By: Howard Chu (hyc.delete@this.symas.com), February 18, 2008 3:23 pm
Room: Moderated Discussions
nick (no@mail.com) on 2/17/08 wrote:
---------------------------
>Howard Chu (hyc@symas.com) on 2/17/08 wrote:
>---------------------------
>>David Kanter (dkanter@realworldtech.com) on 2/15/08 wrote:
>>---------------------------
>>>Howard Chu (hyc@symas.com) on 2/15/08 wrote:
>>>---------------------------
>
>>>1. You're not an average programmer - average programmers are not as good at optimization and are probably lazier
>>
>>Those folks should find another career then, one where their aptitude will allow
>>them to be excellent instead of just average.
>
>Take that to its logical conclusion, and you eventually will become average and
>have to stop programming. Sometime after that, there will be nobody left. :)
Heh heh. Not quite, but perhaps the original statement was too vague. You can pick some arbitrary set of metrics that can be objectively measured, such as # bugs per # lines of code, or percentage of real flops vs theoretically available flops. You can state "bug percentage of .01% or less is excellent" or "flops efficiency of 80% or more is excellent." If you eliminate all the programmers whose code is not excellent, then the remaining "average" programmer is still excellent. Being an average member of a population is certainly a relative measure that changes with the makeup of the population, but you can establish absolute measures of their products that are fixed regardless of the population. The two are completely separate concepts.
>But seriously, it is quite obvious that there is supply and demand at work, and
>you simply can't just brush that under the carpet without telling us how you plan
>to switch the world to controlled economies.
Funny you should mention that. I was thinking a good way to start would be to outlaw marketing.
There certainly is supply and demand at work, but it is being heavily manipulated by marketing which mostly consists of outright lies. In a free market with accurate information, the demand for junk products would dry up. There are already people objecting to the proliferation of bloatware - it's human nature to want good stuff and avoid bad stuff. In a networked world with ubiquitous, instantaneous access to information, it's *possible* to have an educated market that consistently avoids the junk. We're not there yet because we don't have review sites that are free from the financial influence of their product suppliers, and we don't have consumers that are universally informed enough to know to look before they buy. Education is a partial solution here too.
>So given that we actually have a lot of crappy programs and not-so-good programmers
>around, what this actually means is that software is so important to people that
>they are willing to pay for a poor product. Pricing them out of the market by reducing
>the number of programmers will not help them. What will help them is increasing
>the quality and productivity of the supply of programmers.
>Education is definitely one way to go. It is by no means the most cost effective
>or the only way to go. So increasing the quality and/or quantity of the poor and
>average programmers output (by means other than education) definitely has value.
Increasing the quality, ok. Making life easier for lazy programmers, I'd rather not. Those guys can go be lazy in somebody else's industry, or find work that they enjoy so much that they're always motivated to go do it.
Education may not seem cost-effective in the short term, but short term perspectives aren't ever going to solve anything.
---------------------------
>Howard Chu (hyc@symas.com) on 2/17/08 wrote:
>---------------------------
>>David Kanter (dkanter@realworldtech.com) on 2/15/08 wrote:
>>---------------------------
>>>Howard Chu (hyc@symas.com) on 2/15/08 wrote:
>>>---------------------------
>
>>>1. You're not an average programmer - average programmers are not as good at optimization and are probably lazier
>>
>>Those folks should find another career then, one where their aptitude will allow
>>them to be excellent instead of just average.
>
>Take that to its logical conclusion, and you eventually will become average and
>have to stop programming. Sometime after that, there will be nobody left. :)
Heh heh. Not quite, but perhaps the original statement was too vague. You can pick some arbitrary set of metrics that can be objectively measured, such as # bugs per # lines of code, or percentage of real flops vs theoretically available flops. You can state "bug percentage of .01% or less is excellent" or "flops efficiency of 80% or more is excellent." If you eliminate all the programmers whose code is not excellent, then the remaining "average" programmer is still excellent. Being an average member of a population is certainly a relative measure that changes with the makeup of the population, but you can establish absolute measures of their products that are fixed regardless of the population. The two are completely separate concepts.
>But seriously, it is quite obvious that there is supply and demand at work, and
>you simply can't just brush that under the carpet without telling us how you plan
>to switch the world to controlled economies.
Funny you should mention that. I was thinking a good way to start would be to outlaw marketing.
