[–] svat 6mo ago ↗ What does Knuth mean by> I particularly like his definitinon of a bad programmer. (My personal record is about 12 years.)here? [–] syncsynchalt 5mo ago ↗ The note is actually from Chuck Baker, the editor of that issue of Datamation.You're not alone in assuming DEK wrote the note, a lot of people seem to attribute it to Knuth.
[–] syncsynchalt 5mo ago ↗ The note is actually from Chuck Baker, the editor of that issue of Datamation.You're not alone in assuming DEK wrote the note, a lot of people seem to attribute it to Knuth.
[–] aaronblohowiak 5mo ago ↗ If you liked this, you may like my favorite paper https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/Naur.pdf
[–] dang 5mo ago ↗ One past discussion:What a Programmer Does (1967) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12568863 - Sept 2016 (45 comments)(Reposts are fine after a year or so; links to past threads are just to satisfy extra-curious readers)
[–] devhouse 5mo ago ↗ Will it now instead of “write code for humans”, become “write Prompts for humans” with AI?
[–] whntheduvscry 5mo ago ↗ > The terminal trauma of a program occurs when it is challenged by entropy beyond its capacity to adjust.This seems true.In my experience, these things that happened to kill programs could be considered entropy:- New (e.g. hardware / software / code / people / focus)- Money (e.g. actual or perceived infusion of it / actual or perceived lack of it / focus changed)- Loss (e.g. someone or something left / was injured / died / was destroyed / was deleted / was corrupted)And I think that if you have a system that contains risk due to entropy, then even a planned event resulting in success is entropic, e.g.:- I plan a sunset for X software.- There is risk of an asteroid or sudden epidemic that would thwart that plan.- The “dice are rolled”, and the sunset happens because the asteroid and epidemic didn’t happen.- Therefore, the planned sunset occurred due to less than 100% chance. This is still entropic.
[–] A_Duck 5mo ago ↗ The 'Aerospace Corporation' job ad!"These are excellent opportunities for men ... An equal opportunity employer"
7 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 27.3 ms ] thread> I particularly like his definitinon of a bad programmer. (My personal record is about 12 years.)
here?
You're not alone in assuming DEK wrote the note, a lot of people seem to attribute it to Knuth.
What a Programmer Does (1967) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12568863 - Sept 2016 (45 comments)
(Reposts are fine after a year or so; links to past threads are just to satisfy extra-curious readers)
This seems true.
In my experience, these things that happened to kill programs could be considered entropy:
- New (e.g. hardware / software / code / people / focus)
- Money (e.g. actual or perceived infusion of it / actual or perceived lack of it / focus changed)
- Loss (e.g. someone or something left / was injured / died / was destroyed / was deleted / was corrupted)
And I think that if you have a system that contains risk due to entropy, then even a planned event resulting in success is entropic, e.g.:
- I plan a sunset for X software.
- There is risk of an asteroid or sudden epidemic that would thwart that plan.
- The “dice are rolled”, and the sunset happens because the asteroid and epidemic didn’t happen.
- Therefore, the planned sunset occurred due to less than 100% chance. This is still entropic.
"These are excellent opportunities for men ... An equal opportunity employer"