

Your favorite programmer doesn't like coding - chegra
http://chegra.posterous.com/your-favorite-programmer-doesnt-like-coding

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bradleyland
Yeah, sorry, but I just don't believe that. I've worked with plenty of
programmers who, when faced with a perfectly acceptable off-the-shelf solution
will happily slog out lines upon lines of code to roll yet another CMS,
authentication, syndication, blog, social... you name it application. This
isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'm not saying all programmers are this way,
but a large part of what makes a good programmer is a self-belief that their
ideas are superior to what already exists. External motivation is certainly a
factor, but most of the best programmers I know code because of the rush they
get from refining their own ideas.

~~~
wccrawford
You may not have recognized it, but a really good programmer always uses the
off-the-shelf stuff if it will do the job correctly. Chances are, there's
nothing on the shelf that does what they want exactly. So they code it. But
when there is, they use it.

How many programmers do you know that wrote and use their own programming
language? OS? IDE? Web browser? Email client?

There are thousands of apps that they use every week and don't code their own.

~~~
sunkencity
IMHO it's not hard to make the books, but it's incredibly hard to build the
shelf well.

build the shelf a little wrong and chances are that the only books that will
fit are the ones you have to write yourself

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rcfox
Way to not get it.

I used to write games for fun. The problem was that there's a lot of boring
stuff to writing a game: tracking key presses fluidly, polishing the
interface, making sure it runs well on others' machines, etc. Also, the games
weren't really that much fun. (Pretty much on par with 80% of the Flash games
out there. "Oh look, yet another top-down shooter.")

Then I realized that I don't write games because I want to play them; I write
games because I want to make them. Making a game is a game in itself. Why
should I spend the time making my unfun game shiny when I could be having fun?

So now, I make "aquariums"- stuff happens on the screen, but there's no real
interaction. The fun stuff happens in the code. Maybe some of it will
eventually be useful in a real game, but that's not the primary goal.

------
alanstorm
Aren't we past the idea that "ability to instruct a computer and/or runtime
via a programming language" comes with a preconceived set of personality
traits? Chester describes a certain kind of programmer well, but the idea all
programmers conform to this behavior pattern (and, by extension, if you don't
conform to the pattern then you're not a programmer) is silly.

Put another way, A lisp hacker, a java developer and a priest walk into a bar
...

~~~
CodeMage
Now you really have to come up with the rest of that joke, I'm dying to hear
it! :)

------
T-R
I'm not really convinced that a programming language that builds products from
a subset of pre-made parts by making assumptions about implementation, rather
than requiring the designer to plan in full detail and iron out design/logic
inconsistencies, would really be all that useful.

But more to the point, I'd imagine a lot of programmers wouldn't even be
interested in programming if it wasn't difficult. There's little point to a
puzzle if someone just tells you the answer. Coding is all about choosing
pieces, putting them together, and questioning whether the way those pieces
are used will get you to your ideal solution.

Sure, some people code just to create output. Some people exercise just to
burn calories, and hate every minute of it; those probably aren't the people
climbing mountains.

------
chegra
What I was referring to is the shift from 2nd Generation Programming Languages
to 3rd. The post is basically predicting the same fall off will occur when we
transition to a 5th Generation. Hence, a programmer is more interested in
creating something, since 5th Generation Languages is basically talking(not
coding) and creativity process is what is common amongst the languages .
<http://github.com/languages> \- This as a reference, assembly is not in the
top ten.

Also, doesn't like code is not hating coding. It also encompass being
disinterested. Thus if a better option present itself there would be no
hesitation to adopted it.

My perspective is to view programming as a tool for being creative and when it
is abstracted out like this, the question arises what other tools can we use
to be creative?

Yes there will be a few people who still use 3rd generation language still but
it would be like some people still use assembly today.

~~~
rcfox
What is this about 2nd-, 3rd- and 5th-generation languages? I'm pretty sure
most of us are using something like 20th-generation languages.

<http://www.levenez.com/lang/lang.pdf>

~~~
chegra
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-
generation_programming_la...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-
generation_programming_language)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-
generation_programming_l...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-
generation_programming_language)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-
generation_programming_la...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-
generation_programming_language)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth-
generation_programming_l...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth-
generation_programming_language)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth-
generation_programming_la...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth-
generation_programming_language)

~~~
rcfox
I see. One of the examples on Wikipedia of a 5th-generation language is
Prolog. If you've ever looked at Prolog, it isn't just like talking. While it
makes some problems easier, it makes others more complex. It's not the
creative silver bullet you've made it out to be.

Among the list of 4th-generation languages is SPSS. Guh. SPSS works well
enough for one-off analysis, but any sort of automation is extremely
frustrating.

Based on these Wikipedia articles, (I'm not interested enough for further
research) it does not appear to me that the numeric ordering has any
correlation to programmers' productivity or the languages' usefulness in
general creativity.

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Raphomet
I don't know if I'm anyone's favorite programmer, but I derive enormous
satisfaction from building working applications - even unsexy CRUD
applications - from nothing. What we do professionally is already god damn
wizardry: we turn text into something that moves.

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nowarninglabel
My response to this: My favorite programmer likes to code so he can create
tools that allow him to create facebook clones by just telling the computer to
do so, though instead of verbal, instead merely a: phing deploy-fbclone or
whatever so chosen.

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carlos
I enjoy coding my own ideas and not that much others ideas. Basically from 9
to 5 I just code, from 5 to 10 I enjoy (coding).

