bad code is always the first step to good code

“Yes, there are such things as best practices in software development, and they have legitimate value, but as a beginner you are not obligated to internalize all of them at once. Just stop worrying about it! Make something you’re proud of, then improve it little by little. Learn one thing at a time and make incremental progress.

Most of all, remember that bad code is always the first step to good code. Never let any experienced programmer tell you otherwise.”

SEE ALSO:
Don’t Let Architecture Astronauts Scare You
by Joel Spolsky

ageism and creativity in programming

“I am 57 and I am a programmer, the same way Martin Scorcese is 70 and is a movie director. Or Ron Howard is 59, and Rob Reiner is 66. And that’s just film.”
– Dave Winer

GREAT POST!!!

Blogroll – Programmers on programming

Dave Winer – Scripting News
e.g. Why don’t programmers speak for programming?

http://threads2.scripting.com/2013/march/whyArentProgrammersSpeakingForProgramming

The soul of the new developer

http://threads2.scripting.com/2013/march/theSoulOfTheNewEngineer

Why you should learn to code

http://threads2.scripting.com/2013/february/whyYouShouldLearnToCode

Educating the journo-programmer

http://scripting.com/stories/2011/01/21/theJournoprogrammer.html

Joel Spolsky – Joel on Software
e.g. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchools.html

Dan Bricklin

http://www.bricklin.com/writings.htm

Paul Graham
e.g. http://www.paulgraham.com/knuth.html

Imran on Tech
e.g. Programming Knowledge versus Programming Ability

http://imranontech.com/2007/05/16/programming-knowledge-versus-programming-ability/

Patrick McKenzie -

http://www.kalzumeus.com/greatest-hits/

James Hague – http://prog21.dadgum.com/
e.g. Expertise, the Death of Fun, and What to Do About It

http://prog21.dadgum.com/169.html

Rys McCusker – doesn’t write much anymore. old stuff not visible

http://www.ythorn.com/etc.html

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See also…

http://techbyproducts.com/programming-is-not-a-glamorous-job/

http://dannorth.net/2011/01/11/programming-is-not-a-craft/

Jaron Lanier

Older
- Microserfs (a novel)
- Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents, 2001 Ellen Ullman
- Computer Power and Human Reason, 1984 Joseph Weizenbaum

Computer Power and Human Reason

Not a programmer, but…
Malcolm McCullough
Abstracting Craft: The Practiced Digital Hand, 1998

Abstracting Craft: The Practiced Digital Hand

Programming hours

Interesting thread w/ comments about the hours programmers keep. Differs by person of course. Night-owls, 9-to-5ers, etc.

Personally, I get ideas and fix problems:
- many during 9-to-5 but also
- running
- sleeping/putting kids to bed
- carpooling

Another ObPoint about leaving and coming back and “fixing the problem in 5 minutes”: It also often just works to shift gears and work on another problem. It’s not always just food/sleep/time needed. There is usually plenty of other work to be doing, so choose another problem for a bit and come back to the stuck one later.

But it’s true, like any difficult/creative work: it is quite pointless to code when tired.

Crank the tunes! I gotsta get some work done!

“Eysenck’s hypothesis that introverts have higher cortical arousal than extraverts, and therefore require less stimulation from the environment to achieve their optimum level of arousal is cited and supported by Stenberg et al (1990). They found higher levels of blood flow into the temporal lobe in introverts than extroverts.”
Will Background Music Improve Your Concentration?

So does that mean I am an “I” or an “E”? (An “outgoing introvert” I like to say…)

But keep reading: “Performance was best in the silent condition and worst in the familiar music condition”

Figures. Still, I find that music (headphones… I have 20 year old Sony MDR-V6′s going strong) helps when I am doing more routine sorts of work perhaps as a sort of consolation prize… at least I can listen to some music?

So You Want to be a Programmer

“If you want, put in four years at a college (or more at a graduate school). This will give you access to some jobs that require credentials, and it will give you a deeper understanding of the field, but if you don’t enjoy school, you can (with some dedication) get similar experience on your own or on the job. In any case, book learning alone won’t be enough. “Computer science education cannot make anybody an expert programmer any more than studying brushes and pigment can make somebody an expert painter” says Eric Raymond, author of The New Hacker’s Dictionary. One of the best programmers I ever hired had only a High School degree.”
– Peter Norvig – Director of Research at Google

See previous:
- College-degree-or-equivalent-work-experience

The miracle of garbage collection

I’m talking about for computer languages. And I guess I could include any number of miracles, that really makes using many programming languages like PHP as easy as speaking english (at least within the realm of the sorts of web application tasks I often encounter…)

- garbage collection / automatic memory allocation
- flexible typing / conversion / etc
- interpreted languages
- debuggers with stacks, stepping, breakpoints, etc.

Not having to worry about low-level hassles that these things take care of automatically makes things more fun for me. I know that there are others who love doing the above, and actually create those tools and make them better. Thank goodness for people like that. A lot smarter than I!