in reply to your attitude towards the code you write

I've noticed a similar attitude in programmers who have done a lot of VisualBasic or HTML/JavaScript, especially with GUI tools and on Windows. I think it may be something about how unfathomable those tools' inner workings are -- they get people into a "keep poking at it until it seems to work" mentality, because the results don't appear to be logical. Eventually people come to distrust tools and are quick to blame all problems on bugs in the language/compiler/OS/etc.

Most of the programmers who I enjoy working with tend to think of the whole thing as a sort of elaborate game. You try to come up with a good move, and you see what happens, and if your strategy works, you win. I think of programming more like a series of victories than a series of problems.

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Re: Re: your attitude towards the code you write
by castaway (Parson) on May 08, 2004 at 07:16 UTC
    Ahem. I don't think the language, the OS, the editor, or whatever else it is people like to argue about, have a relevance here. Each language was (yes really) designed and thought out by someone or someones. It may be that you need a particular mindset to understand how some of them work, or to be able to use some. There are people who get equally frustrated using * (insert typical unix language here), and are quite happy doing VB etc.

    The only problem zone is the person doing the coding, especially if they already have that mental shield which says '* (insert OS here) is horrible, * (insert language here) is yucky' etc. Maybe some languages are unlogical/unfathomable to some people, but thats not the fault of the language.

    Having said that, yes, some people are better off with some languages, and less good with others, then they should find the one they likeare good at, and get a job in it.

    C.

    NB: Im a VB/Perl/C++/SQL/.. programmer, and find them all logical in their own ways..

[reply]
      Don't take it personally. I'm just saying that I have mostly seen this attitude in people who learned on tools that are somewhat higher level and hide more from the user. I don't have a statistically significant study of the correlation, just personal observation.

      Maybe some languages are unlogical/unfathomable to some people, but thats not the fault of the language.

      I think it's fairly clear that a language like VB -- GUI-driven, very high-level, closed source -- is harder for people to grasp the inner workings of than Perl. With Perl, you can always find someone who will help you understand how hidden things like memory allocation for a hash work, even if you aren't able to read the source yourself. That's why I say it's unfathomable: people seem to get into a "tips and tricks" mentality with it, rather than really understanding what it's doing.

[reply]
        Well I don't agree, or think it's 'fairly clear'. But everyone is entitled to their opinion.

        C.

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      I'm starting to believe otherwise. Granted, the whole job always contributes to the programmer's experience, but some languages are better suited to some personality types than others. Or at least it seems that way. Why else would intelligent software engineers prefer C++ over perl? Why would some people cling tenaciously to LISP? Paul Graham thinks it's tied to the ability to program well. I don't know.
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      If ... End If
Sub ... End Sub
Function ... End Function
While .. Wend
For ... Next
Do ... Loop

      [download]

      And you say someone designed this? Wow!

      Jenda
      Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.
         -- Rick Osborne

      Edit by castaway: Closed small tag in signature

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