Chrome on Windows 8 is a trainwreck
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@boomzilla said:
@dhromed said:
Dumbed down user interfaces can often take more effort than flexible ones. The stencil makes it difficult to draw the wrong shape, but also makes it difficult to draw arbitrary shapes. In the same way, the restrictive UI prevents you from making common mistakes, but seriously impedes trying to set up any configuration other than the (relatively) small subset of use-cases the application designer planned for.@boomzilla said:
But that doesn't mean the pen isn't more flexible and capable of doing lots of things that the stencil, with its dumbed down interface make very difficult to do.
Interesting analogy. But the stencil isn't dumbed down. It requires more effort to use.Firstly, it doesn't necessarily take more effort. If you could see my freehand penmanship, you'd understand. But even if it does take more effort, that doesn't mean it isn't dumbed down. By which I mean that the options available to the user have been reduced and those options are staring him right in the face (discoverability!). The stencil is great for some things (maybe making a sign). You can more easily get consistent results, and it could even be faster. But only if you don't have to do something that wasn't already thought about by the designer.
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@dhromed said:
I'm starting to think that people are conflating "the skill to do a thing" with "the skill to use the tool to do a thing".
For all the talk about how "smart" software developers are, they have a lot of trouble with things like this. Remember our long discussion resulting from nobody in this forum understanding what the word "ideal" meant? Remember that time people were bitching that I "didn't know what I was doing" when I was installing MongoDB, because they conflated "installing MongoDB" with "knowing how to use package management tools on the Linux CLI"?
People just don't get it.
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@dhromed said:
@boomzilla said:
Even so, it takes more work and attention for some than others to achieve the same results. What do you want to call this difference?
The difference is the time spent obtaining the skill, you nut.
You honestly think my drawings were any different from the other kids' when I was 4? Of course not. But others stopped, and I continued.
OK, you continued to draw and thus developed the skill but the point that boomzilla was attempting to make is that the amount of time that someone spends developing a skill versus the resultant level of skill varies. For example when I played the trumpet I spent many hours practicing to develop a level of skill at it, but there are people who were more skilled than I was that had spent less time working on the skill and those that had spent more time learning the skill but had less mastery of it than I. This could be due to differences in how these different people practiced to get a skill or it could be due to different levels of ability inherent in the person.
What people are calling talent is related to what they think of as inherent ability vs what you seem to think of style of practice. I think the differences is somewhere in the middle of style of practice at something vs inherent ability, but whatever I'm just tired of seeing you talk past eachother.
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@boomzilla said:
So we're all the same? Some of us just work harder and longer?
What exactly do you think "talent" means? It's not magical innate ability. Nobody is capable of anything when they're born, but they can grow to like a thing or an activity and focus time and effort on it, and thus they become better at it the longer they do it.
I don't understand how this is an alien concept to you. Surely you have done things at times?
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@locallunatic said:
For example when I played the trumpet I spent many hours practicing to develop a level of skill at it, but there are people who were more skilled than I was that had spent less time working on the skill and those that had spent more time learning the skill but had less mastery of it than I.
Paying attention to what you do and how much fun you're having doing it plays a huge role in how quickly you pick it up, absolutely. All things being equal, if someone practices twice as much as you, they're going to become better way faster than you.
I was doodling idly for a very long time, and a few years ago I got into the art community, got inspired and started devoting far more time to my art. My skills shot up so fast, it was weird.
Then shit happened and I stopped so obviously I haven't improved since then!
@locallunatic said:
I think the differences is somewhere in the middle
I don't. I've done it. You've done it. I'm surprised that you still chalk your skills up to talent.
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@blakeyrat said:
Remember that time people were bitching that I "didn't know what I was doing" when I was installing MongoDB, because they conflated "installing MongoDB" with "knowing how to use package management tools on the Linux CLI"?
Which was a great example of how even if you build usable tools, some people will refuse to understand and use them. TRWTF wasn't not understanding the package management tools after getting thrown into a project, but refusing to learn anything after the fact.
For kicks, I googled "mongodb install instructions," and got an online manual that has links (Install on Linux, then on to Install on Ubuntu) that tell you how to hook up their private repository, because it's probably more up to date than what comes with Ubuntu. I don't recall what it said at the time of the original thread.
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@boomzilla said:
mongodb sounds racist
Mongool is a Dutch slur for people with Down syndrome. It comes from the similarities with east-asian eye shapes.
Just letting everybody know.
