That's a curious thing to say

Post #193,225 by drewk 2/6/05 1:58:12 PM Reply	That's a curious thing to say How do you figure abstract thinking has much to do with computer programming? I'd venture a guess that 90% of the programming done today is more a trade than art or science, much less abstract theory. Maybe the people writing programming languages are doing abstract thinking, but for the great bulk of us using the programming languages, it's just using the tools to solve a problem. Granted, some use the tools better than others. Don't read this as a criticism, I'm just genuinely surprised to hear someone describe what I do so differently from how I see it. === Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link\|http://DocHope.com\|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link\|http://DocHope.com\|http://DocHope.com]
Post #193,230 by bionerd 2/6/05 2:19:15 PM Reply	Re: That's a curious thing to say No offense taken. I guess I was thinking of the people writing the programs. You guys work with things that arent tangible- you cant hold or touch it. To me, that's abstract. -"I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers." "The 2 most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity."
Post #193,232 by ChrisR 2/6/05 2:24:37 PM Reply	Probably means that we don't do actual (real) work. :-)
Post #193,239 by broomberg 2/6/05 2:47:31 PM Reply	That's sad Drook 99% of what I do is sit here and think. I think about what I'm trying to accomplish. I think about the "grunt" way of doing it. Then I think how to extract out the common cases. Then I think how to table drive. Then I think how to keep the tables out of the code. Then I think of how the end user will modify the tables. Then I think how the code will interpret the tables. I'll determine what new ways I'm about to code, as compared to any code I've done in the past, and I'll whip up small test cases to make sure it will behave the way I think it should. Then I'll think about the exceptions, and determine what I consider errors in the tables that drive the code, and any boundary conditions that I will "correct" in the code. And then finally, I'll code. And that coding time is far less than the previous steps. I agree with Bionerd.
Post #193,248 by drewk 2/6/05 3:27:59 PM Reply	I said 90% didn't I? Do you really think you are the typical programmer? By that I mean people making their living primarily writing code. Do you think what you do is really representative of most of them? === Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link\|http://DocHope.com\|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link\|http://DocHope.com\|http://DocHope.com]
Post #193,251 by ben_tilly 2/6/05 3:45:59 PM Reply	It is representative of most of the good ones I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #193,258 by drewk 2/6/05 3:59:50 PM Reply	Woudln't that depend on the job? I'm sure I've mentioned before that most of what my department does is create a new form, process the input, put the results in a database, and write reports against the data. We're just automating the paperwork. The only place performance tends to be an issue is in reporting. There, a bad query can mean the difference between two minutes to run and 2 hours to run. But even then, we "solve" the problem by installing another slave DB server and run all reports against that. It doesn't require interactive response times, and doesn't affect performance of the master DB server. We're still early on the exponential curve, but we're still able to double our reporting capacity by throwing hardware at it for less than the cost of an entry-level programmer. We could double again twice before paying for a real DBA. Given that, what is our company's justification for hiring people who are really good, and paying what they're worth? (Note the sound of heads bumping against the glass ceiling of what "we" are willing to pay for programmers.) === Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link\|http://DocHope.com\|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link\|http://DocHope.com\|http://DocHope.com]
Post #193,273 by ben_tilly 2/6/05 5:17:19 PM Reply	Not that often I'd guess that in development you wind up doing a lot of repetitive work as you literally translate forms over. I'd guess that someone good would have found ways to cut out steps so that adding more pages would go faster. Speaking of cutting out steps, good people would find ways to eliminate steps for the users, spotting more opportunities for automation. Or they might come up with useful little tools to make people's lives easier. You'd be amazed what good a creative developer can do for an organization by solving problems that they hadn't known that they had. Conversely a bad developer creates work for everyone else around. I'm sure that you've encountered the breed. And a second concern with reporting is what fields mean. Typically people wind up with these complex sets of fields, and complex reports against them, but the data in the database doesn't really mean what people think they do, and the reports aren't quite what people think they are. When people act on these reports, there is a risk that they don't think about there. And a third question. How confident are you that all of your queries actually say what you think that they say? A small mistake in a query might not just make it take 2 hours instead of 2 minutes. It might make you do an extra outer join, doubling multiplying the numbers by a random factor. Have you thought about how to detect this, and would you notice? But you're right. With how some organizations work, they make it hard for quality people to make a difference. At some point good developers have to choose to be in an environment that enables them to perform to snuff. Cheers, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #193,278 by drewk 2/6/05 5:22:07 PM Reply	Getting a little uppity there, aren't you? You'd be amazed what good a creative developer can do for an organization by solving problems that they hadn't known that they had. What do you think, you're a business analyst now? Get back to impementing the request that's been handed down to you and let the people who understand (the) business worry about what the users need. === Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link\|http://DocHope.com\|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link\|http://DocHope.com\|http://DocHope.com]
