rentzsch.com — "And programmers, as I quote Larry Constantine in my book, programmers are programmers because they like to code ? given a choice between learning someone else?s code and just sitting down and writing their own, they will always do the latter."Wrong. Jonathan Rentzsch decides to put us all right in this assumption.
Feb 4, 2007 View in Crawl 4
vholdFeb 4, 2007
Do these overly simplistic polar generalizations have any practical upshot one way or another? Seems like a waste of time to argue between two meaningless choices.
allholy1Feb 4, 2007
what's worse is studying code... right now I need to learn assembler for an IBM processor. It's only the 3rd week of school and it's already kicking my rear.
blackadderiiiFeb 5, 2007
Yeah, I think the reality is that studying other people's stuff at great length isn't very fun for most programmers (well, with most stuff, some is a pleasure to read about) - especially where the documentation is horribly lacking.For me, even quite arduous programming work is preferable to that.Add to that control-freakery, hubris, laziness vs. obsessiveness and all the other essential tools of the programmer/mathematician's psychological toolkit and you can recreate the bug quite reliably.
grumpyrainFeb 5, 2007
Generally speaking they do. The trigger and target analogy is pretty good. A target shooter enjoys hitting the clay. They don't enjoy just pressing the trigger. They don't enjoy the clay things spontaneously exploding. They like to see the goal achieved through their abilities to 'write code'.Sometimes, reading through code written by others is, um, how to put this, less than pleasant, especially when they don't make their intentions clear. But given the choice between using a pre-written library that does precisely what we want and rewriting our own from scratch, most would go the easy route. I could write a program that sent some data over TCP/IP, putting in my own implementation of it. But that is a large job, and there are many libraries available in virtually any language that do exactly what I want. I can then concern myself with the data I send rather than the mechanisms, error detection and cleanup that go alongside TCP/IP comms. Such a library is likely to be more mature than anything that can be done as a once off. The only time where you would consider doing it youself is if there is something not exposed to you, and the work around becomes just as much effort.Other times, it is like building a house. Before laying the bricks, you check the slab is flat. Otherwise it will cause you problems for the rest of time. It is quite difficult to retrofit a good slab.
etnuFeb 5, 2007
The only "programmers" that I've ever met who didn't like to code were the incompetent sods who were only in it for the money. They usually wind up dying as middle managers. Good programmers love writing code; it's the debugging and regression testing that we don't like, but accept as a necessary evil for delivering good product. Anyone who says that they "don't like to code" has no business being a programmer.
namgmanFeb 5, 2007
Whether a person likes to code or not, I'll argue that the current methods for coding are horribly inefficient.Programming needs to go 3D. Coding is logic and we as human beings interact with our world through all our senses. Virtually every problem can be represented and solved using a visual model. Maybe if the IDE world would get it's act together a produce something of this caliber then it would be very obvious what code does and the "need" to write your own wouldn't be so great.Imagine building a system and seeing it represented in 3D space. Imagine orbiting around, viewing your model from different angles, analyzing work flows, making sense of a system almost immediately. Imagine watching threads execute. Imagine literally seeing where memory is leaking. Imagine being able to zoom out and orbit around your system, and then if you need, zoom in to analyze operations up close, write a line of code if you desire. Imagine relaxing backdrops with environmental reactions to your interaction. The possibilities are endless.With the availability of graphical horsepower being as it is, there is so much opportunity to improve programming. It's a logical evolution that's way overdue.
kavauFeb 5, 2007
In general, yes. Programming only becomes a burden when it becomes repetitive. When I started to learn OO programming, for example, I had tons of fun writing class libraries for linked lists, complex numbers, trees, and whatnot. I did this not because I thought it was terribly useful, but because it was fun. The fun of learning!Nowadays, however, I feel my time is better spent working on more complex and challenging problems. I see the programs I write as a means to solve these problems, and not as and end.
richgcFeb 5, 2007
I agree with this because I code when I want something that does not exist exactly the way I want it, so I end up doing it myself.I hate problem solving, typing, trying to be efficient, yet logical, yet expandable, yet tidy way, and the satisfaction comes entirely from when its finished and it works in the way I planned.I long for the day when a brain interface allows you to just think your application instead :)
bshockFeb 5, 2007
I suffer from a medium case of Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder. I actually like to code. As long as I'm coding, my anxiety is at a minimum.Sorry, dude.
flibusteFeb 7, 2007
It is very true that programmers are problem solvers. But as pointed out many times already, programmers like to code. Why? Because programming is fun. Fields of study are endless, you always need to improve and you learn everyday.The article raises good points, but as the author stated, he has an outsider point of view. Developers can reason very differently.The FA misses the point on many levels. But that's OK.