-Max

I now spent at least two days to figure how I could benefit from “LINQ to SQL” in my projects.
This was funny but quite useless: I just went back to use the good old “ODBC connection strings” and manipulating the data as I do already since 10 years.
And I still don’t see a use case applicable to my current activities.

Why did I want to learn, why was I so afraid to be ignorant?
It is true that the not-yet-read books on my bookshelf are telling a lot about my curiosity.
But those IT books that I didn’t read and that I throwed away to the garbage bin, they just show how stupid I can be sometimes when I want to inflate my head without purpose.

Maybe to keep code simple, we need to protect our head from useless information.

(°)
Intuition: Its Powers and Perils
Yale University Press, 2002
David G. Myers

-Max

- IF I don’t it makes me feel unsure of my program. I don’t like that feeling, so I only write what I understand.

Did you read and completely understand the documentation of every single function you’re using?

- Read? yes. Understand? Sometimes. Occasionally I’ll see a function whose use is part of a larger mechanism that I am either unfamiliar with, or isn’t immediately apparent to be working that way.

Do you have an excellent grasp of the fundamental principles of software development–such a good grasp that you could explain them flawlessly to novice programmers at your organization?

- Depending on the preconceived notions of the novice programmer. Some can be hard to overcome and act as a sort of mental pollution.

Do you understand how each component of the computer functions, and how they all work together?

- In some cases, down the the electrical flow of certain chips.

Do you understand the history of computers, and where they’re going in the future, so that you can understand how your code will function on the computers that will be built in the future?

- Yes for the past. But as toward their future I am still uncertain, but would like to think that I am taking part in influencing them in their direction.

Do you know the history of programming languages, so that you can understand how the language you’re using evolved and why it works like it does?

- Yes, some more intimately than others.

Do you understand other programming languages, other methods of programming, and other types of computers than the one you’re using, so that you know what the actual best tool for each job is?

- I understand enough about other programming languages to decide effectively (if only through research) what tool is best for the job. I don’t feel I have to know EVERY language, but must know enough about different types/pros/cons of languages to make that decision.

The “I have to be complex to prove that I know my stuff” bit is actually something I wrote a post about, a couple years ago: http://www.codesimplicity.com/post/complexity-is-a-prison/ — I did it in such a fashion as to attempt to address those sorts of people directly, so maybe they would see another side of things.

I agree that there’s a severe educational problem about analysis and the best application of the tools. That’s actually one reason why I’m writing a book about the basic laws of software design–I think that it’s not the teachers that are necessarily at fault, but actually a total lack of a simple manual that would describe what people should actually be thinking and doing when they design software–what the fundamental laws are, and so forth.

-Max

It’s an educational problem. Programmers are taught the tools but not always the best application of those tools. That takes time and getting into some serious self criticism.

I think that a “yes” to the other four questions would make you even better than you are, though.

-Max

If you don’t have the time to study the parts of an API that you will be using…that’s like saying that you don’t have time to learn how to drive a car before you get behind the wheel of one.

-Max

-Max

it applies to all fields, though. coming from print design and production, it is RARE to see any graphic designers that haven’t worked in printing companies design something that actually prints right. so – 90% of print designers haven’t a clue either.

kind of frightening when it comes to thinking about brain surgeons and doctors like this though, isn’t it?

Civil engineers aren’t generally concerned with quantum physics, somewhere you have to draw a line. With software, that line is usually under the API’s you’re using in a given project. If the tests run and the code works, programmers move on to the next problem.

It’s inacurate to state that 90% of programmers don’t know what they’re doing. It’s more accurate to say that a small percentage of programmers don’t have a clue (like the guy who wrote the comment plugin you’re using — requires javascript) and the majority don’t have the time to fully study every single API they’ll use in their career. What’s more, programmers who do dive into the layers of abstraction upon which they depend will likely be disgusted by the ugly hacks lurking beneath the surface.

-Max

-Max

The vast majority (90% or more) of programmers have absolutely no idea what they are doing.

but,

The other 10% are not doing anything interesting.

Programming operates at the limit of human cognition. Programmers will never know what they are doing.

jjb

-Max

And yeah, it’s often a symptom of that mentality where people don’t care about the craft of the field.

I’ve seen an 80% figure for the difference between “good” programmers and “normal” programmers–that’s the one I see the most often. My experience was a lot more severe, though–not just that the 20% “weren’t quite as good”, but that they only appeared to be competent at all and were in fact largely in the dark as to what they were doing, to some degree or another.

-Max

For instruction to be credible and for kids to pay attention the teacher must be a living example of it. But this is hard to get. Therefore such classes must not deliver any “pre-packaged” advice at all, but instead focus on games, discussion and sharing experience, so that everyone can reach his individual conclusions – and think independently. This would also remove a lot of pressure from the teacher and not require him to be a relationship guru or be proficient in all kama sutra positions

This is the way forward.

That 90% figure crops up a lot. Perhaps a corollary to Sturgeon’s Law is in order.

-Max

Ah, you know, I thought about that a bit myself when I was writing the article.

But for me, “no idea what they are doing” means…

Hahahahahahahahaha!! Yeah, that’s pretty much what I had in mind, too!

I think it’s relative, though, too–after all, there’s so much about a programming system that one can have “absolutely no idea” about, that a total lack of knowledge in one area effectively means that one has absolutely no idea what one is truly doing.

-Max

You know, I think that’s pretty much true. I was actually just having a conversation about that very fact with a friend of mine who’d read this post, and the only people who could answer those questions with an unqualified “yes” would be people who believed they knew everything–the exact mistake the article warns against. However, in the domain that I work in, I can answer “yes” to most of those questions, not in the sense of “I know everything about these”, but in the sense of “I know enough about these to really get my work done well.” So it’s not a black-and-white proposition, it’s something one can know more or less about.

