

Why Good Programmers Are Lazy and Dumb - mlLK
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2005-08-24-n14.html

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ojbyrne
Larry Wall, probably a decade ago: "The three chief virtues of a programmer
are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris."

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rw
Since when does "dumb" mean "open-minded"? The novel parts of the post are
flamebait.

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yters
The author is using these terms as descriptions, not definitions.

He means dumb in the sense of not trying to seem smart and asking simple
questions. So, the programmer will look dumb to others. The same applies to
his use of the word lazy. He doesn't actually mean the programmer doesn't do
anything, the programmer just maximizes his coding on the labor saving
programs. Thus, the programmer also looks lazy for not running around like a
headless chicken trying to put out all the latest fires.

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thwarted
Yeah, I've maintained there are two kinds of lazy: laziness that leads to
procrastination and laziness that leads the least amount of work being done
overall. The former is the classic "sin", the latter is what every tech person
should strive for. At the end of your life, you should divide the sum of your
output by the sum of your total work; the one with the greatest ratio wins the
title of "most lazy".

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walterk
None of these distinctions would be necessary if people just called efficiency
by its proper name. (That would be 'efficiency', by the way.) The use of
'lazy' as a synonym is pure marketing for the slacker/non-conformist
programmer (whose idea of non-conformity means wearing a t-shirt to work). And
it gets you hits, because OMG someone is saying u should be lazy at ur job!
Haha that's so counterintuitive!

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thwarted
This breaks down when people think that "being efficient" means "not doing
enough work". It looks like you're doing a lot of work when you waste time
building a database in a spreadsheet rather than loading the data into an
actual database to do analysis and reporting. Often times, efficient means
using the right tool for the job, and if that means that someone's going to
call me lazy, because I can do in 8 hours what it takes someone else 40 hours
to do, they can phone it in to me while I'm on vacation because my work is
done.

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markessien
I get the feeling that the internet is starting to repeat itself. It's been
quite a while since I read something on the net that I've not read somewhere
else in a somewhat modified form.

~~~
mlLK
Ouroboros; it is the vain of our existence.

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kwamenum86
This describes either a [Adjective] Programmer, or a Good [Noun], but
definitely not a Good Programmer. Maybe an Efficient Programmer or a Good
Intern, but definitely not a Good Programmer.

