Very interesting perspective, thank you for sharing that!
artisans working at their craft – and i think it lays bare their background and how they see the world and themselves in it.
I don’t think it has anything to do with how I see the world and myself in it, in my case specifically. When I say coding is a craft, I base it solely on the fact that problem solving using code can happen in so many different ways, and there will be almost as many code styles and problem solving styles as there are coders.
I’ve seen it when reviewing as many other people’s code as I have. I have reviewed what must be thousands of student coding assignments over the decade or so I was in academia, and for each assignment, there was almost no hand-in that was the same, despite the sometimes extremely narrow problem scope. Were they identical, they were usually suspected of cheating or collaborating too closely, and when confronted, usually admitted as much.
And in my soon-to-be decade in the private sector I’ve seen so many styles as well, even with coding style guides in place. And not just style discrepancies, but just thinking about problems, and different ways of solving them. None necessarily worse than the other (although mine is surely the best out of all the equal ones).
This is what I mean when I say it’s a craft. 🙂 Everyone has they way. It’s much like molding a sculpture, while it simultaneously also can be viewed simply as a tool for solving a problem, by the sole, isolated programmer.
Very interesting perspective, thank you for sharing that!
I don’t think it has anything to do with how I see the world and myself in it, in my case specifically. When I say coding is a craft, I base it solely on the fact that problem solving using code can happen in so many different ways, and there will be almost as many code styles and problem solving styles as there are coders.
I’ve seen it when reviewing as many other people’s code as I have. I have reviewed what must be thousands of student coding assignments over the decade or so I was in academia, and for each assignment, there was almost no hand-in that was the same, despite the sometimes extremely narrow problem scope. Were they identical, they were usually suspected of cheating or collaborating too closely, and when confronted, usually admitted as much.
And in my soon-to-be decade in the private sector I’ve seen so many styles as well, even with coding style guides in place. And not just style discrepancies, but just thinking about problems, and different ways of solving them. None necessarily worse than the other (although mine is surely the best out of all the equal ones).
This is what I mean when I say it’s a craft. 🙂 Everyone has they way. It’s much like molding a sculpture, while it simultaneously also can be viewed simply as a tool for solving a problem, by the sole, isolated programmer.