
One Question That Will Reveal What Kind of Coder You Are - idancali
http://dancali.io/blog/one-question-that-will-reveal-what-kind-of-coder-you-are
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zeeed
Personally, I would never hire anyone who sides with the painting aspect.

Why?

Software development needs structure, and it needs it to guarantee
maintainability, quality, testabiliy, readability. Art doesn't need any
structure, it is subject to interpretation, personal interpretation which is
horrible to read, understand and maintain.

Regarding the example in the article, what 'Andy' does is good solutions
engineering by asking the right question (why?), but not software development.

So the example premise that Andy managed to realize (not: develop) a
requirement in 20min instead of two weeks does not support any conclusion
about anything in software development.

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powatom
This doesn't even make sense. Andy's insight was nothing to do with
programming or software development - he identified a flaw in the proposed
design and suggested a better solution. That's not coding, and it's not
specifically related to software development either. 'Software Development' is
rarely done in isolation, and often requires teams of people with different
skill-sets. Some will be excellent at estimating effort, others will be great
at identifying product flaws and fixing them.

Look at it this way - I wouldn't want to walk over a bridge built by somebody
who has no engineering skills but can paint.

Oh, and my 2 cents - programming is part science, part art. It's neither one
or the other.

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washedup
Building a bridge requires creative as there are many different forms a bridge
can take. Similarly with coding, there is an aspect of both engineering and
creativity. If I had to choose between the two, building a bridge seems like
the obvious answer because the end goal (generally) is not to create art and
provoke imagination, but to engineer a certain task. Building anything, such
as a chair, requires some level of creativity, and in the case of woodworking,
is often considered art. I would say 80% engineering and 20% creativity when
it comes to code.

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ForHackernews
Reminiscent of
[http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html)

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touristtam
it feels more like being a cathedral or a ship builder from the 15th century.
A mix of art and technique following requirement and plan much more loosely
that today's precise construction of ship and bridges.