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@dhromed said:
@locallunatic said:
For example when I played the trumpet I spent many hours practicing to develop a level of skill at it, but there are people who were more skilled than I was that had spent less time working on the skill and those that had spent more time learning the skill but had less mastery of it than I.
Paying attention to what you do and how much fun you're having doing it plays a huge role in how quickly you pick it up.
Exactly.
@dhromed said:
@locallunatic said:
I think the differences is somewhere in the middle
I don't. I've done it. You've done it. I'm surprised that you still chalk your skills up to talent.
More that due to certain talents I've had more fun (and thus spent more time) learning the skill. It's more of an encouragement factor for putting in time and paying attention to what you are doing. The fact that different people have more interest in putting in the practice in different skills isn't really something I see as surprising. Anything I have put in the time on anyone else can pick up if they put it in practice at it, but if they don't enjoy doing so then they probably won't.
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@dhromed said:
@boomzilla said:
So we're all the same? Some of us just work harder and longer?
What exactly do you think "talent" means? It's not magical innate ability. Nobody is capable of anything when they're born, but they can grow to like a thing or an activity and focus time and effort on it, and thus they become better at it the longer they do it.
I don't understand how this is an alien concept to you. Surely you have done things at times?
It's not an alien concept to me, but it isn't the only thing at work here. Maybe one person perceives things differently. Color blindness or tone deafness or absolute / perfect pitch are somewhat extreme examples. So are child prodigies. There are huge variations in physical coordination or flexibility. Lots of variations in mental capabilities.
Is there anyone who seriously thinks that it's always nurture and never nature?
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@dhromed said:
@boomzilla said:
mongodb sounds racist
Mongool is a Dutch slur for people with Down syndrome. It comes from the similarities with east-asian eye shapes.
Just letting everybody know.
In English it's mongoloid.
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@locallunatic said:
Anything I have put in the time on anyone else can pick up if they put it in practice at it, but if they don't enjoy doing so then they probably won't.
Yep.
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@boomzilla said:
Is there anyone who seriously thinks that it's always nurture and never nature?
My take is: assume nurture, unless you can demonstrate nature.
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@dhromed said:
@boomzilla said:
So we're all the same? Some of us just work harder and longer?
What exactly do you think "talent" means? It's not magical innate ability. Nobody is capable of anything when they're born, but they can grow to like a thing or an activity and focus time and effort on it, and thus they become better at it the longer they do it.
Bullshit. Some people really are innately better at some things than others. Yes, you can't just rely on that innate talent to become successful. But it helps. It helps a lot. A seven foot basketball player can be lazy and not practice and end up being shit. Or one who is 5 feet five inches can practice 8 hours a day every day and end up making the NBA. But the seven foot guy is STILL seven feet tall, and the 5 footer is still only five feet. Their height is their "talent." In the same way, someone who is good at math can refuse to study and get shit grades, or someone who has difficulty with mathematical concepts can study really hard and eventually grok it. Someone can be more talented at something and squander it, or less talented and compensate through diligence, but that doesn't make the original talent mythical.
@blakeyrat said:
If people don't want to write software, fine. Good for them. But if they do want to write software, the barrier-to-entry should be as small as possible-- and, ideally, there should be none at all.
Hell no. The barrier-to-entry should be right where it is: "can you understand and manipulate the tools needed to write good code." If anything, I'd argue for better professional standards and accreditation so we have less shit code floating around from rogue developers who don't know what they are doing and were never trained properly. Nobody owes anyone the ability to make a particular living. If you can't grok what's needed to be a good software developer, then find a different line of work.
Tools for software developers should be designed with the ability to write good code in mind. Sometimes that means simplifying the tool and increasing accessibility so that learning it doesn't get in the way of writing good code. Sometimes, that means introducing complexity and lowering accessibility as a consequence of making sure the tool is as robust, efficient and capable as possible. The goal is to help good developers write better code. Not to make it easy for people who have trouble with the existing tools to become developers.
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@Snooder said:
The barrier-to-entry should be right where it is: "can you understand and manipulate the tools needed to write good code." If anything, I'd argue for better professional standards and accreditation so we have less shit code floating around from rogue developers who don't know what they are doing and were never trained properly. Nobody owes anyone the ability to make a particular living. If you can't grok what's needed to be a good software developer, then find a different line of work.
