Post #104,953
6/5/03 10:15:58 AM
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Sorry, you're misinformed.
I am always and forever, anti-talent, I refuse that someone can be automagically better then me in doing things it's either I am lazy (or generally lazy) or simply don't find that thing interesting So if you see that you are not good at something and you know yourself that you are not lazzy, it is a clear sign that you don't find that job interesting and will probably won't be good at it no matter how hard you try
because not only you are fighting the complexity of doing it, but also fighting dieing from bordom doing it. Incidentally, you need to work on your punctuation... There are plenty of motivated, average programmers. Not one of them can hold a candle to a talented programmer, even if s/he is lazy or unmotivated. Talent counts for a lot in this business. Saying it ain't so just means that you refuse to believe it ain't so, not that it ain't so. ;-) Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #104,971
6/5/03 11:27:17 AM
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"You can't coach height"
I could be the most motivated basketball player in the world, Shaquille O'Neill will still be better than me. Ever see the movie Rudy? Little guy has a dream to play football for Notre Dame. Hardest working man anyone has ever seen but, as the coach [link|http://www.moviequotes.com/repository/titles/96502.html|said]: You're 5 foot nothin', a hundred and nothin', and you haven't got a speck of athletic ability in you. There are programmers like this. They work as hard as anyone, and really want to succeed, but just don't get it. Never will. As someone mentioned, they'd make great accountants. That's not a slam, either. I'd love to have a good accountant. ===
Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
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Post #104,974
6/5/03 11:29:53 AM
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Exactly. And while we're on the subject...
Why is it that people don't get upset if you say your child is a great soccer player, or a great pianist, but if you even intimate that your child is extremely smart, they get all bent out of shape? This is where we start getting the "every child is gifted" and "talent is just hard work" memes.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #104,975
6/5/03 11:38:25 AM
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No kidding
Especially when it's so obvious that my kid is so smart.
===
Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
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Post #104,980
6/5/03 12:15:15 PM
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heck, i got one dumber than a rock but gifted
with a big heart and compassion.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
"I hit him so hard in the head his dog shat a turd in the shape of Jesus" Leonard Pine
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Post #104,981
6/5/03 12:17:19 PM
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Not the same.
"Gifted" is actually a technical term in the educational sectors.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #104,985
6/5/03 12:22:10 PM
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It is also used in the common tongue
"as gifted from god" yes I was aware of the educational tag. It is PC for the term genius. Instead of recognizing what is they like to pretend its a handicap like autism.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
"I hit him so hard in the head his dog shat a turd in the shape of Jesus" Leonard Pine
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Post #104,986
6/5/03 12:28:57 PM
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Doubt mine qualify as gifted...
...but they definitely rate high on the lazy scale. :-)
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Post #104,993
6/5/03 12:56:19 PM
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I got one of each
Son who seems to be smarter than me. With my ego, that almost hurts to say. Then again, my genes, so it's OK.
Not as bright as Scott's son, but then again, who the hell is?
Reasonably intelligent daughter. Not saying she's stupid, but she has her moments.
She PLAYS really stupid though, in order to get other people to do her homework. She knows she's not as smart as Ben, and uses it to her advantage.
What she lacks in straight intelligence she make up for in amoral animal cunning.
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Post #104,990
6/5/03 12:47:25 PM
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The problem with discussing elite programmers...
...is that most programmers tend to grade themselves as part of that super productive elite. I'd bet that if you took a survey of programmers, 90% of them would rate themselves in the echelon of that top 10%. Apparently, humility is not part of what makes programmers tick. Which is also why there's probably such a high burnout rate in the field - the amount of knowledge that must be absorbed is growing geometrically and programmers invariably have to have some sense of control of their domain and a certain belief in their invulnerability.
As I get older, I tend to look at my software not as a series of accomplishments, but rather I see the deficiencies and the holes - being my own worst critic. I also see that many times software development takes a path where the really interesting stuff in an application is done upfront (because it is after all interesting) and the stuff you keep putting off - or can't quite figure out how to get around - is sooner or later all that there is left to do on the project.
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Post #104,999
6/5/03 1:14:45 PM
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Possible
As Ben pointed out a great study a while ago, as your incompetence goes up your ability to rate yourself goes down and you will rate yourself very high. Which follows your point.
But I think when you factor in interaction with other programmers and insecurity and failure you quickly learn where you really stand, and then it is a matter of hiding or leaving or believing you will get better. Or calling in the political correctness troops.
We have a couple who belong at about 70% level. Usable production programmers, but people who can't be trusted for the entire picture. If you need to be managed, if you accept that code will always have some bugs, if you think you can blame you environment for your personal failures, you are not a "real" programmer to me.
One of them was sure he was in the "elite" when he was the 70%er in a group of idiots. I saw him as the best of the group and chose to keep him on the promise he showed. But he stayed there and got no better. The ego is still pretty high, but the cracks are showing.