Post #193,304 by ben_tilly 2/6/05 7:03:30 PM Reply	See what I said about "some organizations" I'm lucky enough to work in one that doesn't get in my way. Here's how it works out. From time to time I need a break from what I'm doing. So I take one. In those breaks I'm likely to talk to other people. Sometimes they are doing something that I know could be done better. If I feel like it and I think that I could improve their lives in under an hour, sometimes I'll just do it. Good for morale, leaves me feeling happy, and the extra energy it leaves me generally makes up for the time spent. If I'm not feeling quite that inspired, or it is bigger, I'll tell them, "You know, it would be easier if we just had a tool to do X. It would take me about Y effort to do. I'd suggest talking to Z, tell them my estimate, and have them prioritize that project and get it in the queue." I don't do this that often, but often enough that it makes a difference. Sometimes a big one. Cheers, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #193,331 by daemon 2/6/05 10:33:49 PM Reply	tiger teams, had the fortune to work on one once given the resposability set to do A then as long as A was covered we could screw around with B,C to Z. A never got boring, a lot of pieces of the org got helped by our "submarine projects" and no one ever questioned what we were up to. Unfortunately most orgs dont recognise the value such teams ad and as soon as a merkin borg politikal CFO was merged into the company he quickly fscked the idea. regards, daemon I love her dearly, far beyond any creature I've ever known, and I can prove it, for never once in almost seventy years of married life have I taken her by the throat. Mind you, it's been a near thing once or twice. George Macdonald Frasier Clearwater highschool marching band [link\|http://www.chstornadoband.org/\|http://www.chstornadoband.org/]
Post #193,333 by admin 2/6/05 10:38:43 PM Reply	Same thing where I work. Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #193,347 by FuManChu 2/7/05 1:49:02 AM Reply	That's actually my "non-break" job I'm responsible to discover where IS/IT can make people's jobs easier before the people themselves figure it out. Not quite Management By Walking Around, but close--more Watching People Work.
Post #193,314 by Andrew Grygus 2/6/05 8:04:03 PM Reply	Programming is working with abstractions. Even simple programming. People who can't handle abstractions not only can't program, they're incapable of understanding a directory structure, and you'd be shocked how many people that is. Those who can handle abstractions just don't realize what it is they're doing because they're just doing it. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #193,315 by drewk 2/6/05 8:15:42 PM Reply	Okay, at that level I see what you mean === Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link\|http://DocHope.com\|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link\|http://DocHope.com\|http://DocHope.com]
Post #193,568 by tuberculosis 2/8/05 10:18:27 AM Reply	Excuse me Just have to do this. "How do you figure abstract thinking has much to do with computer programming?" SLAP "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
Post #193,593 by drewk 2/8/05 11:51:24 AM Reply	Since my explanation in the thread didn't clear this up ... I suspect most of the people making a living as programmers today could be described as "digital carpenters." That's not a criticism. Good carpenters deserve the high salarys they get. They produce some beautiful work that most of us could never imagine doing. But they're not usually inventing anything new. Take someone making one-off furniture. Each one is different from the rest. Some pieces can go for tens of thousands of dallars. Some are even considered art. But in the end, you can be fairly unoriginal but highly skilled with the tools of the trade and still make very good money. You (Todd) are working someplace creating new things. You are (I believe) the exception. Why is it an insult to suggest that other people with a similar job description aren't doing anything really creative or abstract? === Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link\|http://DocHope.com\|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link\|http://DocHope.com\|http://DocHope.com]
Post #193,658 by jake123 2/8/05 1:32:33 PM Reply	Because creative \\= abstract Or should I have used the "!" token to mean not instead? Wouldn't want to offend the Common Use Computer Language ghods. --\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca \n [link\|http://consultron.ca\|http://consultron.ca] [link\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] \n Kingston Ontario Canada [link\|news://news.consultron.ca\|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------

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