There certainly is supply and demand at work, but it is being heavily manipulated by marketing which mostly consists of outright lies. In a free market with accurate information, the demand for junk products would dry up. There are already people objecting to the proliferation of bloatware - it's human nature to want good stuff and avoid bad stuff. In a networked world with ubiquitous, instantaneous access to information, it's *possible* to have an educated market that consistently avoids the junk. We're not there yet because we don't have review sites that are free from the financial influence of their product suppliers, and we don't have consumers that are universally informed enough to know to look before they buy. Education is a partial solution here too.
>So given that we actually have a lot of crappy programs and not-so-good programmers
>around, what this actually means is that software is so important to people that
>they are willing to pay for a poor product. Pricing them out of the market by reducing
>the number of programmers will not help them. What will help them is increasing
>the quality and productivity of the supply of programmers.
>Education is definitely one way to go. It is by no means the most cost effective
>or the only way to go. So increasing the quality and/or quantity of the poor and
>average programmers output (by means other than education) definitely has value.
Increasing the quality, ok. Making life easier for lazy programmers, I'd rather not. Those guys can go be lazy in somebody else's industry, or find work that they enjoy so much that they're always motivated to go do it.
Education may not seem cost-effective in the short term, but short term perspectives aren't ever going to solve anything.
Topic | Posted By | Date |
---|---|---|
Multicore is unlikely to be the ideal answer. | Anders Jensen | 2008/02/14 03:24 AM |
And the links.. | Anders Jensen | 2008/02/14 03:25 AM |
Disappointing.. | Linus Torvalds | 2008/02/14 09:17 AM |
Disappointing.. | Mark Roulo | 2008/02/14 10:03 AM |
LOL (NT) | Linus Torvalds | 2008/02/14 04:43 PM |
Disappointing.. | David Patterson | 2008/02/15 10:53 AM |
Disappointing.. | Linus Torvalds | 2008/02/15 04:01 PM |
Disappointing.. | anon | 2008/02/15 07:54 PM |
Disappointing.. | JasonB | 2008/02/19 06:45 PM |
Disappointing.. | Ilya Lipovsky | 2008/02/22 05:27 PM |
Disappointing.. | Scott Bolt | 2008/03/16 10:36 AM |
Need for new programming languages | Vincent Diepeveen | 2008/02/19 05:18 AM |
Need for new programming languages | Pete Wilson | 2008/02/24 10:41 AM |
Disappointing.. | Zan | 2008/02/25 09:52 PM |
Disappointing.. | Robert Myers | 2008/02/19 08:47 PM |
Disappointing.. | Fred Bosick | 2008/02/22 05:38 PM |
Disappointing.. | Robert Myers | 2008/03/01 12:17 PM |
The limits of single CPU speed are here. | John Nagle | 2008/03/14 09:55 AM |
The limits of single CPU speed are here. | Howard Chu | 2008/03/15 12:02 AM |
The limits of single CPU speed are here. | slacker | 2008/03/15 07:08 AM |
The limits of single CPU speed are here. | Howard Chu | 2008/03/17 12:47 AM |
The limits of single CPU speed are here. | slacker | 2008/03/17 09:04 AM |
And the links.. | Howard Chu | 2008/02/14 11:58 AM |
I take some of that back | Howard Chu | 2008/02/14 12:55 PM |
And the links.. | Jesper Frimann | 2008/02/14 01:02 PM |
And the links.. | Ilya Lipovsky | 2008/02/15 01:24 PM |
And the links.. | iz | 2008/02/17 09:55 AM |
And the links.. | JasonB | 2008/02/17 06:09 PM |
And the links.. | Ilya Lipovsky | 2008/02/18 12:54 PM |
And the links.. | JasonB | 2008/02/18 09:34 PM |
And the links.. | Thiago Kurovski | 2008/02/19 06:01 PM |
And the links.. | iz | 2008/02/20 09:36 AM |
