terrible programmers: my god, it's full of chars

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > YOSPOS > terrible programmers: my god, it's full of chars

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Brain Candy: May 18, 2006

MononcQc posted:

The more it goes, the more I feel that making assumptions about what the one true way or methodology, language, or paradigm should be, is all garbage.

Programs and software solutions can be CPU, IO, or Memory bound at the simplest levels, and that already impacts the poo poo you have, but then you have additional constraints for budget, development time, running time, and general ideas about capacity, requirements for tests, maintainability, safety and what have you that all compound into these decisions, while also adding the problem domain to that stack.

There's a shitload of cases where p-lang like solutions are fully appropriate given the constraints and priorities, no matter what angry assholes online may think. The opposite is also pretty much true, where Java users can be seen both as morons or reasonable people.

But it's fun for devs of all kind to think "well the kind of programming I do is certainly representative of what the state of the world is and by golly your solution doesn't fit what I usually do! you're probably an idiot!" and get a little self-indulgent feeling of superiority, so I don't expect it to change any time soon.

i'm pretty sure this is a psychology thing, the same thing in general why you should never ask an engineer about politics. best description of it I've heard called it 'being religious'.

but. while its right in the abstract that anything could be appropriate given context, i'm pretty sure we puff up the certainty of statements for reasons. most of the time when you are building something truly new to you are also building your model of it in parallel. you aren't smart enough to full grasp the context of the thing you are making until after you make it and/or the context of the problem is changing while you are making. actually picking out that 'this is a small little program that isn't going to change much' seems to be an exercise that involves throwing chicken bones on the ground.

'php is a bad' is a good heuristic. could we even talk about things if we didn't ship some unspoken context around?

# ? Oct 27, 2013 15:05

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# ? May 16, 2024 18:32

Shaggar: Apr 26, 2006

MononcQc posted:

The more it goes, the more I feel that making assumptions about what the one true way or methodology, language, or paradigm should be, is all garbage.

Programs and software solutions can be CPU, IO, or Memory bound at the simplest levels, and that already impacts the poo poo you have, but then you have additional constraints for budget, development time, running time, and general ideas about capacity, requirements for tests, maintainability, safety and what have you that all compound into these decisions, while also adding the problem domain to that stack.

There's a shitload of cases where p-lang like solutions are fully appropriate given the constraints and priorities, no matter what angry assholes online may think. The opposite is also pretty much true, where Java users can be seen both as morons or reasonable people.

But it's fun for devs of all kind to think "well the kind of programming I do is certainly representative of what the state of the world is and by golly your solution doesn't fit what I usually do! you're probably an idiot!" and get a little self-indulgent feeling of superiority, so I don't expect it to change any time soon.

the only reason to use a p-lang is if you're stuck in a job you cant leave working w/ a massive monolithic p-lang system.

# ? Oct 27, 2013 16:24

uG: Apr 23, 2003; by Ralp

also if you want your employees to be somewhat socialable

# ? Oct 27, 2013 16:26

Shaggar: Apr 26, 2006

nah, once you leave college you'll realize anime and mlp aren't topics for normal conversation

# ? Oct 27, 2013 16:28

MononcQc: May 29, 2007

A few years ago I've used php to write a minimalist website on the cheapest hosting possible for a friend's relative, then spent more time listening to people telling how bad of a decision it was to use PHP than it took me to write the website. Nobody has had to maintain it and it was in retrospect 100% the right decision.

v :shobon:

# ? Oct 27, 2013 16:29

uG: Apr 23, 2003; by Ralp

im proud it only took you until college to figure that out. truly a non-planger

# ? Oct 27, 2013 16:30

Shaggar: Apr 26, 2006

I was hoping you would figure it out

# ? Oct 27, 2013 16:32

power botton: Nov 2, 2011

Shaggar posted:

nah, once you leave college you'll realize anime and mlp aren't topics for normal conversation

ive realized that. most people in yospos outside of the games thread have realized that. then theres the 40 year old developer who loves to talking about his LARPing on the weekend like its not something to be kept secret between yourself and your therapist.