You also have the portion of the 10% who are so incapable of interaction with the rest of people (90% of programmers, managers, customers, etc) that the actual base of usable programmers from a corporate perspective is far lower. We got rid of one a while ago. He was FAR better than me when going in Perl. But his actual productivity relative to what we needed sucked.
As I get older I am more and more aware of what I don't know. That grows far faster then what I do know, so my knowledge base is constantly shrinking. I'm quite aware of this.
I used to think with enough time and money I could create/code/setup anything. Now I know better. I'll never have enough time. The only way to gain time it to multiply your ability over other people. So I also need political muscle since I am merely a catalyst to a much larger group of people who need to get things done.
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Post #105,006
6/5/03 1:31:18 PM
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I think I've reached that point
I used to think with enough time and money I could create/code/setup anything. Now I know better. I'll never have enough time. The only way to gain time it to multiply your ability over other people. I'm working on my third large PHP project. The first one, I did myself before I understood classes. I had a DB abstraction layer, but it was fairly crude. The second one, the lead developer had developed the whole framework, including a pretty good DB class. The current one started out like the first project I did, but one of the developers here has since created a DB class and most of the live code has been ported to it. As we are considering another re-write of the DB class, I'm looking at PEAR. The DB layer is a solved problem. So is HTML rendering. Why are we still writing new versions of this crap? Sure, doing your own is great for the ego, and probably more fun than porting to someone else's. But it's time to start taking advantage of this whole Open Source thing like we keep preaching to everyone. ===
Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
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Post #105,007
6/5/03 1:36:48 PM
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The first thing I do now...
... is look to see if someone else has already written one.
A lot of times I find one, but it's crap. Oh well. The few times I do find one that works well, I've saved the time it would take to write my own.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #105,032
6/5/03 4:23:59 PM
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I worked with many real 10%ers
I was surprised that so many (especially the younger ones) would have a problem, a little time with google and I say this might work. Next I get the "he downloaded code off the internet and expects it to work" look. Trouble with quite a few great programmers, they feel they have to invent the wheel everytime they see something round.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
"I hit him so hard in the head his dog shat a turd in the shape of Jesus" Leonard Pine
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Post #105,029
6/5/03 4:03:56 PM
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Its situational to some extent
Put me on a C++ or Java project and I'm nearly always disgusted with my coworkers.
On the couple of Objective C projects I've done, I've been pleasantly surprised by a few coworkers that taught me things (and extra disgusted at others - how can you work in such an elegant language and still write SHIT LIKE THAT?!?).
In the Smalltalk world I'm a promising bright youngster busy soaking up as much as he can from his superiors. I know some things but I need time to visit the entire surface of the environment to become truly wizardly there.
Sadly, I mostly only make money when I'm disgusted with my coworkers...
"One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that,
lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination
of their C programs."
-- Robert Firth
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Post #104,991
6/5/03 12:49:31 PM
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Actually, lazy is better
Hmm, let's churn out a whole bunch of code to solve this particular problem.
Nahh.
I'd just have to do it again.
Hmm, let's whip up a mini-language that the production person can then use to drive the process, then I should hardly ever have to think about it again.
YES!
Lazy wins again.
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Post #104,995
6/5/03 1:02:49 PM
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That's "responsibly lazy".
And a talented, responsibly lazy programmer is the best kind.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #105,048
6/5/03 5:56:12 PM
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Wall in the Camel book:
[link|http://www.redindustries.com/web2001/tsld007.htm|http://www.redindust...b2001/tsld007.htm]
Many fears are born of stupidity and ignorance -
Which you should be feeding with rumour and generalisation.
BOfH, 2002 "Episode" 10
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Post #105,082
6/6/03 2:46:48 AM
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Re: Sorry, you're misinformed.
Entertainingly, it seems to me, from my non-programming but BOFHly viewpoint, that the better a programmer one is, the more spectacular and amusing to the IT dept your SNAFUs are :-)
Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
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Post #105,096
6/6/03 8:48:59 AM
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Undoubtedly.
Because we get the small networking things right, so you only see the massive cock-ups. ;-)
Ordinary programmers, IME, are typically content with the setup of their machines as it is handed to them. The curious ones, however, need watching out for...
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #105,100
6/6/03 8:54:08 AM
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Hmm. "curious", eh?
That's a term I haven't seen used to describe That sort of person.
Wade.
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
| |
Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
| -- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne. |
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Post #105,083
6/6/03 2:51:57 AM
6/6/03 2:52:16 AM
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Double post.
Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
Edited by pwhysall
June 6, 2003, 02:52:16 AM EDT
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Post #105,590
6/10/03 6:32:54 PM
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Talent how measured?
Talent counts for a lot in this business.
