programmers SHOULD know how to write tests for their code. And how to write clean, well designed code (even if they don't call it SOLID). And they should know how to use regexps as well. These are skills that are transferrable whether you're doing frontend work for a small ad agency or crunching numbers for the NSA.
arenaninja 12y ago
Yea I also think people mistake the tools for the trade. The fact is, two programmers can exist who know nothing of about each other's toolset, and they aren't necessarily better or worse, simply in different domains. Vagrant is (can be) great if you need heavily spec'd out VMs, but with python I believe virtualenv would suffice. In the end, they are only tools
klibertp 12y ago
You realize that regexes, fft and canvas APIs can be seen as the same kind of thing - as simply tools - as unit tests, Ruby and SOLID (whatever that is)? Some tools are usable in more contexts, but you can still lead a perfectly healthy life if you are in a domain where the ones you don't know are not needed.
- raverbashing 12y ago
  Yes, that's the point. My issue is the developers that say "true developers should know tool X" when for a large group of developers X is irrelevant.
- kazagistar 12y ago
  SOLID is a set of (possibly questionable) religious principles often espoused by OOP programmers. It tends to boil down to "keep things modular and don't break abstractions", with specifics guidelines for dealing with objects and inheritance.
  - raverbashing 12y ago
    > SOLID is a set of (possibly questionable) religious principles often espoused by OOP programmers Exactly my opinion There's a good side to it, but it's mostly used for people to (in a cargo-cult way) abuse OO and replace simple computations with something spread over 5 levels of inheritance and lots of different types.

Arcanum-XIII 12y ago

Whats more, I question the validity of equating smartness with puzzle solving abilities. It's a bit like equating quality work with having academic credential : no obvious link. Being able to discriminate the worker quality is still a non solved problem - at least not with number. Good judge of character are still way better at that - and well, they're pretty exceptional.