# ? Oct 27, 2013 16:33

Shaggar: Apr 26, 2006

MononcQc posted:

A few years ago I've used php to write a minimalist website on the cheapest hosting possible for a friend's relative, then spent more time listening to people telling how bad of a decision it was to use PHP than it took me to write the website. Nobody has had to maintain it and it was in retrospect 100% the right decision.

vv

php when used for web pages is on par w/ classic asp and jsp in that its just a templating language. its when you try to do more than just a few web pages (or something thats not a webpage) that stuff starts to suck.

# ? Oct 27, 2013 16:35

MononcQc: May 29, 2007

I don't disagree with that. But it's a p-lang that did the job at what it was targeted for and likely came much cheaper for hosting than asp / jsp for a few hours' project for a friend. Aka using PHP was the right decision and context is king.

# ? Oct 27, 2013 16:38

Shaggar: Apr 26, 2006

so I guess, when used properly, php is the exception that proves the rule????

# ? Oct 27, 2013 16:42

Brain Candy: May 18, 2006

it's more like you can always pound in nails with a stale fruitcake if you don't have tools and don't feel like getting them

# ? Oct 27, 2013 17:11

uG: Apr 23, 2003; by Ralp

i think the butterknife as a screw driver is a more apt analogy hth

# ? Oct 27, 2013 17:19

Brain Candy: May 18, 2006

i'm trying to be reasonable and i run into dogmatism about analogies

# ? Oct 27, 2013 17:25

double sulk: Jul 2, 2010

Cocoa Crispies posted:

I wonder how a Heroku dyno compares to an iPhone 5S

I bet the 5S is faster

# ? Oct 27, 2013 17:47

jony neuemonic: Nov 13, 2009

Brain Candy posted:

i'm trying to be reasonable and i run into dogmatism about analogies

yospos, bitch

# ? Oct 27, 2013 17:48

Flaming June: Oct 21, 2004

git clone trooper posted:

ive realized that. most people in yospos outside of the games thread have realized that. then theres the 40 year old developer who loves to talking about his LARPing on the weekend like its not something to be kept secret between yourself and your therapist.

as a new dev and working with other ones, this this this

i don't want to talk to you about the chip design in a sega cd

ripping your own games from discs is not a good investment of time

i don't care. talk to me about rock climbing or something

# ? Oct 27, 2013 18:14

a cyberpunk goose: May 21, 2007

i've gone from C# to C++/qt to C firmware programming and back in a week at my current job

having played with things like Forth which behaves like a very friendly ASM and is very fast on embedded devices i feel like sometimes C is overkill for things like simpler firmware projects. but i know thats me living in my newfound neckbeard fantasy land. i'm happy to compromise my computational religion in order to get a job done and in a sane way, there's almost always a subset of a *lang's features that will result in less regretful drinking. it's sad that we can't always live in a project world where the langs we use are consistent and impossible to break or abuse but this is the real world and things gotta get done and my beer wont pay for itself

# ? Oct 27, 2013 22:57

MononcQc: May 29, 2007

What's your general feeling about Forth? Most criticism I've heard of it for very small projects was that it loving owns, but it may be very close to write-only.

# ? Oct 27, 2013 23:11

uG: Apr 23, 2003; by Ralp

also your beer would pay for itself if you sold enough of it at a high enough margin

# ? Oct 27, 2013 23:56

a cyberpunk goose: May 21, 2007

MononcQc posted:

What's your general feeling about Forth? Most criticism I've heard of it for very small projects was that it loving owns, but it may be very close to write-only.

i'm not a true wizard yet but i've seen some really cool things done in Forth, display drivers etc

it's all about kinda unthinking your usual approach to programming and just making things well factored and remembering that Forth is inherently interactive in it's entirety so when you have issues at runtime you can kinda walk through your issues

i dunno, i haven't done enough with it yet

# ? Oct 28, 2013 01:28

Stringent: Dec 22, 2004; image text goes here

MononcQc posted:

What's your general feeling about Forth? Most criticism I've heard of it for very small projects was that it loving owns, but it may be very close to write-only.

may be very close.

