• ulterno@lemmy.kde.socialBanned
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      31
      ·
      2 years ago

      It’s kinda fun to think of programming as magic.
      And “libraries” as grimoires/tomes .

      It’s surprising how far you can go with the analogy.

    • jarfil@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      Some time ago:

      • Me: “Programming is fun, but user interfaces are a PITA”
      • CS student: “What!? The algorithms I’m given to solve are really complicated!”
      • After a year on a job: “I hate testing user interfaces…”

      Some other day:

      • Me: “Programming is mostly copy&paste”
      • Engineering student: “What!? We have to come up with a new solution for every problem!”
      • After a year on a job: “I don’t program anymore, just copy&paste…”

      Told ya.

        • jarfil@beehaw.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          2 years ago

          No matter what you work on, programming is one of:

          • Check the documentation for a library, copy&paste the interface call, fill in the blanks.
          • Pick the best algorithm for the case at hand, copy&paste, change a few variable names.
          • Get out your snippets archive, copy&paste the one you need.
          • Write some boilerplate, copy&paste over and over, then fill in the blanks.
          • Look up how someone else solved your problem, replicate it in a way that doesn’t look like copy&paste.
          • Once in a blue moon, come up against an actually novel problem, spend some days figuring out the best way to solve it… then copy&paste the solution back into the project.

          Doesn’t matter what you’re working on, in the end it’s mostly copy&paste 😂

          • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.gg
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            2 years ago

            I work on compilers (we can’t/don’t even have access to the C++ standard library in my case)… Most of the time, Google can’t help me ⚰️😅

            It was definitely a bit more copy and paste when I was working on web applications… But even then, most of the code I was writing was fairly novel / more application and database architecture problems than trying tying libraries together.