4 ms·
> What sort of programmer writes code to The sort of programmer who's not passionate about how the code looks, or works, as long as it passes the (very rudimen
by cnvogel 11y ago
> What sort of programmer writes code to
The sort of programmer who's not passionate about how the code looks, or works, as long as it passes the (very rudimentary) tests which don't cover protocol violations or borderline cases.
The sort of programmer that didn't have any experience and directly went from Sandbox-Java to bare-metal kernel-code in his first project?
I don't want to disillusion you, but I know plenty of people with (at least part-time) programming jobs who don't care at all about all the new programming paradigms, programming languages, libraries, frameworks... boasted often here on HN. I'd say that a huge majority is pretty pleased with what they know, as long as it's enough to do the job.
And, frankly, economically it makes sense: How many plastic-routers are chosen based on their track-record regarding security? And how many "Security-Incident-Handling Stars" does any of the devices mentioned in the article have on Amazon.com? No one cares. The company and their programmers can just continue writing "almost working" code, and patch the security-incident-of-the-month when it surfaces.
- sdalfakj 11y ago> I'd say that a huge majority is pretty pleased with what they know, as long as it's enough to do the job. > And, frankly, economically it makes sense because they are treated as disposables by their companies, as far as I understand from all the comments from sysadmins and programmers here and at other forums.
- userbinator 11y agoI don't want to disillusion you, but I know plenty of people with (at least part-time) programming jobs who don't care at all about all the new programming paradigms, programming languages, libraries, frameworks... boasted often here on HN. I'd say that a huge majority is pretty pleased with what they know, as long as it's enough to do the job. Actually I'd consider myself in that group; most of my work is in Asm and C, with some C++, sometimes Java, and very occasionally do I do anything with Web technologies. The difference, however, is that I do consider all possible inputs, think about how much space things take up, and generally try to cover the problem space. If there is a variable-length field, there will be a statement in the documentation/requirements which states any length restrictions, and what happens if that length is exceeded. The sort of programmer that didn't have any experience and directly went from Sandbox-Java to bare-metal kernel-code in his first project? I think this has much to do with it - those starting with HLLs that cover them with a safety net, letting them do stupid things without all that much consequence, may not develop the same type of thinking; but, even if this was written in something like Java, a Nullpo or IOOBE is unacceptable, and perhaps they would just patch in code to catch the exception and ignore it, not giving this case the proper thought it deserves. To put it a bit more bluntly: when you're writing in Asm on a machine running DOS, and any bug is probably going to make you reboot, you quickly tire of hitting the reset button and learn to think more carefully about what you write. Although I've migrated from such an environment a long time ago, the habit has stuck.
- cnvogel 11y ago> To put it a bit more bluntly: when you're writing in Asm on a > machine running DOS, and any bug is probably going to make you > reboot, you quickly tire of hitting the reset button and learn > to think more carefully about what you write. Although I've > migrated from such an environment a long time ago, the habit > has stuck. I completely agree, a good argument for teaching programming "from the bottom up".