# ? Oct 28, 2013 01:44

weird: Jun 4, 2012; by zen death robot

i couldnt think of anything to do so i wrote this, do i belong in this thread yet?

Lisp code:

((lambda (x)
   (concatenate
    'string
    (map 'string #'code-char
         (funcall
          ((lambda (x) (funcall x x))
           (lambda (x)
             ((lambda (y)
                (lambda (x &optional z)
                  (cond ((not z) (cons (car x) (funcall y (cdr x) 2)))
                        ((zerop z) (list (car x) (+ (cadr x) 4)))
                        (t (cons (- (car x) z) (funcall y (cdr x) (1- z)))))))
              (lambda (&rest y) (apply (funcall x x) y)))))
          (sort (map 'list #'char-code x) #'<)))
    x))
 (string-downcase (eval `(symbol-name ',@`',@nil))))

# ? Oct 28, 2013 05:02

fritz: Jul 26, 2003

VanillaKid posted:

i couldnt think of anything to do so i wrote this, do i belong in this thread yet?

Lisp code:

((lambda (x)
   (concatenate
    'string
    (map 'string #'code-char
         (funcall
          ((lambda (x) (funcall x x))
           (lambda (x)
             ((lambda (y)
                (lambda (x &optional z)
                  (cond ((not z) (cons (car x) (funcall y (cdr x) 2)))
                        ((zerop z) (list (car x) (+ (cadr x) 4)))
                        (t (cons (- (car x) z) (funcall y (cdr x) (1- z)))))))
              (lambda (&rest y) (apply (funcall x x) y)))))
          (sort (map 'list #'char-code x) #'<)))
    x))
 (string-downcase (eval `(symbol-name ',@`',@nil))))

drat if i know, im not reading that stuff

# ? Oct 28, 2013 05:52

Symbolic Butt: Mar 22, 2009; (_!_); Buglord

it's terrible just because I think the indentation is wrong

# ? Oct 28, 2013 05:56

a cyberpunk goose: May 21, 2007

code:

(funcall y (cdr x) (1- z)))))))

calling all the fun

# ? Oct 28, 2013 07:34

AWWNAW: Dec 30, 2008

just shouted out to pete gabriel with a variable named fruitlessSearches and feelinh pretty good bout it

# ? Oct 29, 2013 16:35

hubris.height: Jan 6, 2005; Pork Pro

AWWNAW posted:

just shouted out to pete gabriel with a variable named fruitlessSearches and feelinh pretty good bout it

wow nice

# ? Oct 29, 2013 16:49

Share Bear: Apr 27, 2004

tef posted:

this is wrong, you probably want "Effective Java" by Joshua Bloch. It's a cookbook of good ways to use Java

Notorious b.s.d. posted:

i believe shaggar was referring to the official oracle/sun tutorial content, not literally the docs generated by the javadoc tool

thank you

# ? Oct 29, 2013 17:23

Siljmonster: Dec 16, 2005; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

quote:

I'm all for people to learning to code � I wrote a piece arguing we should teach it in prisons earlier this year � but I think we need to be aware of its limitations. Coding is a niche, mechanical skill, a bit like plumbing or car repair.
As a subject, it only appeals to a limited set of people � the aforementioned dull weirdos. There�s a reason most startup co-founders are �the charming ideas guy� paired with �the tech genius�. It�s because if you leave the tech genius on his own he�ll start muttering to himself.

Trying to pretend that coding is the right skill for everyone is utter nonsense � for most people, it�s exponentially less useful than the basic level of IT literacy most people still lack. As far as I�m concerned, this is the real IT crisis that needs addressing.