And the links.. | Ilya Lipovsky | 2008/02/20 02:37 PM |
And the links.. | JasonB | 2008/02/20 05:28 PM |
And the links.. | JasonB | 2008/02/17 05:47 PM |
And the links.. | Ilya Lipovsky | 2008/02/18 01:27 PM |
And the links.. | JasonB | 2008/02/18 09:00 PM |
And the links.. | JasonB | 2008/02/19 02:14 AM |
And the links.. | Ilya Lipovsky | 2008/02/20 03:29 PM |
And the links.. | JasonB | 2008/02/20 05:14 PM |
And the links.. | Ilya Lipovsky | 2008/02/21 10:07 AM |
And the links.. | Howard Chu | 2008/02/14 12:16 PM |
And the links.. | Jukka Larja | 2008/02/15 02:00 AM |
Berkeley View on Parallelism | David Kanter | 2008/02/15 10:41 AM |
Berkeley View on Parallelism | Howard Chu | 2008/02/15 11:49 AM |
Berkeley View on Parallelism | David Kanter | 2008/02/15 02:48 PM |
Berkeley View on Parallelism | Howard Chu | 2008/02/17 04:42 PM |
Berkeley View on Parallelism | nick | 2008/02/17 08:15 PM |
Berkeley View on Parallelism | Howard Chu | 2008/02/18 03:23 PM |
Berkeley View on Parallelism | nick | 2008/02/18 09:03 PM |
Berkeley View on Parallelism | Howard Chu | 2008/02/19 12:39 AM |
Berkeley View on Parallelism | rcf | 2008/02/19 11:44 AM |
Berkeley View on Parallelism | Howard Chu | 2008/02/19 02:25 PM |
Average programmers | anon | 2008/02/18 11:40 AM |
Berkeley View on Parallelism | JasonB | 2008/02/15 07:02 PM |
Berkeley View on Parallelism | JasonB | 2008/02/15 07:02 PM |
Berkeley View on Parallelism | Dean Kent | 2008/02/15 07:07 PM |
Berkeley View on Parallelism | Ray | 2008/02/20 02:20 PM |
Berkeley View on Parallelism | JasonB | 2008/02/20 05:11 PM |
Berkeley View on Parallelism | FritzR | 2008/02/24 02:08 PM |
rubyinline, etc. | nordsieck | 2008/02/22 02:38 PM |
rubyinline, etc. | JasonB | 2008/02/23 04:53 AM |
rubyinline, etc. | nordsieck | 2008/03/02 12:40 AM |
rubyinline, etc. | Michael S | 2008/03/02 01:49 AM |
rubyinline, etc. | Dean Kent | 2008/03/02 06:41 AM |
rubyinline, etc. | Michael S | 2008/03/02 07:19 AM |
rubyinline, etc. | Dean Kent | 2008/03/02 07:30 AM |
rubyinline, etc. | JasonB | 2008/03/02 04:26 PM |
rubyinline, etc. | JasonB | 2008/03/02 05:01 PM |
rubyinline, etc. | Anonymous | 2008/03/03 01:11 AM |
rubyinline, etc. | JasonB | 2008/03/03 08:40 AM |
rubyinline, etc. | Foo_ | 2008/03/09 08:59 AM |
rubyinline, etc. | JasonB | 2008/03/10 12:12 AM |
rubyinline, etc. | Gabriele Svelto | 2008/03/10 01:22 AM |
rubyinline, etc. | JasonB | 2008/03/10 03:35 AM |
C++ for beginners | Michael S | 2008/03/10 04:16 AM |
C++ for beginners | JasonB | 2008/03/10 05:35 AM |
C++ | Michael S | 2008/03/10 03:55 AM |
rubyinline, etc. | Linus Torvalds | 2008/03/03 10:35 AM |
rubyinline, etc. | Dean Kent | 2008/03/03 01:35 PM |
rubyinline, etc. | JasonB | 2008/03/03 02:57 PM |
rubyinline, etc. | Dean Kent | 2008/03/03 07:10 PM |
rubyinline, etc. | Michael S | 2008/03/04 12:53 AM |
rubyinline, etc. | Dean Kent | 2008/03/04 06:51 AM |
rubyinline, etc. | Michael S | 2008/03/04 07:29 AM |
rubyinline, etc. | Dean Kent | 2008/03/04 07:53 AM |
rubyinline, etc. | Michael S | 2008/03/04 10:20 AM |
rubyinline, etc. | Dean Kent | 2008/03/04 01:13 PM |
read it. thanks (NT) | Michael S | 2008/03/04 03:31 PM |
efficient HLL's | Patrik Hägglund | 2008/03/04 02:34 PM |
efficient HLL's | Wes Felter | 2008/03/04 08:33 PM |
efficient HLL's | Patrik Hägglund | 2008/03/05 12:23 AM |
efficient HLL's | Michael S | 2008/03/05 01:45 AM |
efficient HLL's | Wilco | 2008/03/05 04:34 PM |
efficient HLL's | Howard Chu | 2008/03/05 06:11 PM |
efficient HLL's | Wilco | 2008/03/06 01:27 PM |
efficient HLL's | anon | 2008/03/05 07:20 AM |
And the links.. | Groo | 2008/02/17 03:28 PM |
And the links.. | Vincent Diepeveen | 2008/02/18 01:33 AM |