Not in response to any particular note, but to the thread as a whole.
Regarding how beginners make tweaks and changes at random,
hoping that the bug will disappear, where experts tend to be a bit
more methodical in their bug-fixing.
Here at academia I have taught a little bit of partial correctne
On Fri, Sep 29, 2017 at 12:14 PM, Bill wrote:
>
> I'll write for the possible benefit of any beginners who may be reading.
> I guess by definition, if one still has a "bug" it's because one doesn't
> quite understand what the code is doing. And I would say you should lose
> your license if you "f
Bill wrote:
Don't be afraid to write *really descriptive* output statements, and do
so even though you "don't need to".
Yeah, often when I'm writing something tricky I'll proactively
put in some code to print intermediate state to reassure myself
that things are on track. Being more verbose wit
Steve D'Aprano wrote:
(1) I know there's a bug in a specific chunk of code, but I'm having trouble
working out where. When everything else fails, if I perturb the code a bit
(reorder lines, calculate things in a different order, rename variables, etc)
it may change the nature of the bug enough fo
On Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 5:14 AM, Bill wrote:
> I'll write for the possible benefit of any beginners who may be reading. I
> guess by definition, if one still has a "bug" it's because one doesn't quite
> understand what the code is doing. And I would say you should lose your
> license if you "fix
Chris Angelico wrote:
On Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 2:42 AM, Steve D'Aprano
wrote:
Oh, and I'd like to make a (moderate) defense of a kind of "bug fixing by random
perturbation". Obviously making unrelated, arbitrary changes to code is bad.
But making non-arbitrary but not fully understood changes to
On Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 2:42 AM, Steve D'Aprano
wrote:
> Oh, and I'd like to make a (moderate) defense of a kind of "bug fixing by
> random
> perturbation". Obviously making unrelated, arbitrary changes to code is bad.
> But making non-arbitrary but not fully understood changes to relevant code
>
s of their
code trying to fix a bug. Often many different changes all at once. So that's
another difference between beginners and experts:
- experts have the self-control to make only one change at a time,
when it matters; beginners don't know when it matters.
Oh, and I'd like to
On Fri, Sep 29, 2017 at 10:52 AM, justin walters wrote:
>
> I got through writing all of the above without realizing that you meant you
> wanted to build a
> desktop application and not a web application. Though, I think the advice
> is still helpful.
>
>
Yes and no. Seriously thanks!
I am at fi
On Fri, Sep 29, 2017 at 2:57 AM, Leam Hall wrote:
> On 09/27/2017 10:33 PM, Stefan Ram wrote:
>
>Some areas of knowledge follow, a programmer should not be
>>ignorant in all of them:
>>
>
> ---
>
> Stefan, this is list AWESOME!
>
> I have started mapping skills I have to the list and ways
On Fri, Sep 29, 2017 at 8:34 PM, D'Arcy Cain wrote:
> On 09/29/2017 03:15 AM, Steve D'Aprano wrote:
>>
>> "Carefully-designed experiments" -- yeah, that is so totally how the
>> coders I've
>> worked with operate *wink*
>>
>> I think that's an awfully optimistic description of how the average
>> p
On 09/29/2017 03:15 AM, Steve D'Aprano wrote:
"Carefully-designed experiments" -- yeah, that is so totally how the coders I've
worked with operate *wink*
I think that's an awfully optimistic description of how the average programmer
works :-)
Better not hire average programmers then. I do "Ca
On 2017-09-28 14:14, Neil Cerutti wrote:
> On 2017-09-28, Dan Sommers wrote:
>> If I'm hiring myself out as a plumber, I should know how to unclog
>> drains;
>
> OT: I recommend hiring a drain specialist, *not* a plumber for
> this particular job. Asking a plumber to clear a drain would be
> kind
On 09/27/2017 10:33 PM, Stefan Ram wrote:
Some areas of knowledge follow, a programmer should not be
ignorant in all of them:
---
Stefan, this is list AWESOME!
I have started mapping skills I have to the list and ways to build
skills I don't have. Last night I started working on a pro
Steve D'Aprano wrote:
(say). Reading error messages is a skill that must be learned, even in Python.
