Easier Than Fizz Buzz - Why Can't Programmers Print 100 to 1? (article)
-
@anotherusername said in Easier Than Fizz Buzz - Why Can't Programmers Print 100 to 1? (article):
[Mel] definitely made programming an exact science... that's partly why his code was so indecipherable
Science is about finding general laws - the more universal the discovered law, the more useful it is.
For example in theoretical Computer Science, they work on abstract idealized machines or calculate only the asymptotic complexity of algorithm, not an exact number of operation it takes.Mel's code is extremely specific to his machine and task, not applicable to anything else, it is the opposite of science. We could call it craftsmanship instead.
-
@Adynathos said in Easier Than Fizz Buzz - Why Can't Programmers Print 100 to 1? (article):
Mel's code is extremely specific to his machine and task, not applicable to anything else, it is the opposite of science. We could call it craftsmanship instead.
It would be (insanely) useful if he had a general technique for making any code on any machine that optimised. But it's not what anyone's actually got…
-
@dkf Yes you are correct. I just fucked on the A part because I had a brain fart.
-
@dkf said in Easier Than Fizz Buzz - Why Can't Programmers Print 100 to 1? (article):
a general technique for making any code on any machine that optimised
Easy peasy.
- Find an engineer who loves the target machine to unhealthy extent.
- Pay them to play with it.
- Make a bet with them that this chunk of code here can't be optimized any further than it already is. Bonus points if the code in question is entirely compiler-generated.
-
@flabdablet said in Easier Than Fizz Buzz - Why Can't Programmers Print 100 to 1? (article):
@dkf said in Easier Than Fizz Buzz - Why Can't Programmers Print 100 to 1? (article):
a general technique for making any code on any machine that optimised
Easy peasy.
- Find an engineer who loves the target machine to unhealthy extent.
- Pay them to play with it.
- Make a bet with them that this chunk of code here can't be optimized any further than it already is. Bonus points if the code in question is entirely compiler-generated.
This sort of thing lead to FFTW…
-
@Jaloopa said in Easier Than Fizz Buzz - Why Can't Programmers Print 100 to 1? (article):
@anotherusername said in Easier Than Fizz Buzz - Why Can't Programmers Print 100 to 1? (article):
all mathematical operations can be broken down into simple steps that are easily explained to a beginner: adding and shifting
How do logarithms break down into adding and shifting?
I first thought you were making a joke related to this:
-
@Adynathos @dkf
I'll concede your point, partially, in that it would be more useful if it was less specific. I still feel like "exact science" is an applicable phrase, though.
-
@flabdablet said in Easier Than Fizz Buzz - Why Can't Programmers Print 100 to 1? (article):
Pay them to play with it.
Umm....
-
@slapout1 said in Easier Than Fizz Buzz - Why Can't Programmers Print 100 to 1? (article):
they get people who can't even write an IF statement.
Seems like the test would rather gratifyingly cut those interviews short.