Coding is when we carefully write down our solution to a problem.
(Manager pushes paper, pen and a list of problems in front of you and demands, “Now write, just write! And fast!”)
So the only anecdote you could find from your long career is one example at the start of your contracting? What the hell with all those low quality shite talking about code this, code that?
> Founder of Codemanship Ltd and code craft coach and trainer
Ooh, it’s all coming together.
E.W. Dijkstra: "Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight".
Personally, I think, much of the art of programming is to do as much as possible with as few lines of code as possible.
That’s Bill Gates’, not Dijkstra’s.
Agree, and even better solution some times: no code at all.
There’s more to it than that though. The solution using the least possible lines is often inscrutable and brittle. The art is in finding the right level of abstraction which can deliver the performance required while being sufficiently legible. Depending on the specific problem you have to weight your solution accordingly, if performance is critical you must often forfeit legibility. The art is in recognising and dealing with trade offs.
Oh, that must be fun to be hired by the client directly... I wish each my programming job was not an ivory tower :(
I think the ivory towers because managers mostly manage by how much of the plan can we ship. It is too radical to have developers take time from that to talk to customers which is a shame for the developer, customer and business.
This is one reason I always roll my eyes when people talk about how vim keyboard bindings are so great because you don't have to move your fingers from the home row. The actual action of typing text is a small part of the process of coding.
Depends on how you work I guess. I explore solutions through coding different versions of some algorithm, sure I could theorycraft as well but I am stronger by just writing code and see if it runs. I type a lot so vim motions help me a ton.
Coding is the 5 minute result for an hour of thinking.