Let alone (say) gcc error messages, which are baroque to an extreme. The other
day I was getting an error like:
/tmp/ccchKJVU.o: In function `__static_initialization_and_destruction_0(int,
int)'
On Fri, 29 Sep 2017 03:28 pm, Gregory Ewing wrote:
> Chris Angelico wrote:
>> finding the bug is basically searching
>> through a problem space of all things that could potentially cause
>> this symptom. A novice could accidentally stumble onto the right
>> solution to a tricky bug, or an expert c
On Fri, Sep 29, 2017 at 3:28 PM, Gregory Ewing
wrote:
> Chris Angelico wrote:
>>
>> finding the bug is basically searching
>> through a problem space of all things that could potentially cause
>> this symptom. A novice could accidentally stumble onto the right
>> solution to a tricky bug, or an ex
Chris Angelico wrote:
finding the bug is basically searching
through a problem space of all things that could potentially cause
this symptom. A novice could accidentally stumble onto the right
solution to a tricky bug, or an expert could search a thousand other
things and only get to the true cau
On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 5:08 PM, Chris Angelico wrote:
> Yep. Pick anyone on this list that you believe is an expert, and ask
> him/her for a story of a long debug session that ended up finding a
> tiny problem. I can pretty much guarantee that every expert programmer
> will have multiple such exp
On Fri, Sep 29, 2017 at 7:47 AM, Bill wrote:
> I won't claim to be any sort of "expert". But one memorable problem, for
> me, was ultimately accounted for by the "inherent problem" of the floating
> point variables x0 and xo coexisting in the same module. It's sort of funny
> if you think about
Chris Angelico wrote:
On Fri, Sep 29, 2017 at 6:59 AM, Bill wrote:
Chris Angelico wrote:
Be careful with this one. For anything other than trivial errors (and
even for some trivial errors), finding the bug is basically searching
through a problem space of all things that could potentially caus
On Fri, Sep 29, 2017 at 6:59 AM, Bill wrote:
> Chris Angelico wrote:
>>
>> Be careful with this one. For anything other than trivial errors (and
>> even for some trivial errors), finding the bug is basically searching
>> through a problem space of all things that could potentially cause
>> this sy
Chris Angelico wrote:
On Fri, Sep 29, 2017 at 5:45 AM, Bill wrote:
Paul Moore wrote:
On 27 September 2017 at 17:41, leam hall wrote:
Hehe...I've been trying to figure out how to phrase a question. Knowing
I'm
not the only one who gets frustrated really helps.
I'm trying to learn to be a pro
On Fri, Sep 29, 2017 at 5:45 AM, Bill wrote:
> Paul Moore wrote:
>>
>> On 27 September 2017 at 17:41, leam hall wrote:
>>>
>>> Hehe...I've been trying to figure out how to phrase a question. Knowing
>>> I'm
>>> not the only one who gets frustrated really helps.
>>>
>>> I'm trying to learn to be a
Paul Moore wrote:
On 27 September 2017 at 17:41, leam hall wrote:
Hehe...I've been trying to figure out how to phrase a question. Knowing I'm
not the only one who gets frustrated really helps.
I'm trying to learn to be a programmer. I can look at a book and read basic
code in a few languages b
On 09/28/2017 04:15 AM, Paul Moore wrote:
With Python, I'd say that an appreciation of the available libraries
is key - both what's in the stdlib, and what's available from PyPI.
That's not to say you should memorise the standard library, but rather
cultivate an approach of "hmm, I'm pretty sure
On 09/28/2017 07:35 AM, Stefan Ram wrote:
But remember that paid programmers usually do not "code",
in the sense of "write a program from scratch". Most of the
work is maintenance programming, where an important part of
the job is to read and understand a piece of code.
Coding fro
My question has received several helpful responses, thanks!
On 09/28/2017 01:01 PM, Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:
On Wed, 27 Sep 2017 12:41:24 -0400, leam hall
declaimed the following:
"Programmer"... or "Software Engineer"?
I haven't kept up on "job titles" but for my history, "pro
On 2017-09-28, bartc wrote:
> On 28/09/2017 12:31, Steve D'Aprano wrote:
>> Until now, I thought that people who wrote crappy code did so
>> because they didn't know any better. This is the first time
>> I've seen somebody state publicly that they have no interest
>> in writing clean code.
>
> I m
On 28/09/2017 12:31, Steve D'Aprano wrote:
On Thu, 28 Sep 2017 09:12 pm, bartc wrote:
And I have little interest in most of this lot (my eyes glaze over just
reading some of these):
> - how to use operating systems
You've never used a system call? Written to a file? Moved the mouse?