Tools for software developers should be designed with the ability to write good code in mind. Sometimes that means simplifying the tool and increasing accessibility so that learning it doesn't get in the way of writing good code. Sometimes, that means introducing complexity and lowering accessibility as a consequence of making sure the tool is as robust, efficient and capable as possible. The goal is to help good developers write better code. Not to make it easy for people who have trouble with the existing tools to become developers.The fact that you believe the purpose of writing software is to write good code is worrying, and I hope I never have to use anything you've written. The purpose of writing software is in the end result. Writing "good code" that compiles to a shitty program is simply masturbatory. If the product isn't good, isn't usable, or isn't worth the price (be that in cost of the software package, or cost of the developer's time), then you've just been screwing around.
The software community is full of projects with tidy, well-documented, easily-maintained codebases that compile to useless programs with hideous UIs and magic switches everywhere, that still break whenever [code]USER_NAME NOT IN(SELECT * FROM DEVELOPERS)[/code]. The world doesn't need more "good code", the world needs more good programs.
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@Snooder said:
@blakeyrat said:
This!the barrier-to-entry should be as small as possible-- and, ideally, there should be none at all.
Hell no.The barrier-to-entry to creating and publishing web pages is very low. This is generally a good thing; in theory, at least, it allows Everyman to have a voice in modern society. However, it also leads to the creation of Garmany. Do you really want to let people like that write programs? Do you want to use the programs they write?
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@joe.edwards said:
In the same way, the restrictive UI prevents you from making common mistakes, but seriously impedes trying to set up any configuration other than the (relatively) small subset of use-cases the application designer planned for.
What's more, if you make the tool flexible enough to express a wide range of things that users want to be able to do with it, you end up making it much harder to use.Case in point: I'm working on a system that allows users to route data between arbitrary services and programs (various online weird pieces of kit, strange databases, custom simulators, odd stuff) to allow scientists to do interesting research. It's able to handle a huge range of weird things (and no, there's no standard worth a damn that would persuade all that lot to work together nicely) and the target audience is definitely very smart, but there are some things that they just don't get and that only good programmers really seem to grasp. A classic is the asynchronous service: you submit something, but the processing takes 20–30 minutes, so you can't just wait directly for the service to respond; you have to poll for the state with the ID you got sent back. Simple. Easy to implement correctly. Supported by our tool. Do users understand it? Hell, no! They just don't grasp the concept. You can hide the details behind a “dumbing down” interface, but I've yet to see two of these things that work in exactly the same way and the nasty little details just mean you've got to make one of these simplifications for each of these custom things out there, tweaking things just that little bit to deal with the way some site works this time.
Any decent software engineer would have no problem understanding what the best solution should be from the users' perspective (stop making everything work almost-the-same-but-different). But the world just never works like that, and most of these services are put up by people whose job description has virtually nothing in common with “software engineer”. So we struggle on, chiseling away at the mound of stupid shit that gets in the way of awesome.
tl;dr: Simple is great, but the world isn't simple and would take an amazing amount of effort to make simple.
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@Snooder said:
In the same way, someone who is good at math can refuse to study and get shit grades, or someone who has difficulty with mathematical concepts can study really hard and eventually grok it.
Why do you use the word "grok" when there are equivalent words that are much more widely understood?
Even your typing on an internet forum isn't accessible man.
@Snooder said:
Tools for software developers should be designed with the ability to write good code in mind. Sometimes that means simplifying the tool and increasing accessibility so that learning it doesn't get in the way of writing good code.
No arguments there.
@Snooder said:
Sometimes, that means introducing complexity and lowering accessibility as a consequence of making sure the tool is as robust, efficient and capable as possible.
There we do not agree. If you make a restrictive API that makes it very difficult to do "wrong" things, you end up with a system where most of the software is... well, pretty dang good. (Mac Classic.)
If you, however, trust that developers will do the right thing and make your API as open and flexible as possible, you get RealPlayer inserting itself in every single nook and cranny of your system, and iTunes failing to work correctly if your iPod is plugged into a USB hub instead of a USB port directly on the case. (Windows/Linux way.)
Microsoft learned the hard way that you shouldn't give programmers too much power because most programmers are fucking terrible at their jobs. Even widely praised software like Notepad++ and Audacity fail to correctly draw/handle menus. MENUS.
The only (or at least best we've come up with so far) solution to the problem is the one Apple came up with in 1984 and Microsoft came up with in .Net: make writing *correct* code so much ridiculously easier than writing incorrect code that only the biggest idiot in the universe would write the incorrect code. And yes, that means limiting what the programmer can do.
