Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

On Fri, 29 Sep 2017 08:34 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 >>

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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.

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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,

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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 >>

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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?

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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"

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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! --

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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

Re: Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

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 --

Beginners and experts (Batchelder blog post)

https://nedbatchelder.com//blog/201709/beginners_and_experts.html Great post. -- Terry Jan Reedy -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list