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Whatever Happened To Programming?

Mirk writes "In a recent interview, Don Knuth wrote: 'The way a lot of programming goes today isn't any fun because it's just plugging in magic incantations — combine somebody else's software and start it up.' The Reinvigorated Programmer laments how much of our 'programming' time is spent pasting not-quite-compatible libraries together and patching around the edges." This 3-day-old article has sparked lively discussions at Reddit and at Hacker News, and the author has responded with a followup and summation.

4 of 623 comments (clear)

  1. Lack of imagination? That's your problem! by Hurricane78 · · Score: 0, Troll

    He seems to bitch about not being able to write something fundamentally new... but ignores that you have to think of actually inventing something new beforehand. Maybe he is more of an engineer, and less of an inventor/scientist. (Two types that complement and need each other.)

    I don't do much library gluing, since I chose to concentrate on inventing new things. Revolutionary things.
    It’s just a choice. Nothing is stopping him from doing the same.
    But I don’t even consider the gluing bad. Actually it only shows how far we have come, when we have nearly perfect standard libraries for everything and its dog. Generalizing algorithms and making things reusable are corner stones of programming. And they are great ones!

    If you want to code something new, you need to come up with something revolutionary.

    So: Mr Knuth: How about we team up: I deliver new ideas that nobody came up with yet, and you get something to code that nobody ever coded before. How about that? I bet we would make a great team! ^^

    --
    Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
  2. Re:Crappy frameworks, tools and web standards by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1, Troll

    Second, Access is not a web platform (such as using HTTP as a GUI primitive control transport). And third, SharePoint only has rudimentary CRUD ability (although is likely to improve, but in a proprietary way).

    Access 2010 lets you design applications as usual, and "publish" them to SharePoint as web apps. There are some limitations there, of course, but not as many as one may think (and it's definitely above what SP offers out of the box).

  3. Re:As a writer of crappy code.. by TapeCutter · · Score: 0, Troll

    "Or perhaps it would be just a different kind of crap?"

    Yep. Source code is like shit, you can't smell your own but if it comes out of someone else then it stinks.

    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  4. Nazi fascist by C_Kode · · Score: 0, Troll

    Cablevision is a bunch of Nazi fascist. FiOS and the like isn't even an option in my area and they know this so if I can and threaten they pretty much just laugh in my face. Cablevision is my ONLY option unless I want something really horrible.

    James Dolan should be deported from the US for being an fucking asshole. The Knicks would probably actually become a winning franchise again. How embarrassing was the Knicks losing to the Nets last night. The Nets were 6-55 before beating the Knicks.

    Good job Dolan!