Sorry shitty programmers, you can't put 500+ widgets on a single window. Yes, it limits your "power". But believe me: all the rest of us are better-off.
@Snooder said:
The goal is to help good developers write better code.
That's the goal of Linux open source software-wanking. Not the goal of professional software developers. If your only goal is to help developers write better code, you end up being the guy who creates this utter gibberish.
@Snooder said:
Not to make it easy for people who have trouble with the existing tools to become developers.
And why not?
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@dkf said:
tl;dr: Simple is great, but the world isn't simple and would take an amazing amount of effort to make simple.
If you're just going to post "it's difficult, therefore it's not worth doing", then just fuck off.
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@Buttembly Coder said:
@Snooder said:
The barrier-to-entry should be right where it is: "can you understand and manipulate the tools needed to write good code." If anything, I'd argue for better professional standards and accreditation so we have less shit code floating around from rogue developers who don't know what they are doing and were never trained properly. Nobody owes anyone the ability to make a particular living. If you can't grok what's needed to be a good software developer, then find a different line of work.
Tools for software developers should be designed with the ability to write good code in mind. Sometimes that means simplifying the tool and increasing accessibility so that learning it doesn't get in the way of writing good code. Sometimes, that means introducing complexity and lowering accessibility as a consequence of making sure the tool is as robust, efficient and capable as possible. The goal is to help good developers write better code. Not to make it easy for people who have trouble with the existing tools to become developers.The fact that you believe the purpose of writing software is to write good code is worrying, and I hope I never have to use anything you've written. The purpose of writing software is in the end result. Writing "good code" that compiles to a shitty program is simply masturbatory. If the product isn't good, isn't usable, or isn't worth the price (be that in cost of the software package, or cost of the developer's time), then you've just been screwing around.
The software community is full of projects with tidy, well-documented, easily-maintained codebases that compile to useless programs with hideous UIs and magic switches everywhere, that still break whenever <font size="2" face="Lucida Console">USER_NAME NOT IN(SELECT * FROM DEVELOPERS)</font>. The world doesn't need more "good code", the world needs more good programs.
And I'd say that if that isyour goal, as someone who writes code isn't to produce good code, then you have no idea what real professional ethics or standards are. A software developer isn't a UI designer. He's not a marketing professional or a Business Application Analyst. He can't and shouldn't be in the business of trying to decide whether a given software program is "useful" or not. His job is to write code, and write it well. If that means that he writes 100 good projects that nobody uses and 1 good project that's popular and well-liked, then he's done his job and done it well. If he instead writes 10 shit projects full of crap code that's unmaintanable, unscalable and generally shit from a software dev perspective, but is really, really popular that make a ton of money and fulfill a unique niche in the market, then he need to quit his fucking job, go get an MBA and stop making things difficult for the people who actually write the code.
A professional does his job and does his job well. He doesn't do someone else's job well and do his own job in a shitty and slipshod fashion.
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@Snooder said:
And I'd say that if that is your goal, as someone who writes code isn't to produce good code, then you have no idea what real professional ethics or standards are. A software developer isn't a UI designer. He's not a marketing professional or a Business Application Analyst. He can't and shouldn't be in the business of trying to decide whether a given software program is "useful" or not. His job is to write code, and write it well. If that means that he writes 100 good projects that nobody uses and 1 good project that's popular and well-liked, then he's done his job and done it well. If he instead writes 10 shit projects full of crap code that's unmaintanable, unscalable and generally shit from a software dev perspective, but is really, really popular that make a ton of money and fulfill a unique niche in the market, then he need to quit his fucking job, go get an MBA and stop making things difficult for the people who actually write the code.
A professional does his job and does his job well. He doesn't do someone else's job well and do his own job in a shitty and slipshod fashion.- "A software developer isn't a UI designer." - And yet, software without a good UI is worthless. Software must be developed with a good UI, or it isn't good.
- "His job is to write code, and write it well." - I've never met anyone paid based on code review results, but I know many people paid (bonuses at least) based on sales figures. I say you're working from a very flawed definition of "job".
- "If that means that he writes 100 good projects that nobody uses and 1 good project that's popular and well-liked, then he's done his job and done it well." - If you truly define a 1% success rate "well done", you are an idiot, full stop.