I expected this year's school leavers, born in 1995, and having never lived without the internet, to be brilliant with computers. Now I know better. Working with them, I've found that the opposite is often true. Many lack basic computer literacy � the �have you tried turning it off and on again?� stuff � because the education system has let them down so badly.

For the last decade or so, computing lessons have been dreadful. ICT has become one of those pathetic subjects like Religious Education: taught by the runts of the teaching litter and seen as pointless by pupils.

So, the current curriculum is broken. However, the new curriculum that Jack likes so much wrongly thinks that teaching everyone to code is the answer. The new rules expect five to seven year-olds to understand the definition of an algorithm years before they are due to be taught algebra, as well as being able to "create and debug simple computer programs". Once they've grasped this, seven to 11 year-olds will have to code programs "in at least two programming languages".

Are they serious? I admire Jack's (and the Government�s) ambition and enthusiasm but I can't see the average primary school teacher being able to learn two programming languages well enough to teach them, or the school day having enough time to cram in an extra difficult, boring subject. Especially when our lazy, feckless teaching unions have to fit in time to go on strike.

If a school subject is to be taught to everyone, it needs to have a vital application in everyday life � and that�s just not true of coding. Sure, it�s useful for some kids, but it doesn't begin to compare with basic maths, spelling or reading. You might as well teach every seven-year-old to fit a U-bend instead of how to count.

lol im the IT literacy

# ? Oct 29, 2013 18:46

duTrieux.: Oct 9, 2003

tech people have trouble accepting that computers are just another tool in a long line of tools

tools all the way down

# ? Oct 29, 2013 19:06

Forums Terrorist: Dec 8, 2011

im the out of nowhere snipe at unions

# ? Oct 29, 2013 19:47

coffeetable: Feb 5, 2006; TELL ME AGAIN HOW GREAT BRITAIN WOULD BE IF IT WAS RULED BY THE MERCILESS JACKBOOT OF PRINCE CHARLES

YES I DO TALK TO PLANTS ACTUALLY

Willard Foxton
Willard Foxton is an investigative journalist & television producer

# ? Oct 29, 2013 20:28

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

i'm the aforementioned dull weirdo

# ? Oct 29, 2013 21:49

Morkai: May 2, 2004; aaag babbys

its cool we know

# ? Oct 29, 2013 23:02

Dirk Pitt: Sep 14, 2007; haha yes, this feels good; Toilet Rascal

i get to do a demo for an area professional organization tomorrow since the original speaker bailed. time to put a xamarin app together.

# ? Oct 29, 2013 23:26

Nomnom Cookie: Aug 30, 2009

duTrieux. posted:

tech people have trouble accepting that computers are just another tool in a long line of tools

tools all the way down

im ok with it actually, these esoteric skills are my meal ticket

# ? Oct 29, 2013 23:54

distortion park: Apr 25, 2011

i followed the documentation to run this crappy linux program remotely to the letter and it still doesn't work

duTrieux. posted:

tech people have trouble accepting that computers are just another tool in a long line of tools

tools all the way down

most tools you can actually work out how to use on your own rather than relying on half-assed instructions and cryptic error messages. i don't need a user manual to tell me how to hammer stuff wrong

# ? Oct 30, 2013 00:22

Nomnom Cookie: Aug 30, 2009

pointsofdata posted:

i followed the documentation to run this crappy linux program remotely to the letter and it still doesn't work

most tools you can actually work out how to use on your own rather than relying on half-assed instructions and cryptic error messages. i don't need a user manual to tell me how to hammer stuff wrong

ssh to the remote machine and run it locally in ur remote shell.

# ? Oct 30, 2013 00:24

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# ? May 16, 2024 18:32

distortion park: Apr 25, 2011

the user manual for this open source thing randomly skips documentation for error codes. of course since there's meant to be documentation the error messages don't say anything, just "error 64". then you look it up in the manual and it skips from error 63 to error 65

# ? Oct 30, 2013 00:25

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