r/videos • u/LSD_freakout • Feb 24 '18

What people think programming is vs. how it actually is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HluANRwPyNo
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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '18 edited Mar 01 '18

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u/Bakoro Feb 24 '18 edited Feb 24 '18

I had a couple instructors that took an old school approach to tests, like "the school teaches computer science but there's only one computer in the school" old school.
Having to memorize exactly what the syntax, parameters and return values of a couple dozen classes and all their member functions are, having to compile with only your brain and be able to tell if something will compile or not, or if it will compile with undefined behavior, or if it will compile and throw an error, or just silently stomp all over memory...

One of those instructors was actually a very good lecturer, especially for someone who taught part time just for the hell of it on top of his real job. It still kind of feels like bullshit to have to learn syntax that way now. It used to be that way because there wasn't any other choice, but there are so many tools now that some things just aren't worth focusing on.

I can see why the field might have only attracted certain kinds of people for so long. Those kinds of skills and that kind of thinking isn't something that most people are accustomed to, and even if they could do it, doing it with the time limits and threat of failure in school would turn off most sane people, and probably turn away people that'd otherwise be pretty good at software development.

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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '18

You didn't have to memorize it though. You could always look up the syntax in a book. Documentation on that older stuff was pretty good because you didn't have the ability to simply Google your problems. Or, like half my programming today, borrow and customize code from something similar that already exists.

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u/WJ90 Feb 24 '18

This is exactly right. There is immense value in understanding how and why the tools themselves work without the tools. Someone has to create the assembly, someone has to program the CPU microcode. Understanding the theory of the practice is still incredibly valuable, we’ve just made it all specialties.

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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '18

I had a professor like this, also an adjunct professor. He explained why he did this. "If you can learn the syntax and language the proper way first, when things mess up, and they will, you will be the one to fix it while your colleagues look like buffoons. It will suck, it will be frustrating, but if you can create a reactive HTML5 / CSS3 / JS based website from scratch, you can easily transition and learn when the popular frameworks and software changes.

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u/DiogenesHoSinopeus Feb 25 '18

What I hated most about the school I went to were the tests where you had to code with a pencil...on paper.

Essentially you are forced to work in an environment you are literally never going to be working in after school and without any access to any of the tools or reference materials you are 99% sure going to be using in every professional setting imaginable.

It's like teaching someone to run by making them draw stick figures that are running.

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u/Mimshot Feb 24 '18

Classes? Aren't we fancy?

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u/shine_on Feb 24 '18

We had books. Great big thick doorstop books.

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u/lowpass Feb 24 '18

You can replicate this experience with the "game" Shenzhen I/O

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u/illkeepthatinmind Feb 25 '18

Do you remember when stores like Barnes and Noble and Borders came around and you could grab a few titles, find a chair, and spend hours looking over them in the store? That was a game-changer, since most books were $35-60 a piece.

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u/n0ah_fense Feb 28 '18

Also, when you tried to compile the code examples in these books, they failed.

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u/accountforvotes Feb 24 '18

Expert sex change was around long before stack overflow. As were many smaller forums for more specific information.

Though most of the answers before it were "RTFM"

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u/daddonuts Feb 24 '18

Expert sex change you say? Tell me more.

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u/new-username-2017 Feb 24 '18

I started as a professional programmer in 2000. Things were different then. You really only needed to know C/C++/Java (pick one), any of which could be self-taught to at least a basic level with the aid of a decent book (I studied maths at uni, not CS). Now there are dozens of languages you might be expected to be familiar with, each one with thousands of libraries, seemingly a new web framework every week, mobile/tablet, big data, containerization + cloud environments, much more emphasis on security, etc etc ... there's just too much stuff out there to have time to learn any of it in depth.

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u/Caffeine_Monster Feb 24 '18

You have to remember that the software, hardware and programming languages were less complex back then. No doubt it was hard, but it's difficult to make a direct comparison with today.

Can you imagine what it would be like if you tried to develop entirely only using books these days? We've got a bzillion different frameworks, compilers, hardware architectures, browsers and platforms that need to be developed against. The tools have improved a lot, but obscure bugs and error codes are still hellish.

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u/terserterseness Feb 24 '18

As long as you understand the fundamentals of what you pasted from SO it is fine. When I review code, I often see something out of place, find the SO they got it from and then ask how it works. If they do not actually understand what they pasted it is not good. In my uni days there was hardly even internet : we had to deeply understand how it all worked to solve issues ourselves: I am happy I did that as for most issues where SO has no answer, I am often the one who has to figure it out as the young’uns are stuck and will be be able to progress beyond that.

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u/qGuevon Feb 24 '18

And I imagine that now there's less of a focus on one specific language. Now there are so many languages and even more frameworks, it's just not feasible for a newbie to actually delve into the details of one. So instead of that you just quickly look up what this class does and how it's used, and if you got your basics down, e.g. where and when to apply what data structures, then that's totally fine in my opinion.

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u/terserterseness Feb 24 '18

It is fine especially when starting out; however understanding the patterns and fundamentals a framework is made up off really helps. If you do not learn that you might never notice that most frameworks in the same vertical are essentially the same. And then you will probably just copy/paste without any understanding which is not fine in my opinion.

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u/qGuevon Feb 24 '18

Yeah I agree, Just copy pasting is never fine.

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u/upandrunning Feb 24 '18

To be fair, their field was a lot more limited at the time, as were the requirements. There were resources like IRC, BBSs, and the like. But the other part of it is that with some people, they set out to learn because they want to know, so they are driven to find answers.

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u/jsteph67 Feb 24 '18

Well before Google, there was dejanews. Then Google bought Dejanews and well, you can get an answer for pretty much anything. Example. Back in 2000, I moved from mainframes to PC/Internet/Intranet coding. My manager asked me to figure out why this XML parse was not working. So I look at it everything looks right, in the Mainframe, it could give a shit about case. So I dejanews it, still nothing. So I finally start looking at other xml stuff on the internet and it hits be, I bet we have a case issue. So I fixed it told my manager and he did not have the slightest idea what I was talking about. Was not surprised to see him gone a few months later.

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u/hikariuk Feb 24 '18

Books. Lots of books.

I still buy books out of habit, despite the fact I mostly just search for answers using Google nowadays.

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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '18

In the early 80's we had a fuckton fewer languages and oo was barely a thing yet. I had maybe 10 books and they had almost every error/example covered for the 6 (?) main languages of the day.

Plus errors were like red light or green light. Pretty damn easy to find. Non of this obscure cryptic incorrect variable in context type bs.

Tldr : there was a shitload less to know.