Computer Programming Notes

From Iowa:

While suffering through confabulating a interactive webpage...a neuron clicked, causing me to wonder about "Apologists" in the context of popular Computer operating systems. I am increasing upset with my "not getting" the unifying theorem of computing.

Google
"Microsoft apologists" ~5,000 hits
vs.
"Linux apologist" ~300

This link made sense (though not populist and not very satisfying.)

As I reach for more programming features, the programming environment gets more complicated.

The smart "confusitoids" provide what is immediately demanded, but in the rush to provide, they leave these solution s cloaked in the labyrinth of abstraction.

i.e. The programming environment is getting more complex and more difficult.

From Chicago:

It's MY impression that 95% of developers do nothing at all except sit at a desk and play games or watch youtube. Very few of them actually do anything close to 'development', unless you call changing colors for highlight text on style sheets "development".

I read somewhere that only 5% or so of people who call themselves programmers can actually write code. I have seen some evidence of this. But there is another, possibly larger, part to computer systems besides writing code, and that is keeping the systems running. Things are always changing and even the stablest system is going to suffer from a glitch occasionally. When that happens you need someone around who can fix it. In order to be able to fix it, you need someone who understands how it works. I suspect that is why a lot of programmers are employed. Not to do any actual work, but just to be there to fix things in case something goes wrong. Of course business managers hate to have people just hanging around doing nothing, so we have lot's of pretend work going on. The managers would love to fire the programmers except that they know they are totally dependent on them to keep their business operation running.