Here is one man’s view on how to measure a programmer’s worth.
Tag: philosophy
Most programming languages are created without any theory
The argument is made in this quote that most programming languages are created without any theory, and end up looking for it later, and rarely find it.
Here is the quote from Robin Milner:
Is there any lesson from the research field that you don’t see applied?
Robin: Most programming languages have been desgined without first thinking about the theory on which the meaning would be based. So, very often a language gets designed and implemented, and then what it means, what is supposed to happen when every program is run, is not necessarily predicted. Of course it was in some cases wonderfuly predicted, for example, in ALGOL60; the ALGOL60 report of 1960 was so accurate that one could follow it and find out what was going to happen. This isn’t always the case. Even in the good languages, the formal basis is not there before the language arrives, so what people do is later to retrofit a theory of meaning to the language, and maybe that means that the design could not take advantage of theoretical understanding.
Passion is always a win win situation
Here is a great 5 minute lecture about the nature of pursuing passion. In hindsight, it is always a win win situation.
(via Bruce)
Masterminds of Programming
Masterminds of Programming looks like it might be a fun book to read based on the few revies on LtU so far.
(via LtU)
If you want to change the world
If you want to change the world, you will need to learn how to sell. That’s just the way things are…
Midwest Songbirds
It is beautiful to hear when the songbirds return to the Midwest after winter.
What you do
We no longer care what you say.
We care a great deal about what you do.
If you charge for hand raking but use a leaf blower when the client isn’t home
If you sneak into an exercise class because you were on the wait list and it isn’t fair cause you never get a bike
If you snicker behind the boss’s back
If you don’t pay attention in meetings
If you argue with a customer instead of delighting them
If you copy work and pass it off as your own
If you shade the truth a little
If you lobby to preserve the unsustainable status quo
If you network to get, not to give
If you do as little as you can get away with
…then we already know who you are.
(via Seth)
Ease at Work
“Ease at Work” is a presentation given by Kent Beck about helping programmers to find ease at work.
My friend Roger vouched for this. I look forward to watching it.
People in Pain
Most would agree that it is probably impossible to “reason with” people who are in pain since they don’t often act in a manner that you would expect (read “normal”). The trouble, though, is that often times you can’t see their pain, and that a lot of people today seem to be in it. It is no wonder why you might have noticed that so many people seem to “act strangely” these days.
Thinking twice about performance optimizations
This is a good article that might make you think twice about making performance optimizations in your code. My take is that the author is implying that you only have so much time to work on the code so you should focus on areas where the users will actually appreciate your efforts. That makes sense.