
Coding: It's Just Writing (2008) - smusamashah
https://blog.codinghorror.com/coding-its-just-writing/
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ilaksh
I don't know if we are supposed to interpret the title as a joke or what. But
most of the article is correct.

But obviously the prose-ish writing part is less than half of the task. It is
not trivial to create useful computer programs (regardless of
maintainability).

But one thing I would like to point out here is the extreme contrast in
attitudes towards computer programs versus mathematical descriptions.

I have always felt that although the nature of math notation has historically
made sense, the extreme level of obfuscation is a stark contrast to well-
written code.

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guenthert
Indeed, writing for the poor sod who's going to maintain your code years after
you moved on is much more difficult than writing code for the machine. After
all, the compiler and test programs will tell you whether your code is
(sufficiently) correct, but there's no feedback from the aforementioned
maintainer of your code. If you can write code which compiles and passes the
test suite first try, then kudos to you. Most of us can't and need the
occasional hint from the compiler and edit our code 'til it passes.
Unfortunately, there's no automated check whether the variable, class or
function names are sensible and whether the comments match the code ...

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pico_wave
Alternate headline: Coding, it's just translating.

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hbcondo714
A former boss of mine said coding is just a means to an end.

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randompwd
2008