I have to disagree. One's political savvy-ness counts more in my observation. Talent in building software is hard to measure from most managers' viewpoint. They can measure how fast it takes you to build a new project from scratch, but that ignores long-term maintainability. The manager will probably be transferred or promoted by the time maintenance issues pop up. Further, somebody who might be great at writing maintainable code from scratch may be crappy at maintaining spaghetti code from others. There is an article around somewhere about the swamp-guide versus the engineer. Corporate culture tends to favor a swamp-guide mentality. In other words, somebody who can navigate messes is valued over somebody who prevents messes.
________________
oop.ismad.com
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Post #105,591
6/10/03 6:34:29 PM
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Point == missed.
I wasn't talking about success. I was talking about ability to create good software.
As far as swamp guides go, that's another discussion.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #105,623
6/10/03 10:02:50 PM
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Software development is like driving
....everybody thinks theirs is the best. Give me my favorite tools (or the time to make my own), and I can crank out maintainable[1] custom biz software faster than a raven can blink. I think most software developers will make a similar claim.
[1] At least for me. If you don't think like me, then you may not find it maintainable.
________________
oop.ismad.com
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Post #105,633
6/10/03 10:45:49 PM
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Uhhh...
[1] At least for me. If you don't think like me, then you may not find it maintainable. The key point of "maintainable" code in the corporate world is that ANYONE can maintain it, not just the original coder. If the original coder is the only one who can maintain it because she's the only one who can understand it, then the code is worthless. IMNSHO. -YendorMike
[link|http://www.hope-ride.org/|http://www.hope-ride.org/]
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Post #105,648
6/11/03 1:15:52 AM
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ANYONE is a little too strong a requirement! :)
Most anyone skilled in the language and system environment, I would buy.
The KISS principle is paramount with few exceptions.
Alex
"Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life." -- Eric Hoffer
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Post #105,649
6/11/03 1:33:26 AM
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Well, OK...
...I personally thought that was implicit, but if you need to be explicit, then I'll have to agree. ;-)
-YendorMike
[link|http://www.hope-ride.org/|http://www.hope-ride.org/]
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Post #105,726
6/11/03 2:23:03 PM
6/11/03 2:26:38 PM
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Audience
The key point of "maintainable" code in the corporate world is that ANYONE can maintain it, not just the original coder.
But there seems to be a point of abstraction/indirection that if you go beyond, then you confuse "average" developers, and sometimes developers who use different abstraction techniques. Should one leave the duplication in place?
"Easy to figure out" and "easy to change" are not necessarily the same things. Some designs are easy to figure out, but hard to change because something is replicated all over the place. Others you have to figure out some crazy framework that may be easy to change once you find the right spot, but finding the right spot may be hard, and predicting the consequences of the single change might be nearly impossible.
________________
oop.ismad.com
Edited by tablizer
June 11, 2003, 02:26:38 PM EDT
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Post #105,751
6/11/03 4:14:10 PM
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Two words...
[...] predicting the consequences of the single change might be nearly impossible. Unit. Testing. -YendorMike
[link|http://www.hope-ride.org/|http://www.hope-ride.org/]
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Post #105,754
6/11/03 4:26:47 PM
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Another Two Words.
Amen. Brother.
And *I* don't program for a living.
| [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg] - IT Grand-Master for Anti-President | | [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry/|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] |
THEY ARE WATCHING YOU. The time has come for you to take the last step. You must love THEM. It is not enough to obey THEM. You must love THEM. PEACE BEGETS WAR, SLAVERY IS FREEDOM, STRENGTH IN IGNORANCE.
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Post #105,769
6/11/03 6:07:02 PM
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Megadittos
I'm reading Fowler's "Refactoring" at present and becoming more of a believer.
Tom Sinclair
President McNeal: "And now, the man who will lead us in our proud struggle for freedom. Fresh from his bloody triumph over the Pacifists of the Ghandi Nebula: 25 star general Zap Brannigan!"
Leela: "Sigh."
Bender: "Hey look, Leela. It's that idiotic windbag you slept with."
Leela: "The Earth is under attack. Can't we just forget about that?"
Bender: "Evidently not."
- 'When Aliens Attack', Futurama
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Post #105,801
6/12/03 2:31:04 AM
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Most places i've been don't have unit tests
I suggested it at my last major gig because things were growing too complicted, but nobody seemed interested.
________________
oop.ismad.com
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Post #105,811
6/12/03 8:26:44 AM
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The point being...
YOU should always use them. Anything you do, should use them. They are easy to integrate into your coding, regardless of what others use as a practice.
| [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg] - IT Grand-Master for Anti-President | | [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry/|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] |
THEY ARE WATCHING YOU. The time has come for you to take the last step. You must love THEM. It is not enough to obey THEM. You must love THEM. PEACE BEGETS WAR, SLAVERY IS FREEDOM, STRENGTH IN IGNORANCE.