- "If he instead writes 10 shit projects full of crap code that's unmaintanable, unscalable and generally shit from a software dev perspective, but is really, really popular that make a ton of money and fulfill a unique niche in the market, then he need to quit his fucking job, go get an MBA and stop making things difficult for the people who actually write the code." - So, you're saying that someone who makes good software is a bad software developer? I cannot fathom any possible argument against this, as it makes no fucking sense.
- "A professional does his job and does his job well. He doesn't do someone else's job well and do his own job in a shitty and slipshod fashion." - A professional is simply someone with training. Don't bullshit me with your soapbox crap.
You seem to believe that there is some omnipresent moral authority, some lofty skygod that will love you if you "write good code". There isn't. The only result is that you have a better-formatted, but still utterly worthless, text file with a ".cpp" extension.
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@HardwareGeek said:
However, it also leads to the creation of Garmany.
The low barrier didn't cause that site. The idiocy did.
A high barrier would have kept that out, but it would also have kept out a ton of awesome stuff, so it's an ineffective solution to the Garmany Problem.
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@blakeyrat said:
There we do not agree. If you make a restrictive API that makes it very difficult to do "wrong" things, you end up with a system where most of the software is... well, pretty dang good. (Mac Classic.)
@blakeyrat said:
Microsoft learned the hard way that you shouldn't give programmers too much power because most programmers are fucking terrible at their jobs. Even widely praised software like Notepad++ and Audacity fail to correctly draw/handle menus. MENUS.
I'm a little confused how this restrictiveness point matches your Open To All point.
What's odd about Audacity's menus?
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@Buttembly Coder said:
"A software developer isn't a UI designer." - And yet, software without a good UI is worthless. Software must be developed with a good UI, or it isn't good.
Wherein I must stress that APIs and CLIs are also UI.
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@blakeyrat said:
The difference is cars for the average driver exist.
And even those cars require training and expertise to use safely.
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@flabdablet said:
As a working technician, my attitude has always been that I am fucking well going to explain to you what I'm doing as I do it, and you are fucking well going to sit there and learn something from the experience, or else you will have a lot of trouble getting me back to fix your next problem.
Some sense of entitlement you have there, buddy
@flabdablet said:I do know how my car works well enough to diagnose with reasonably high accuracy what's gone wrong with it when it goes wrong, though I pay somebody else to get their hands dirty and their knuckles skinned maintaining it. My dishwasher, washing machine and other home appliances I fix myself.
I'm good with my brain, really bad with my hands, I can diagnose but sure as hell I'm hiring someone to fix it and no, I don't care about a blow by blow account on what is wrong with the dishwasher, just fix it, bill me and if you absolutely must, tell me how to avoid the problem in the future if it was my fault.@flabdablet said:
7. Learn to fix things. Tons of great books and youtube vids on fixing anything. Or ask an old dude. People used to fix things. No shit.
Time is a precious commodity, fucking learn to value it. Of course if you do stuff like this a hobby or because it is your job, fine, otherwise... retarded
@Master Chief said:Even iOS apps require tutorials or instructions, and those are about the most intuitive I've ever used
I never had a cellphone until recently, never read tutorials or instruction and I used it just fine, of course there is a basic knowl how that is present in other devices like PCs so that helps. I'm not saying documentations isn't a good idea, I'm saying that for basic operation in a cellphone there is little that needs to be learn if any.
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@dhromed said:
@Buttembly Coder said:
"A software developer isn't a UI designer." - And yet, software without a good UI is worthless. Software must be developed with a good UI, or it isn't good.
Wherein I must stress that APIs and CLIs are also UI.
Sure, the "User Interface" is however a user interfaces with the software.
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@dhromed said:
What's odd about Audacity's menus?
I can't find the screenshot I took of it. They're completely broken if the number of items on the menu exceeds the height of the screen. Notepad++ has the exact same bug, which means it's probably using the exactly same wrong UI library.
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@Buttembly Coder said:
So, you're saying that someone who makes good software is a bad software developer? I cannot fathom any possible argument against this, as it makes no fucking sense.
Yes. I'm saying that someone can be involved in making what you defined as good software, and indeed be responsible for its success, while being a bad software developer. If you identify a target market that's currently unfilled, you can be responsible for very successful software. If you have great communication skills and are able to talk to a group of users and extract useful UI data from them, you can be responsible for very successful software. Neither of those means that you write good code, and you can be good at both those things while being unable to write a single line of code.@Buttembly Coder said:
You seem to believe that there is some omnipresent moral authority, some lofty skygod that will love you if you "write good code". There isn't. The only result is that you have a better-formatted, but still utterly worthless, text file with a ".cpp" extension.