As far as undocumented APIs go, I totally agree with you that no matter how intelligent or committed you were, there’s no way you will ever become an excellent programmer with them. If the understanding isn’t there to be had, you can’t know what you’re doing.

And hahaha, yeah, I wrote an article a while back that used the complexity of the Win32 API as an example of why Windows was fundamentally flawed: http://www.codesimplicity.com/post/simplicity-and-security/. I’m really glad for you that you got out of that world.

-Max

And haha, I can’t imagine how different the world would be if people got some basic relationship advice in school! Of course, I wouldn’t trust schools to give out relationship advice, so that’s a double-edged sword there.

-Max

That’s definitely true, about the pride thing. I think that’s a big problem, is that some people view admitting lack of knowledge to be some sort of “blow to their pride”, when really the only way that they’ll ever gain ACTUAL skill is by admitting that they don’t know things, frequently and easily!

-Max

But for me, “no idea what they are doing” means really typing in words they’ve seen elsewhere, like names of variables, without actually realizing that the words were variables or that if you want to access a variable in a different function, you have to get the data there somehow (adding it to the parameters of the function, for example). They’re like “The word ‘color’ was used in that other function, so I’ll just use the same word in this function, and hope for the best. Oh no! To the compiler complains again! Why does it say ‘undefined symbol’? I’ve seen the same word used elsewhere, and it doesn’t throw an error there! This has to be a bug in the compiler.” Later: “I’ll just try to add some parentheses. I’ve seen parentheses used in a lot of other places!”

I’m an EE and write some programs for fun and hacky things for work. My ego isn’t involved here; I have no problem recognizing many others are much better at programming than me.

For a while, before I got sick of it, I wrote a number of applications that made extensive use of the Win32 API. I literally had about four or five linear feet of API books — Microsoft’s, various API “Bibles,” some broad, some focusing on API niches. There is so much complexity there, so many undocumented restrictions, interactions, and side effects, that I spent most of my time just doinking problematic code until I got things to work. Sometimes I could then infer an undocumented truth that would guide me in the future; sometimes it was simply a voodoo incantation that happened to work.

Yup, that sucks; yup, it was subject to failure later. But it seems like conceit on your part to imagine that through your sheer intellect and commitment to excellence that you could somehow divine your way out of this mess. And I had the luxury of working on these projects without any pressure or schedule. I can’t imagine the horror of having to figure out some of these API black holes with a boss breathing down my neck to “just get the damn thing to work!”

Years ago I gave up Win32 and switched to using wxWidgets. Programming became fun again.

In my undergraduate course (I studied electronics) a lot of colleagues were fanatic (read nerds) about the subject. But there were also a few, for them it obvious electronics wasn’t their thing. Many of them were highly intelligent, but still quite unsure about career and life direction in general.

Recently I’ve been doing career and further studies counseling to students in high school. I consistently witness teenagers who are confused what to do with their lifes after they finish school. You cannot be a happy person in life unless you’re able to read your inner compass, understand your desires and talents, and then follow up with conscious decisions. Our school system does very little for that and this task shouldn’t be left to parents either. The focus of teaching is too much on facts about the external world and too little about discovering and creating yourself, about relating to others.

I’ve got an idea to make a comprehensive survey of what adults think about during an average day and use the results to form the curriculum for high schools. So, for example, if adults spend 20% percent of the day thinking about sex (I wouldn’t be surpised if that proves a lot more , then spend 20% time in school to teach how to express yourself sexually, recipes for having a successful date, how to find a suitable parner, etc. I also wouldn’t be surprised if “what’s the square root of minus one” doesn’t appear at the top of this survey To me this is the solution to making schools relevant and seeing happier grownups in future.

(The solution where the deadline is moved, to make things right, is unfortunately sometimes very hard to sell, because the short term profits usually are seen as more important than the long term potential savings)

Could also be some kind of pride – if you need to study something, that must mean that you don’t know about it, and some people might not be willing to admit that.

But unfortunately in some cases you are right, there are some people who just don’t care, which should not be confused with the people who make a conscious decision about limiting their work on a given task in an attempt to either do less work overall or to touch more tasks.

Yeah, I think that’s true. (Rest of your comment here is also pretty intelligent and well-stated, too.)

-Max

After all it’s not that courses like Data Structures, Algorithms, and Principles of Programming Languages don’t have any use to nascent professional coders, it’s just that courses like Numerical Analysis and the ubiquitous required Math minor are largely wastes of time. There are also fundamental problems with how courses are taught in general. Students are typically prohibited from collaborating, which is the exact opposite of how real work gets done. Coding projects typically start from blank files, which again does not reflect what actual programmers do on a daily basis. I believe this is largely due to CS professors typically being career academics rather than retired professionals. I expect they would approach the issues I’ve raised by trying to offer a course in tools, to cover source control, bug tracking, and modern IDEs, whereas the right approach would be to embed these things in the fabric of the entire program. That is the main reason I proposed the radical step of eliminating the academic types entirely, to get a fresh start with a different perspective.

-Max

http://www.codesimplicity.com/post/complexity-is-a-prison/

But what I was seeing, I was seeing equally in open source as well as in commercial projects, so there was absolutely no reason (not that there ever is) to create intentionally obscure code, and my experience in reviews tells me that in fact the coders simply didn’t know what they were doing.

-Max

The professional qualification thing, though, I’m not so sure about, because if we had something like that, I’d be concerned that people would use it as a system of authority regardless of actual knowledge or skill, somewhat like some medical professions do.

-Max