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Post #105,857
6/12/03 3:24:24 PM
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OT - new LRPDism? (new thread)
Created as new thread #105856 titled [link|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=105856|OT - new LRPDism?]
[link|mailto:MyUserId@MyISP.CountryCode|Christian R. Conrad]
(I live in Finland, and my e-mail in-box is at the Saunalahti company.)
Your lies are of Microsoftian Scale and boring to boot. Your 'depression' may be the closest you ever come to recognizing truth: you have no 'inferiority complex', you are inferior - and something inside you recognizes this. - [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=71575|Ashton Brown]
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Post #105,861
6/12/03 3:30:57 PM
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regarding unit testing
I have yet to find an easy solution to unit testing web apps, especially with function-poor languages like ColdFusion. Plus, you often need access to a testing database, and the DBA does not allow such in some places. I tried to install a local copy of Oracle, but it did not work.
If I pushed it, I could have probably done such with a Python script or something, but it seemed like a lot more work than just being really careful and/or letting the customer find it (eeeek!). Plus, the requirements were still changing.
________________
oop.ismad.com
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Post #105,863
6/12/03 3:35:56 PM
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Re: regarding unit testing
[link|http://httpunit.sourceforge.net/|http://httpunit.sourceforge.net/]
Capable of testing javascript as well.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #105,772
6/11/03 6:18:08 PM
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Don' you be talkin' about 'abstraction'...
Them thar's OO words!
jb4
"We continue to live in a world where all our know-how is locked into binary files in an unknown format. If our documents are our corporate memory, Microsoft still has us all condemned to Alzheimer's."
Simon Phipps, SUN Microsystems
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Post #105,802
6/12/03 2:32:03 AM
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Bull. Relational is more abstract than OO
OO has no "math". It is just a big messy sea of classes all connected in a "navigational structure" (graph of nodes/records).
________________
oop.ismad.com
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Post #105,887
6/12/03 6:09:32 PM
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And tables are nothing but...
...a big messy sea of fields all connected in a "navigational structure" (graph of tables/records).
Hmmmm...
jb4
"We continue to live in a world where all our know-how is locked into binary files in an unknown format. If our documents are our corporate memory, Microsoft still has us all condemned to Alzheimer's."
Simon Phipps, SUN Microsystems
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Post #105,937
6/13/03 2:06:01 AM
6/13/03 2:08:29 AM
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Relational does not dictate underlying implementation
whether the "guts" use navigational structures or not is immaterial. Everything is 1's and 0's in the end, but we hide that fact most of the time. Navigational structures perhaps are the assembly language or machine language of databases.
________________
oop.ismad.com
Edited by tablizer
June 13, 2003, 02:08:29 AM EDT
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Post #106,254
6/16/03 4:28:23 PM
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Bryce, what ARE you talking about
Underlying any relational database is a table structure, with links between key fields in the tables. The ability to "relate" between tables is indeed a navigational structure. It's inherent, you get ift for free, and how it's done doesn't matter, so long as it works.
I don't know how you can say that a relational DB doesn't use a navigational structure with a straight face, unless you're trolling (in which case, I wouldn't expect a straight face).
jb4
"We continue to live in a world where all our know-how is locked into binary files in an unknown format. If our documents are our corporate memory, Microsoft still has us all condemned to Alzheimer's."
Simon Phipps, SUN Microsystems
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Post #106,298
6/17/03 2:25:34 AM
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You misunderstood me
Underlying any relational database is a table structure, with links between key fields in the tables.
Not necessarily. They are only links when you want them to be. For example, a join expression can be anything you want it to be:
select * from cities1, cities2 where cities1.name like
cities2.title || '%'
matches similarly-named cities.
This is a purely "calculated" join. There is no pre-set links. RDBMS may put commonly used links in some kind of index-like thing to speed them up, but that is an optimization detail that is hidden from the query builder. In relational, you ask WHAT you want, not HOW to get it. (This is in some ways similar to Prolog I hear.) With nav's, you generally have to tell it how to get stuff, which "path" to take.
I don't know how you can say that a relational DB doesn't use a navigational structure with a straight face
I did NOT say they didn't. My point is that it is an implementation detail that is hidden. Languages like Python or Pascal may use bytecodes or machine code underneath to carry out commands, but the language user does not have to really care. The relationship between relational and nav structures is similar. Navigational is the proverbial bytecode of structure manipulation.
________________
oop.ismad.com
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Post #106,300
6/17/03 3:27:56 AM
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And *why* do you think that happens all the time...? (new thread)
Created as new thread #106299 titled [link|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=106299|And *why* do you think that happens all the time...?]
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Post #105,635
6/10/03 10:52:37 PM
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Most software developers are wrong...
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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