No, I'm saying that your peers will look at the work you do. And by "work" I mean strictly the code since that's the important bit. And they will judge you by the quality of that work. If your code is shitty but the project as a whole is successful anyway, that doesn't excuse the fact that your code was shit. And if your code was golden, but the project as a whole was a dismal failure in the market, that doesn't detract from how good your code was.
See there are two things to keep in mind here. (1) Code is portable. Good code from a bad project can be used in a good project later on. (2) Coders are also portable. A developer who writes good code for an unsuccessful project will write good code in a better project later on. You don't (and shouldn't) judge software developers on anything but the code that they write. Everything else is not their job and can be adjusted if you change the people doing those things.
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@Snooder said:
@Buttembly Coder said:
So, you're saying that someone who makes good software is a bad software developer? I cannot fathom any possible argument against this, as it makes no fucking sense.
Yes. I'm saying that someone can be involved in making what you defined as good software, and indeed be responsible for its success, while being a bad software developer. If you identify a target market that's currently unfilled, you can be responsible for very successful software. If you have great communication skills and are able to talk to a group of users and extract useful UI data from them, you can be responsible for very successful software. Neither of those means that you write good code, and you can be good at both those things while being unable to write a single line of code.@Buttembly Coder said:
You seem to believe that there is some omnipresent moral authority, some lofty skygod that will love you if you "write good code". There isn't. The only result is that you have a better-formatted, but still utterly worthless, text file with a ".cpp" extension.
No, I'm saying that your peers will look at the work you do. And by "work" I mean strictly the code since that's the important bit. And they will judge you by the quality of that work. If your code is shitty but the project as a whole is successful anyway, that doesn't excuse the fact that your code was shit. And if your code was golden, but the project as a whole was a dismal failure in the market, that doesn't detract from how good your code was.
See there are two things to keep in mind here. (1) Code is portable. Good code from a bad project can be used in a good project later on. (2) Coders are also portable. A developer who writes good code for an unsuccessful project will write good code in a better project later on. You don't (and shouldn't) judge software developers on anything but the code that they write. Everything else is not their job and can be adjusted if you change the people doing those things.- "I'm saying that your peers will look at the work you do. And by "work" I mean strictly the code since that's the important bit." - That's an assertion that contradicts what you just said; that someone may make many other contributions to a project.
- "If your code is shitty but the project as a whole is successful anyway, that doesn't excuse the fact that your code was shit." - Why not, pray tell? If the cost to rewrite a project at some later date is exceeded by the additional revenue from the product, you really can't make an economic argument against it, only a vague moral one.
- "And if your code was golden, but the project as a whole was a dismal failure in the market, that doesn't detract from how good your code was." - True, but potential employers may only see "worked on a failed project".
- "Code is portable. Good code from a bad project can be used in a good project later on." - If the company has folded, and it's IP assets auctioned off, that code is no longer yours to use.
- "Coders are also portable. A developer who writes good code for an unsuccessful project will write good code in a better project later on." - See above about potential employers.
- "You don't (and shouldn't) judge software developers on anything but the code that they write." - We've already shown that there is more to development than writing code, this is simply false.
Your writing reflects an attitude of antagonism between "developers" and "businessmen", or however you'd put it. I make a distinction between "developer" and "coder", and use "coder" as a pejorative, similar to "code monkey"; someone who writes code (of any quality), but does nothing to contribute to the larger whole (and is in fact usually incapable of doing so). You seem to use the terms interchangeably, and that's fine, but it means you're making some ridiculous statements.
In reality, software development applies to the whole software lifecycle, from inception to the finished product, and this necessarily includes things like requirements gathering. A coder with poor communications skills is a troglodyte who will get made fun of on TDWTF, even if their code is golden.
An empty C++ file, with only a comment at the top explaining date of creation and author may perfectly follow coding standards, pass every unit test, and meet any arbitrary standard for code quality, but it will never have any worth to society. Conversely, many very important programs (even ones for handling hazardous materials or emergency dispatch) are messes of spaghetti code, corner-cases, and magic numbers.
At the end of the day, I much prefer writing good code that makes good software that forms a good product, but I'll happily let the first, and even the second, slip if that means that the product does what it's supposed to. Luckily, I've yet to have to do this.
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@Snooder said:
No, I'm saying that your peers will look at the work you do. And by "work" I mean strictly the code since that's the important bit.
