| Checked your profile and you seem to be smart, yet I think you are wrong again : ) (sure you have got enough sleep lately? not been talking to much to marketers?) > "The fundamental difference here is that bikes are ridden in a way that's fundamentally unchanged for decades. Contrary to this "settled" field of knowledge, programming is constantly invalidating itself." The most well known styles of programming (imperative, functional, object oriented etc) have been unchanged for two or more decades as well. And a 10 year old c or html tutorial still works and still lets people start solving real world problems. I guess I'm leaving this discussion here. You know way to many cool expressions for me: ' >"programming is constantly invalidating itself" - this holds true for Java, C and Lisp right? Or are we talking about how for loops aren't valid anymore? > "Consider what modern linux looks like compared to the original version;" - We are talking about that "unix clone" thing from early ninetys? Has it become a Windows clone without me noticing? > "A doctor who does not constantly improve and update their knowledge will be a substantially worse doctor than one who does. A perfect example of this is pre-scientific doctors like homeopaths, who basically do nothing with an almost frightening level of dedication and fervor." - Comparing software developers to doctors. Go tell some doctors. Try car mecanic. They also have to stay up to date. > "I did not direct this at some 16 year old kid or a non-programmer, nor did I put it in a venue where non-tech people read." No, but you directed it at a new programmer who shared something that a lot of people in that situation seems to struggle with. Hey, not just new programmers, even Kent Beck has blogged about a similar situation: http://www.threeriversinstitute.org/JustShip.html |
I am not sure why you decided to include this toxic, thorny little jab in your post. Please know that it's not appreciated.
> The most well known styles of programming (imperative, functional, object oriented etc) have been unchanged for two or more decades as well.
This is not true. The state of the art in all of these has advanced considerably, and many things that were once considered good practice have been discarded over time.
> And a 10 year old c or html tutorial still works and still lets people start solving real world problems.
I'm not sure what definition of "real world problem" you're talking about. Certainly nothing I learned 10 years ago directly pertains to my work today... Not pure math; its quite rare to use C for that sort of problem anymore. Not networking problems, 10 years ago you couldn't write servers the way you can today (nor should you save for perhaps embedded systems like microcontrollers?) Not UI either. Perhaps simple text munging? Doing that in C is pure futility compared to what we have today.
As for HTML, a 10 year old HTML tutorial would give you almost no insight into modern webpages, and a very large amount of it would be "N-hancements".
> No, but you directed it at a new programmer who shared something that a lot of people in that situation seems to struggle with.
I'm not sure what your point is. Nor am I a huge fan of Beck's philosophy in this.