I've always been curious as to what "normal" people think programming is like. The wildest theory I've heard is "typing ones and zeroes" (I'm a software engineer)
I've always been curious as to what "normal" people think programming is like. The wildest theory I've heard is "typing ones and zeroes" (I'm a software engineer)
When I was an associate level all I did was grind out tickets and write code. Now I run from meeting to meeting as a senior.
That's no fucking joke. Please just send me an email about this meeting because it's not really worthwhile and I just want to crank out code.
As a principal, I default ignore all meetings thatβs more then 2 people, review other peopleβs terrible code, then refactor large swaths of the code base when I get bored.
It involves a lot of tall girls in thigh high socks, sometimes they wear cat ears too. And they do a lot of typing on extra clackity keyboards.
Don't be a bigot. Tall girls are awesome.
*(Also in case you weren't being a bigot and were instead referring to what it's really like to work in tech: I do know industry isn't entierly cat girls in coding socks but most of the computers for career people I've known have been, so I choose to believe.)
That sounds ridiculous. It 2024, I'm pretty sure programmers just use voice input and say the ones and zeros instead of sitting there and doing all that typing. Still not sure why they have to wear black hoodies though.
Yes, and under the hoodies there are t-shirts that were given out at conferences. That or memes. Strict.
You young'uns don't know how good you have it! In my day we had to chisel the ones and zeros by hand!
I, too, thought it was interesting they considered programming as the IT industry. I mean, sure, you may use scripts once and a while, but that's very different from a software developer, or someone else who works with/writes code for a living.
There's a decent number actually, going by Lemmy.ca census results (which will be posted as soon as we can).
The largest group is programmer/IT, but there's lots of variety nonetheless
This one is the closest, IMO!
Is it common knowledge that programmers write code in different "languages" (e.g. Java and C++)?
My god, that's terrible. Programmers from different countries must never understand each other. Someone should create a single programming language to rule them all ! something easy to understand, ideally -that everyone could read and write easily. Something like EspΓ©ranto, but with 1s and 0s
Reads code, spends too much time figuring out what it does and why the compiler is complaining about it, find out who wrote it, open drawer of voodoo dolls, rummage through them and pull out the relevant doll and stick another pin into it. A faint scream echoes through the cubicle farm. Place voodoo doll back in the drawer, close drawer, leave for lunch
Type some algebraic equations into a text file.
Run it through something called a "compiler"
Suddenly everyone knows what the fucking weather is.
Itβs like building the NY subway systemβyouβre constantly adding on new bypasses and trying to maintenance old tunnels in order to account for new features/population. It ultimately ends up working most of the time and the daily commuters get to move from Point A to Point B with minimal interruption, but if you viewed the subway as a whole itβs a cobbled mess with lots of redundancy. Some of the architects who are currently around donβt even know where the oldest tunnels go, or why theyβre there.
Wanted to give a take on it that didnβt focus on the obvious βlanguageβ aspect. I could be 100% wrong on thisβIβm sort of basing it off of comments Iβve seen here or there. I know very few folks who work in tech and I work in healthcare.
Honestly that's more like network engineering than programming, but you're surprisingly accurate.
I think its like trying to get a toddler to accomplish a task and it keeps technically doing what you said but in an annoying and counterproductive way you didnt even think of yet and you have to just become insanely specific about what you want the toddler to do and when and in what order with what timing
That's actually really accurate when first learning to program. Eventually you figure out how to think like a toddler.
But then you gotta deal with the teenagers.
You tell them exactly what to do, and they do most of the time, but they can twist words and meanings to come up and do something entirely different when it suits their needs.
Well idk about all programming, but I imagine hackers go through at least one keyboard a month and suffer serious finger strain injuries from typing so fast and furious.
I'm a hacker. You don't even want to know what my monthly budget for balaclavas and fingerless gloves is.
Why don't u just have a script to play a recording of you saying "I'm in". Randomly smash keys smarter, not harder.
that wouldnt work for my setup. see, i dont use an operating system; i write from scratch each time i boot up my computer. persistent storage is bloat.
If you're into custom mechanical keyboards it certainly feels like some of us are acquiring new keyboards every month even if we're not wearing em out...
Swinging between feeling like you're a computer god, and then feeling like you're horrible at your job.
Given that I stole this from a programming community, it shouldn't be too far off from true.
(Caveat lector: I'm not in the IT industry but I'm often messing with bash scripts and decompiled python code.)
I meant "decrypted", not "decompiled". (When I wrote the above I was sleep-deprived.)
I mostly pick visual novels apart, to know how to reach one or another specific route. From that I'm somewhat used to read Python code - or at least Ren'Py code.
Playing with imaginary Legos to put together a rickety tower.
Edit: though on reflection, a systems approach to nursing the acutely ill is exactly the same but we're maintaining "God's" legacy code while we try to keep someone with kidney, heart, and lung problems functioning with judicious application of fluid management, drugs, and dialysis.
Maybe what we do is closer to Jenga.
ive written a lot of code for clinicians, i have been afforded the benefit of witnessing that chaos
i have it far easier
But things get weird when the lego shapes have different sizes and you need to craft adapting pieces?
A laughably small team is expected to do tasks that take triple the team size to do properly, and then the team gets endlessly shit on for Facebook looking different now for unrelated reasons while getting zero recognition for somehow finding a way to get some massive project done on an absurd timeline with no additional resources.
I have been in power plants for many years now. Nobody notices us until we fuck up, and then nobody ever forgets. For example, Three Mile Island.
A laughably small team is expected to do tasks that take triple the team size to do properly, and then the team gets endlessly shit on for Facebook looking different now for unrelated reasons while getting zero recognition for somehow finding a way to get some massive project done on an absurd timeline with no additional resources.
You already have the latter 5 year portion of what you learn in your first 10 years as a computer scientist
Now you just need the first 5 years of education
I would imagine it is as follows:
Come up with ideas or goal to accomplish /be given said goal
spend large amount of time looking at existing code or prior implementation of your stated goal.
attempt to write or import some code tailored to your specific needs
test and identify problem areas
find everything fails spectacularly and start over +/- tears.
repeat until successful or dead
I assume itβs looking for that one space that should be a semi-colon in a sea of garbled letters.
Imagine a poorly lit room. The smell of coffee permeates every inch while the Baba is You soundtrack is played on repeat. Five to fifty monkeys sit in desks and attempt to bind whatever devils are necessary to invoke the magic their leader demands. sixty three percent of their effort is actually just browsing social media and posting memes in niche online communities, but they still manage to get stuff done.
Judging by the amount of their nonsense posted on Lemmy, I imagine programmers sitting around all day creating memes about how hard their job is.
Seriously, this is the most Lemmy-ish post I have ever seen. "I see there are people not in programming discussing non-programming topics...what question can I ask to steer the question back to programming?"
Judging by the amount of their nonsense posted on Lemmy, I imagine programmers sitting around all day creating memes about how hard their job is.
Programmers are just like the rest of us!