

The Programming Elite, Programmers Who Read - rams
http://cycle-gap.blogspot.com/2008/08/programming-elite-programmers-who-read.html

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spydez
Well then, I must be in the utmost echelon of hacker demigods, as RescueTime
tells me I spend the majority of my days reading programming stuff on the
interwebs instead of working.

(In my defense, I do still manage to finish stuff on time...)

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Retric
I think the problem is people who read things but don't try to build new
things. You can write Lisp style code in C# and if you want to play around
with the object system you can even do so in C++ or even Java but coders who
only read the hype and never understand what it's saying build the same junk
in each new platform.

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erictobia
This sets the bar for an elite programmer fairly low IMHO.

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biohacker42
If you read coding horror you are a programming GOD!

Alternatively, unless you instantly grok the crufties code only to instantly
transform it into the best code ever, and then go home and do some more
programming on the side, and then you're also a social butterfly who is never
ever on the market and never has to stoop so low as to send out resumes to get
a job - well then you're just a VB drone loser.

I myself don't know where I fit in, because while I read lots of programming
and cs related stuff, I can _not_ do the 8+2 hrs thing, and I got my last job
by sending out resumes. So I must be somewhere between god and total loser.

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j2d2
Do any programmers actually work only 8 hours a day..? I've never seen
evidence suggesting this is actually true. 10+2 seems more realistic.

~~~
MaysonL
I've worked as a programmer for over 30 years.

I've had two really productive periods during that time.

One of those periods I spent about 4 hours a day coding, totally focused - get
to work at about 5:30 after a leisurely brunch and a 30 minute bus ride during
which I planned my coding for the day, jump on a machine and pound the
teletype for 4 hours or so, and go home, nearly exhausted. This was writing
device driver assembler routines and image processing code.

The second period, I was implementing a prototype of a distributed OS, about
10% of a 3 inch thick spec which defined the whole thing down to the level of
small procedures, with a hard 6 month deadline (which was what I had estimated
the job would take). I worked steadily for that 6 months on a 40 hour
schedule, and finished about two weeks before the demo was given.

I'm currently reading _On Lisp_ and _The Four-Gated City_ (by Doris Lessing),
for whatever that's worth.

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stcredzero
Even when I am actually doing work, I often spend at least half of my time
reading and investigating existing code, not coding. Why? Because I want to:

1) Really understand what is going on in the existing code base

2) Make sure what I plan to do is in line with the philosophy of the current
code

3) Make sure I'm not replicating something already implemented

4) Give my brain enough gestation time to allow lateral thinking to happen

In fact, often I'll spend some time reading, go off and practice juggling,
then come back and whip off an initial prototype, then go and do something
else distracting (read Hacker News) then revisit the problem again the next
day. Most of the time, I'll figure out an even better way to do it.

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compay
" they are the kind of people who read things in order to better themselves as
programmers. And that's already, you know, 5-10% of practising programmers"

I find this hard to believe. I have at least 20 friends who also program and
they all read online and own programming books.

I'd like to know where Joel gets his statistics.

~~~
tdavis
This is often a difficult statistic for programmers who _do_ read to grasp
because the only programmers you likely know are more people like you. The
thing is, there aren't as many of us as we think there are.

None of the programmers I know _don't_ read. I am told that these people
exist; they work in cubicles and so forth. However, I don't know any of them.
So, personally, it takes a lot of concentrated effort on my part to not take
that 5-10% and bump it to, say, 50%. Because in the world I live in, that
statistic is crazy low.

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shimi
In one of my previous jobs we had this dude who had like 20+ books on his
desk.

At best the guy was an average developer...

There is a difference between a read and a reference.

~~~
andreyf
Having books on your desk doesn't necessarily mean you read them. Most likely,
he was showing off.

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abstractbill
_The average software developer, for example, doesn't own a single book on the
subject of his or her work, and hasn't ever read one._

I used to own, and read, books about programming. Now my reference books at
least are made obsolete by the web.

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rewind
Meh. Whatever. If you learn online or learn by buying books or fall somewhere
in the middle because you do both, you're still learning. Sometimes I just
want something to read where I can read away from the damn computer under the
sun. At the same time, there's a tonne of stuff online that will teach me the
same thing. Who bloody cares where I learn it??? When I was earlier in my
career, I spend a TONNE of money on books. Over the past few years, that's
fallen to zero because there's a lot of information online. Recently, I
started buying again just to change the pace. It really doesn't matter as long
as the outcome is the same... which it is.

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briancooley
>And that's already, you know, 5-10% of practising programmers. It's not the
vast masses of Java monkeys who were formerly VB monkeys who were formerly
COBOL monkeys who are just doing, you know, large swathes of extremely boring
stuff internally somewhere. <

I'm certainly not above the occassional look down my nose at Java, but how do
you suppose someone would move to Java from VB without reading a few books or
manuals?

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sofal
Reading language manuals out of the pure need to survive doesn't count.

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dangrover
Most of the CS students I know don't really do any coding or reading about CS
outside of their classes.

But I agree, I think it is garbage, meant to make the reader feel good.

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andreyf
I don't know where his data are comming from, but in my experience, most
programmers read... so this stat is definitely vastly different in different
social circles...

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mridulkhan
What about reading code? Isn't studying good, possibly open source, code more
enlightening than drooling over hype filled blogs?

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jrockway
_Joel also adds a little later, "Don't bother writing in, I will just commit
suicide."_

Anyone else writing him a letter now?