The code is one of the LEAST important bits in software development.
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@serguey123 said:
I never had a cellphone until recently, never read tutorials or instruction and I used it just fine, of course there is a basic knowl how that is present in other devices like PCs so that helps. I'm not saying documentations isn't a good idea, I'm saying that for basic operation in a cellphone there is little that needs to be learn if any.
I agree. The problem with that view, however, is there's a whole lot to iOS and it's app marketplace that has absolutely nothing to do with making phone calls.
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@dhromed said:
APIs and CLIs are also UI
CLIs are UI. APIs are not. They're a code-only interface. Sure, there are tricks to make certain types of API pretend to be a UI, but they're typically not a very good UI. The key difference is that they've got totally different types of primary consumer: UIs are used by people, APIs by computers. (There's also ABIs — B for Binary — and lots of people don't care about them as much as they ought to.) A good API is often a poor UI and vice versa; it's good to be quite lax with what you accept in a UI, but much stricter in an API.A SOAP service described by a WSDL document using the more advanced optional extensions is a good API, as it is very precisely described and exactly understandable. But I never want to see such a thing directly; it's an utterly rotten UI, about as bad as you can possibly think of. (Unless you like reading and writing megabytes of raw XML. If so, I don't think you'll quite see my point in this paragraph.)
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@blakeyrat said:
The code is one of the LEAST important bits in software development.
Umm, no. It's essential by definition, but perhaps not significant. The code is usually the least of the problems, the most easily sorted out.
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@dkf said:
@blakeyrat said:
The code is one of the LEAST important bits in software development.
Umm, no. It's essential by definition, but perhaps not significant. The code is usually the least of the problems, the most easily sorted out.
@dkf said:@blakeyrat said:
LEAST important
perhaps not significant... least of the problemsdkf, you suck at arguing with people. Important and significant are synonyms.
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@Buttembly Coder said:
Important and significant are synonyms.
Not my fault you're not well-educated enough to know the difference.
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@dkf said:
@Buttembly Coder said:
Important and significant are synonyms.
Not my fault you're not well-educated enough to know the difference.
Just because I don't educate myself on bullshit doesn't mean I'm not right.
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@serguey123 said:
@flabdablet said:
As a working technician, my attitude has always been that I am fucking well going to explain to you what I'm doing as I do it, and you are fucking well going to sit there and learn something from the experience, or else you will have a lot of trouble getting me back to fix your next problem.
Some sense of entitlement you have there, buddyNot so much a sense of entitlement as strong feelings about the kind of person I prefer to spend my precious hours helping. If you want somebody who will just fix it and bill you and leave you none the wiser about what was actually wrong, call somebody else; I work in a different niche.
Incidentally, they'll charge you four times what I do and do a worse job. But it's your call, obviously.
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@blakeyrat said:
@flabdablet said:
Windows 8 and Chrome, for example, both leave me feeling like I'm trying to use a chainsaw with a blade guard that covers the entire chain and can't be removed.
Why? What task can you do in Linux that you can't in Windows 8? Just one thing. I dare you.
For starters, in no particular order:
- Use a GUI that works properly at any DPI, with fonts and text rendering that don't suck
- Install all the software I want without needing to deal with shitloads of optional trojans and toolbars and EULAs and clicking Next Next Next Next Finish for no good reason
- Bring the OS and all installed software up to date in one operation launched with two clicks
- Flip to a text console to diagnose what's wrong if the GUI environment becomes unresponsive
- Easily set any window to "always on top" so I can monitor stuff or watch movies while doing other things
- Easily reposition any window without needing the title bar visible - handy for dealing with big dialogs on small screens, among other things
- Use multiple desktop workspaces without needing to install third party add-ons
- Launch software whose name I can't remember by finding it in a menu organized by subject, as opposed to a fucking horrible mess of blinky flashy distracting "live tiles"
- Remove a wireless network connection whose SSID is not currently in range without needing to resort to the CLI
- Work with a CLI that strikes exactly the right balance between concision and expressiveness
- Move windows to the top of the screen without having them fucking maximize themselves
- Use an ssh client and server that work properly
- Work without being forced to restart my computer after it's decided to update OS components
- Work without feeling any need to install an anti-malware suite
- Upgrade my computer's mobo and processor, plug in the old hard drive, start the PC and watch it boot up and work instead of dying with a STOP 0x000000FD bluescreen
And that's just off the top of my head. There are lots more.
