You are a wizard harry. Programming is basically magic. Think about it - we study hard and pore over our books of lore (the computer + internet), to make spells (programs). Wizards can teach other wizards how to cast their magic.
Arthur C. Clarke wrote:Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
There are only two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors
Jesper de Jong wrote:
But there's this one thing I don't fully agree with:
You are a wizard harry. Programming is basically magic. Think about it - we study hard and pore over our books of lore (the computer + internet), to make spells (programs). Wizards can teach other wizards how to cast their magic.
It can look like magic for non-programmers, but it really is not magic. If you're programming by writing magical statements that you don't fully understand what they do, then you're doing cargo cult programming. Programming is not magic, it's logic. Every statement in a program has an exact purpose.
When you're stuck, write your program on paper. I'm serious. It's magic.
Programming is really hard
"Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand."
--- Martin Fowler
Jayesh A Lalwani wrote:
The thing is "programming is hard" is true. If it was easy, everyone would do it, and then you wouldn't be paid the big bucks. Only 0.3% of the world can do it. That by it's very definition is something that is hard. Yes, that doesn't mean it's equally hard for everyone. Some people do find it easy. The statement "programming is hard" is an acknowledgement that it's a niche skill.
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"A = A + 1" doesn't make sense to them. Only crazy people like us believe that there is a value of A that will satisfy that expression ...
SCJP
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Randall Twede wrote:there might be something to the sexual aspect here too. women were about 0.3% in my graduating class(ok I exaggerate a little).
"The good news about computers is that they do what you tell them to do. The bad news is that they do what you tell them to do." -- Ted Nelson
J. Kevin Robbins wrote:... (i.e. a left-brained activity if you believed that left-brained/right-brained stuff). I reasoned (?) that women were less suited to it because I viewed women as being more creative and imaginative, and more big-picture oriented (left-brained).
"The good news about computers is that they do what you tell them to do. The bad news is that they do what you tell them to do." -- Ted Nelson
J. Kevin Robbins wrote:Again, you may see this as sexist, but please understand that I grew up and worked in an environment where men wrote the code and women entered it on keypunch machines. That's where my early impressions were formed. My mind has since been opened.
Chris R Barrett wrote:While, the thoughts you expressed would be considered sexist by today's standards, if you programmed in the '70s (or did just about anything in male dominated roles in the '70s), your attitude would have been the norm. Therefore, in the context of era, I don't consider your thoughts sexist. Understanding that those attitudes are now wrong is awesome!
"The good news about computers is that they do what you tell them to do. The bad news is that they do what you tell them to do." -- Ted Nelson
"The good news about computers is that they do what you tell them to do. The bad news is that they do what you tell them to do." -- Ted Nelson
J. Kevin Robbins wrote:Yeah, I know it's been dis-proven, but it's still a common meme for comparing the different types of thinking, such as artistic versus analytic, that's why I used it. It's so ingrained; we need a new way to describe or quantify the way people think in different ways.
Jesper de Jong wrote:I dislike these kind of categories in general - I don't like to be labeled in any way like that. Labels are oversimplifications, nobody is purely this or the other. Before you know it, people put some kind of label on you and decide based on the stereotypes associated with that label what and who you are, without really knowing you.
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