
Why Good Programmers Are Lazy and Dumb - llambda
http://www.blogoscoped.com/archive/2005-08-24-n14.html
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mistercow
I understand the sentiment, but this is stretching the definitions of "lazy"
and "dumb" to the breaking point. "Lazy" does not mean doing less work in the
long term. It means doing less work in the short term – often with resulting
in _more_ work in the long term. The laziest thing a programmer can do is copy
and paste code instead of making the code reusable.

Similarly, while it's hard to pin down a precise definition of "intelligence",
self-awareness and a drive to learn would be on my shortlist of essential
characteristics. Dumb people typically are not aware of their own competence
and do not realize that there is always much more to learn (See Dunning-Kruger
effect).

But I guess "Why Good Programmers are Efficient and Smart" wouldn't have been
a very interesting headline.

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evincarofautumn
You see dull, repetitious work ahead of you. If you avoid it, you’re lazy. If
you feel too icky not to find a better way, then you’re _constructively
dissatisfied_. Your 4-year-old daughter demonstrates that what you’re doing is
needlessly complicated, arbitrary, or meaningless. Did she do it by being
“dumb”? No. She did it by being _unassuming_ and asking simple questions, like
“why?”—without fear of offending.

It’s all about open-mindedness and a light touch, not stupidity and laziness.
The sense is much better conveyed by koans[1] than this kind of blunt
language. But of course, blunt language makes for eye-catching titles.

[1] <http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html>

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mustafa0x

      Because if he’s smart, and he knows he is smart, he will:
    
      a) stop learning
      b) stop being critical towards his own work
    

The logic here is quite flawed.

    
    
      Because he doesn’t accept the parameters suggested to him 
      that someone thinks make up the problem.
    

While there are cases when a programmer should simply answer the question (or
solve the problem), those are exceptional. So, as said here, programmers (and
others) should always ask questions; should always learn the reasoning behind
things.

\---

I hate to distract from the content, however I found the article's use of
semicolons to be incorrect throughout. (edit: disregard)

~~~
mistercow
>I hate to distract from the content, however I found the article's use of
semicolons to be incorrect throughout.

There are too many of them, but as far as I saw, none of them were incorrect
in terms of grammar.

~~~
mustafa0x
Ah, I see now. I was indeed mistaken, thank you.

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Drbble
Larry Wall's original is better:
<http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LazinessImpatienceHubris>

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Yarnage
This was a really stupid article.

Basically, by the use of the word "lazy" the author meant "not lazy" in
certain areas and by "dumb" the author meant "not an asshole".

That was a 5 minutes of my life I won't ever reclaim...

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krollew
Don't take words so binary. That's the big problem of most languages. That's
something like that:

If I see I have so big job to do I have problem to start, procrasinate. What
does it mean? Obviously I'm lazy, isn't it?

At the same time if I see nice way to make easier some complex stuff I do
frequently I do it, find it exciting, enjoyable and I don't procrastinate. So?
I'm unlazy at the same time. That's the effect of being inteligent and lazy at
the same time.

Maybe he could have used better words to describe that, but It wouldn't tell
the people that lazyness may be advantage as well, because such lazy code is
so nice. Time saving is not only thing. Such lazy code tends to be so DRY, as
he wrote and as code is DRYer it is more readable as well.

About dumb, it's very similar. Guy you ask so elementar questions. It's all so
obvious. So many people would say he's dumb, even take it personaly.

If he doesn't use word dumb, that fact wouldn't be emphasized so nice.

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spdy
Isn`t this like "stay foolish stay hungry" ?