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Not one of those things is a task.
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@blakeyrat said:
Not one of those things is a task.
Not one of your opinions is an argument.
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@flabdablet said:
@blakeyrat said:
Not one of those things is a task.
Not one of your opinions is an argument.Fine. If you don't wanna debate, I won't debate.
(long pause)
(whistling)
So... how about 'em Seahawks?
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@flabdablet said:
Work without feeling any need to install an anti-malware suite
Boy, is that getting to be a tired argument. Anti-malware software is built into Windows 8.
@flabdablet said:
Upgrade my computer's mobo and processor, plug in the old hard drive, start the PC and watch it boot up and work instead of dying with a STOP 0x000000FD bluescreen
Clearly your argument is completely invalidated by the fact that IN WINDOWS 8 THERE IS NO STOP SCREEN THERE IS ONLY
ZUUL:(
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@blakeyrat said:
@flabdablet said:
@blakeyrat said:
Not one of those things is a task.
Not one of your opinions is an argument.Fine. If you don't wanna debate, I won't debate.
(long pause)
(whistling)
So... how about 'em Seahawks?
I hear they got all potted up on weed.
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@flabdablet said:
@blakeyrat said:
@flabdablet said:
Windows 8 and Chrome, for example, both leave me feeling like I'm trying to use a chainsaw with a blade guard that covers the entire chain and can't be removed.
Why? What task can you do in Linux that you can't in Windows 8? Just one thing. I dare you.
For starters, in no particular order:
- Use a GUI that works properly at any DPI, with fonts and text rendering that don't suck
- Install all the software I want without needing to deal with shitloads of optional trojans and toolbars and EULAs and clicking Next Next Next Next Finish for no good reason
- Bring the OS and all installed software up to date in one operation launched with two clicks
- Flip to a text console to diagnose what's wrong if the GUI environment becomes unresponsive
- Easily set any window to "always on top" so I can monitor stuff or watch movies while doing other things
- Easily reposition any window without needing the title bar visible - handy for dealing with big dialogs on small screens, among other things
- Use multiple desktop workspaces without needing to install third party add-ons
- Launch software whose name I can't remember by finding it in a menu organized by subject, as opposed to a fucking horrible mess of blinky flashy distracting "live tiles"
- Remove a wireless network connection whose SSID is not currently in range without needing to resort to the CLI
- Work with a CLI that strikes exactly the right balance between concision and expressiveness
- Move windows to the top of the screen without having them fucking maximize themselves
- Use an ssh client and server that work properly
- Work without being forced to restart my computer after it's decided to update OS components
- Work without feeling any need to install an anti-malware suite
- Upgrade my computer's mobo and processor, plug in the old hard drive, start the PC and watch it boot up and work instead of dying with a STOP 0x000000FD bluescreen
And that's just off the top of my head. There are lots more.
So, is any of that actually doing any useful work, or is it just dicking around with the computer?
This is kind of like that guy living across the road that had the really fancy car, but all he did was have the hood open and work on the engine all weekend and never drive it anywhere.
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@dkf said:
@dhromed said:
APIs and CLIs are also UI
CLIs are UI. APIs are not. They're a code-only interface.I have to type the function calls. They are also for me. I am a user of the API.
When we talk about good method names and bad method names, we're talking about the UX of a language or library or API.
Not that I ever want to see heaps of XML.
By god.
No.
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@heterodox said:
They are going to get utterly destroyed by my Broncos.
The Bronco isn't quite as OP as the Brakk, though.
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@Quinnum said:
is any of that actually doing any useful work, or is it just dicking around with the computer?
If you think of the hundreds of little tasks you do every time you sit down at a computer to accomplish some larger purpose as "dicking around", then they're "dicking around". From my perspective they're a bunch things I can do with my Debian boxes that I often find myself wishing I could do as easily (or at all!) on the Winboxen I work with daily and fix for a living.
If you're going to go all pedantic dickweed about "useful work" or "task" having some idiosyncratic meaning that you can narrow as much as you like until your attempt at an argument looks plausible, then obviously there's no task you can accomplish using a general purpose computer running operating system A that you can't also accomplish using operating system B. There are, however, important differences in how pleasant and straightforward the process of doing so will be.
I could cut down the mightiest tree in the forest with a herring (Windows 8) or I could use my preferred chainsaw (Debian). Either way it's going to get cut down, but using the chainsaw is going to involve a lot less fucking about.
