Re: F-22 ADA Programming

[Bill White <billjwhite@notan.org>]

On 2014-10-28, Adam Beneschan <adambeneschan@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday, October 28, 2014 4:58:56 AM UTC-7, Bill White wrote:
>
>> >>> Anyway, I think Bob is right that it shouldn't make a difference--a
>> >>> competent programmer should be able to switch to a new language (or
>> >>> OS or platform or toolset) fairly easily.
>> 
>> That's ok for people with no purpose other than to make money. Good
>> programmers, the ones you want working for you and with you, usually love
>> and hate languages for good reasons.

I had to reformat your post to get aioe to accept it. You're posting from
google, right? How about formatting the text for usenet rather than web?
Sane line lengths would help.

>
> Beg to differ--**strongly**.  I think I'm a good programmer.  And while every
> language has its annoyances and some are more annoying than others, the
> things I love about programming--the problem-solving and creative aspects
> , among other things--don't have to do with one or another particular language.
>  (I recently completed a personal project, no money involved, in my
> least-favorite language, PHP, and still enjoyed working on it despite all the
> things I don't like about that language.  I chose PHP because I knew it would
> work on that particular platform and I didn't know what else would work.)
>

I don't know you and I have no intention of offending you and I'm not sure
why you should care what I think. Actually I don't see where you are replying
to any particular point I made but perhaps extrapolating unnecessarily and
tangentially.

Likely we have a different view of what being a good programmer means. Your
comments about a recent project are exactly what I'm talking about. There is
a very big difference between people for whom programming is just one of
many tools to get a job done and people for whom programming itself is
what's important. The former utilitarians are not much concerned with
finding the best language or system becauses they are practical and more
results oriented. The latter craftsmen focus on tools because the
programming is what they value and the results are not the essence although 
good results are a natural result of doing things correctly with a refusal
to cut corners or take shortcuts for the sake of booting something out the
door. This divide is found in most things, not just programming and it's
ok. I don't want any of the practical types around because I'm not
interested in those kinds of compromises. Mostly in all my life I've been
able to avoid those situations. The one time I couldn't I quit rather than
do things contrary to the way they should be done.

I have to love my tools. I'm the same way with mechanical work. I won't use
lousy tools under any circumstances. To me the way the work is done is more
important than other considerations. In my experience it turns out doing
things correctly using the best tools possible always produces the best
result so it's hard to say where this doesn't work. And I don't find it's
more expensive, just the opposite. Sanitary design and coding is far cheaper
in the long run. It's the classic measure twice cut once. Could you get
"acceptable" results with substandard tools? It happens every day. But I
don't work in that world.

I don't have a utilitarian bone in my body. I'll happily go without
something I can't implement the way it should be done although in my work
this doesn't happen. For my own projects I don't use second-rate tools or
languages _even_ if it means not having this or that feature.

> I would hope that programmers who love the art of programming more than they love working in a particular language are the majority, not the minority.
> Please do not denigrate us as having "no purpose other than to make money."  Thank you.

I don't see any conflict between what I wrote and what you wrote. If
anything what you wrote seems to be in agreement with what I wrote. I said
and you quoted further on 

"or they are more focused on business or how many apps they have worked on
or other issues and coding is just a way to accomplish that."

Did I misunderstand you or are you violently agreeing with me?

>> Many people 
>> like to kid themselves and point out how they can learn new languages and 
>> technologies all the time and they happily bounce from job to job coding web 
>> or iPhone apps. 
>
>> But those people are either lying to themselves in that they don't really 
>> ever learn anything and become cut and paste junkies or they are more 
>> focused on business or how many apps they have worked on or other issues and 
>> coding is just a way to accomplish that.

Perhaps I should have broken that up into a few statements. There is a value
judgement there but that's the whole point of this thread.

> I believe you are way, way off base here, although I'm sure there are some such programmers who are kidding themselves.

I don't know how you can possibly say that. In my experience 90% or more
of the programmers and coders I have come across either by working with them
or having to work on their code are not qualified to work in the business at
all. Most people employed to write code are incapable of writing a complete
program without cutting and pasting, and certainly not an entire system from
scratch in any language on any platform. But that level of incompetence is
probably not limited to programming. If you take a hard look it appears that
most of the people in most jobs don't do them very well.

Bill