Rules of a Zen programmer
grobmeier.de
grobmeier.de
Keeping a journal about when I complain taught me someone very important about myself that has also helped me cope and not get overwhelmed. The times that I complained, I discovered, tended to be when I hadn’t had enough sleep or food. I’ve structured my life around making sure that I get plenty of sleep, and that I eat regularly.
Training myself not to complain has really helped me not get overwhelmed and reduced my stress quite a bit.
As consolation to myself, I use a paracord bracelet that could be disassembled into survival equipment of a thousand uses if needed.
Abandoning appreciation for "programming skill" has helped me be much happier and more efficient in just getting things done.
If you want to start a blog/website about this topic, let me know and I'll hand them over for the greater good.
That said, the phrase "as good as you can" occurred five times and was quite distracting. It should be "as well as you can" to be "grammatically" correct. (I'm generally a 'descriptivist' rather than a 'prescriptivist', meaning if a native English speaker says it, then it's okay, but it looks like this author is not one, so I figured I should point it out.)
Great article, though.
Also, props on how strong and well written the English is in general!
And, most importantly, loved the article. :)
(I thought this whole thread was a good example of how to actually do good feedback. )
What about things like leet speak, and other Facebook-like lingo?
I'm pretty sure descriptivism involves some number of people sharing an agreed meaning, not that all speech by all native speakers is OK.
I'm not sure what you mean here. Descriptivism is a paradigm of linguistics in which language is analyzed as it is used within a given population and point in time, rather than analyzing it according to a strict and timeless set of rules (a.k.a. prescriptivism). Rather than defining a given usage as right or wrong, it seeks to classify the usage according to what populations and registers it's used in.
That's not to say descriptivism has nothing to say on what language one ought or ought not use, just that the recommendations will be dependent on who your audience is and what setting. Like: using "y'all" in Texas wouldn't raise any eyebrows, but in Wales it certainly would. And using "hoosflaw" to mean "pickles" wouldn't work anywhere.
In the U.S., I'd wager that adverbial 'good' is used quite a bit informal contexts like conversation, texts, or Facebook posts. So it's up the author (native or not) what sort of feeling they want to evoke while delivering their message. Homey and conversational? Authoritative and experienced? Silly and offbeat?
That said, if you're not confident in your command of the language you're using, formal is probably best, since A) it's probably mostly what you've been taught, and B) it'll be comprehensible and acceptable to everyone.
I suppose I was playing a bit fast and loose with those terms, though, and shouldn't have. So, thanks.
I just wonder why?
There are lots of things we could all disagree about while we agree on other points.
so you hit nail on the head.... and when it comes to nuclear facilities, no small amount of amrchair stats are enough to make truly informed risk/reward calculation, and given the risk part generally includes components involving death and destruction on a fairly large scale, shot and long term, and given we all put our own values on human life and all that, for some no amount of losses are acceptable. Im not agreeing or disagreeing either - thenerd side of me feels then same way - "smart people should be able to se this is our best option" - the zen side of me says there is ia much bigger picture at stake, one i am not currently involved in , and its also not a decision i am personally faced with right now, so im sort of wasting my time even writing this post, right?
Zen version: is any discussion here going to have an impact on large scale nuclear policy at this point in time, one way or the other? If not, it is a pontless avenue of discussion, we can all go focus on something more important to us individually, whatever that is. right?
Doing a good job on today's tasks is very important, that's true. You don't want to live in the future and neglect the present.
But unlike chopping wood and carrying water, in this industry the work is always changing. If you don't maintain a healthy sense of progress toward a future, you're likely to miss opportunities for jobs that would be lots of fun and teach you a lot. In the worst case, your skills will go stale and you'll get sidelined.
Also, I think having clear career goals makes it easier, not harder, to leave a situation that is not appropriate for you. If it's not serving your goals, find something that will.
Programming is a joy when I can just let the task take care of itself as I watch. I can do this in amateur or "hacker" settings but I see less and less of those these days.
It makes me unhappy when programming is a prop or setting for selfish and self-conscious and mean social behavior, as it seem to be more among people who take it as a profession more than a passion.
That impulse is even in our language. We say someone "jacked off in" or "took a dump in" the code base when he did something "clever" but unskillful and damaging. It's an epithet of self-indulgence and even sabotage when a more appropriate reaction is, "I wish he hadn't done that, so let's sit down and teach him better practices".
It served us well when we had to stop people from poking sleeping mammoths and smilodons with sticks, but it's outdated now (for the most part). Code indentation is not an existential issue for most software companies.
Don't get me wrong: I dislike spaghetti legacy code as much as anyone else. I mean, it's truly horrible to look at. And one only need review my history to see what I think of the Java and C++ languages. I just think reacting emotionally is a bit unskillful. (I can't use a stronger word than "unskillful" because I do it myself.) I think we'd be a lot more productive (and this is largely a self-criticism) if we could take stock of our mental processes and turn "code rage" off.
Relatedly, I think we'd be better off as an industry if there were more women in it, but that's another discussion entirely.
I have never heard those expressions. It would be discouraged and frowned upon at my place of work.
I'm not going to sit here and say that there is no such thing as a bad developer that is beyond help. I do think in some cases though it is a matter of people not doing their due diligence in helping people out. I can't help but think that part of it is that we developers spend a lot of time on the internet where the base mentality is that everyone is either a n00b or a pro. Either I agree with what you said or you are clearly a moron. It is important to not let that kind of stuff trickle into our 'real' lives.
That experience tested me. But if you have someone who's very junior, he's going to make the same kinds of infuriating mistakes, but not out of malevolence or a negative attitude-- just being new to the whole process. We were all there once.
I have noticed a tendency of rage hinges around communication. If I can't understand wtf some code-monkey from 5 years ago was trying to do, I of course 'rage and re-write'. But as I get older it seems this isn't always the right thing to do .. to be honest, I find myself having respect for code I don't understand at all, more or less, because the author was an idiot. Respect for the borked!