Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by AimHere 3216 days ago
In academia, you don't have to. Make the prototype, write the paper, present it at the conference, job done.

It's some engineer's job to do it properly in an actual production setting.

1 comments

> Make the prototype, write the paper, present it at the conference, job done.

No. One's point is to communicate one's ideas. Code is the only specification of a system detailed enough to reproduce the desired results. You wouldn't present an unfinished paper written in the equivalent of crayon so that particular attitude is the worst kind of lazy bullshit for people actually trying to make use of your hard work.

> It's some engineer's job to do it properly in an actual production setting.

Fuck this attitude so damn hard. As an academic, one _is_ the _first_ engineer who has a duty to lead one's colleagues - to mark as clearly as possible the path for those who come after. This "fuck you, got mine" attitude is unacceptable and unsustainable.

Don't worry about it, the vast majority of the code won't see light of day, there is no engineer who has to fix it for production, there is no production.

The idea is everyone writing everything the "right way" from the get-go would be premature optimization.

> The idea is everyone writing everything the "right way" from the get-go would be premature optimization.

The right way in this case doesn't mean AdapterFactoryBeanFactoryService-land. It means taking care that your code is clear, concise and correct for others skilled in the art. The fact that academic code exists at all, as an example, means that it _is_ in production. There's no excuse for shit code that isn't written for other human beings first and computers second.