On Wed, 27 Sep 2017 18:18:10 -0700, Larry Hudson wrote:
> On 09/27/2017 09:41 AM, leam hall wrote:
>> On Sat, Sep 23, 2017 at 5:26 PM, Ned Batchelder
>> wrote:
> [snip]
>>
>> The question is, what should a person "know" when hiring out as a
>> programmer? What is 'know" and what should be "known
On 2017-09-28, Dan Sommers wrote:
> If I'm hiring myself out as a plumber, I should know how to unclog
> drains;
OT: I recommend hiring a drain specialist, *not* a plumber for
this particular job. Asking a plumber to clear a drain would be
kinda like hiring a whiz-bang C programmer to configure y
On Thu, 28 Sep 2017 09:12 pm, bartc wrote:
> And I have little interest in most of this lot (my eyes glaze over just
> reading some of these):
>
> > - how to use operating systems
You've never used a system call? Written to a file? Moved the mouse?
> > - how to use an editor well (
On 28/09/2017 03:33, Stefan Ram wrote:
Larry Hudson writes:
Hopefully NOT like this person...
Since I teach nights at a local community college
a programmer who couldn't program
It is not clear what »this person« refers to:
Do you hope one is not like that teacher who
public
On 27 September 2017 at 17:41, leam hall wrote:
> Hehe...I've been trying to figure out how to phrase a question. Knowing I'm
> not the only one who gets frustrated really helps.
>
> I'm trying to learn to be a programmer. I can look at a book and read basic
> code in a few languages but it would
On Wed, 27 Sep 2017 12:41:24 -0400, leam hall wrote:
> The question is, what should a person "know" when hiring out as a
> programmer? What is 'know" and what should be "known"? Specifically
> with Python.
The longer I claim to be a programmer, the more I discover how wide a
net that is. Web sit
On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 11:18 AM, Larry Hudson via Python-list
wrote:
>
> It had turned out his company had paid for him to take the course. Since he
> failed, it suddenly came to the attention of his employer that he didn't
> know how to program, and now his job was in jeopardy. As I hung up the
On 09/27/2017 09:41 AM, leam hall wrote:
On Sat, Sep 23, 2017 at 5:26 PM, Ned Batchelder
wrote:
[snip]
The question is, what should a person "know" when hiring out as a
programmer? What is 'know" and what should be "known"? Specifically with
Python.
Hopefully NOT like this person...
(Sourc
On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 12:41 PM, leam hall wrote:
> The question is, what should a person "know" when hiring out as a
> programmer? What is 'know" and what should be "known"? Specifically with
> Python.
Fake it till you make it!
--
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
On Sat, Sep 23, 2017 at 5:26 PM, Ned Batchelder
wrote:
> On 9/23/17 2:52 PM, Leam Hall wrote:
>
>> On 09/23/2017 02:40 PM, Terry Reedy wrote:
>>
>>> https://nedbatchelder.com//blog/201709/beginners_and_experts.html
>>>
>>> Great post.
>>>
>>
>> Yup. Thanks for the link. I often have that "I bet >
On 9/23/17 2:52 PM, Leam Hall wrote:
On 09/23/2017 02:40 PM, Terry Reedy wrote:
https://nedbatchelder.com//blog/201709/beginners_and_experts.html
Great post.
Yup. Thanks for the link. I often have that "I bet Fred> doesn't get frustrated." thing going. Nice to know Ned bangs his
head now and
On 9/23/2017 2:52 PM, Leam Hall wrote:
On 09/23/2017 02:40 PM, Terry Reedy wrote:
https://nedbatchelder.com//blog/201709/beginners_and_experts.html
Great post.
Yup. Thanks for the link. I often have that "I bet Fred> doesn't get frustrated." thing going. Nice to know Ned bangs his
head now a
On 09/23/2017 02:40 PM, Terry Reedy wrote:
https://nedbatchelder.com//blog/201709/beginners_and_experts.html
Great post.
Yup. Thanks for the link. I often have that "I bet Fred> doesn't get frustrated." thing going. Nice to know Ned bangs his
head now and again. :P
Leam
--
https://mail.p
https://nedbatchelder.com//blog/201709/beginners_and_experts.html
Great post.
--
Terry Jan Reedy
--
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
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