Say it again

Scrapbook: "On Programming"

by Christopher Adams

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There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.

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Systems software was much more interesting. You didn't have to worry about mundane things like applications or payrolls. It was much more _real programming_ to me; you dealt more in the essence of what programming was about. The actual techniques of programming are ore important than the specifics of the job at a specific time.

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Some people, when confronted with a problem, think, "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems.

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When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.

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[Git is] expressly designed to make you feel less intelligent than you thought you were.

Tags: git x | intelligence x | source control x |

The challenge of the experienced developer is to pass on wisdom without passing on dogma, but most developers think their personal experience should be enshrined as a best practice. ... The difference between saying "I used X and it sucked" and "I used X for Y and it didn't work out because of Z" is the difference between becoming experienced and simply growing cynical.

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We have tried to demonstrate by these examples that it is almost always incorrect to begin the decomposition of a system into modules on the basis of a flowchart. We propose instead that one begins with a list of difficult design decisions or design decisions which are likely to change. Each module is then designed to hide such a decision from the others.

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In our business, one in a million is next Tuesday.

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Perl is worse than Python because people wanted it worse.

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There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.

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We’d summarize MySQL’s history this way: it was clearly a disruptive innovation early in its lifecycle, with limited and sometimes second-class functionality, but its features and low price made it a killer application to power the explosion of the Internet.

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Computer science "broke the distinction between numbers that mean things and numbers that do things."

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The world can only really be changed one piece at a time. The art is picking that piece.

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Any design problem can be solved by adding an additional level of indirection, except for too many levels of indirection.

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What it took other people two chips to do, Woz did in one. That was not only fiscally prudent, but a sort of technical machismo reminiscent of the code-bumming of TMRC days, when Samson, Saunders, and Kotok would attempt to whittle a subroutine down to the fewest instructions. Wozniak later explained why the board used so few chips: "I'm into it for esthetic purposes ... If [it's] considered a good job using six instructions, I try it in five or three, or two if I want to win [big]. ... The discoveries did increase my motivation because I would have something to show off and I hoped that other people would see them and say, 'Thank God, that's how I would want to do it,' and that's what I got from the Homebrew Club."

Tags: apple x | homebrew x | wozniak x |

When someone brought a computer to a Homebrew meeting that had video included, he knew that his computer would have to have video built in, too. He liked the idea of a computer you could play a videogame on. ... Wozniak was not thinking of building a computer to sell. He was building a computer to have fun with, to show his friends. He would mention what he was doing to his friend Steve Jobs at Atari, who was interested in terminals.

Tags: apple x | atari x | homebrew x | steve jobs x | wozniak x |

It was the fertile atmosphere of Homebrew that guided Steve Wozniak through the incubation of the Apple II. The exchange of information, the access to esoteric technical hints, the swirling creative energy, and the chance to blow everybody's mind with a well-hacked design or program ... these were the incentives which only increased the intense desire Steve Wozniak already had: to build the kind of computer he wanted to play with. Computing was the boundary of his desires; he was not haunted by visions of riches and fame. ... So he worked on the Apple II, often until 4 A.M.

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I'd give a lot to have Steve's taste.

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There is more to life than increasing its speed.

Tags: depth x | life x | speed x |

NoSQL databases that only have weak consistency are enforcing a broadly applied premature optimization on the entire system.

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Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships.

Tags: algorithms x | data structures x |

Data dominates. If you've chosen the right data structures and organized things well, the algorithms will almost always be self-evident. Data structures, not algorithms, are central to programming.

Tags: algorithms x | data structures x |

Show me your flowcharts and conceal your tables, and I shall continue to be mystified. Show me your tables, and I won't usually need your flowcharts; they'll be obvious.

Tags: data structures x |

There is another lesson here: Giving developers operational responsibilities has greatly enhanced the quality of the services, both from a customer and a technology point of view. The traditional model is that you take your software to the wall that separates development and operations, and throw it over and then forget about it. Not at Amazon. You build it, you run it. This brings developers into contact with the day-to-day operation of their software. It also brings them into day-to-day contact with the customer. This customer feedback loop is essential for improving the quality of the service.

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Nobody wanted to learn how to play, much less build, Engelbart’s Violin, and instead everyone gets a box of broken kazoos.

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Design problems are solved by thinking about context and metaphor. Not by tools.

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We all have "stacks" in our minds when we are solving problems.

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All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection.

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When you completed a systems program, be it a major effort like an assembler or debugger or something quick and (you hoped) elegant, like an interface output multiplexer, you were simultaneously creating a tool, unveiling a creation, and fashioning something to advance the level of your own future hacking. It was a particularly circular process, almost a spiritual one, in which the systems programmer was a habitual user of the system he was improving.

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In general, the ITS system can be said to have been designer implemented and user designed. The problem of unrealistic software design is greatly diminished when the designer is the implementor. The implementor's ease in programming and pride in the result is increased when he, in an essential sense, is the designer. Features are less likely to turn out to be of low utility if users are their designers and less likely to turn out to be difficult to use if their designers are their users.

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Wherever computer centers have become established, that is to say, in countless places in the United States, as well as in virtually all other industrial regions of the world, bright, young men of disheveled appearance, often with sunken glowing eyes, can be seen sitting at computer consoles, their arms tensed and waiting to fire their fingers, already poised to strike, at the buttons and keys on which their attention seems to be as riveted as a gambler’s on the rolling dice. When not so transfixed, they often sit at tables strewn with computer printouts over which they pore like possessed students of a cabalistic text. They work until they nearly drop, twenty, thirty hours at a time. Their food, if they arrange it, is brought to them: coffee, Cokes, sandwiches. If possible, they sleep on cots near the computer. But only for a few hours-then back to the console or the printouts. Their rumpled clothes, their unwashed and unshaven faces, and their uncombed hair all testify that they are oblivious to their bodies and to the world in which they move. They exist, at least when so engaged, only through and for the computers. These are computer bums, compulsive programmers. They are an international phenomenon.

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Even before discovering the TX-0, Deutsch had developed a fascination for computers. It began one day when he picked up a manual that someone had discarded--a manual for an obscure form of computer language for doing calculations. Something about the orderliness of the computer instructions appealed to him: he would later describe the feeling as the same kind of eerily transcendent recognition that an artist experiences when he discovers the medium that is absolutely right for him. _This is where I belong._

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The peak hour itself was tremendously intense, but during the hours before, and even during the hours afterward, a hacker attained a state of pure concentration. When you programmed a computer, you had to be aware of where all the thousands of bits of information were going from one instruction to the next, and be able to predict -- and exploit -- the effect of all that movement. When you had all that information glued to your cerebral being, it was almost as if your own mind had merged into the environment or the computer. Sometimes it took hours to build up to the point where your thoughts could contain that total picture, and when you did get to that point, it was such a shame to waste it that you tried to sustain it by marathon bursts.

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We did it twenty-five to thirty percent for the sake of doing it because it was something we could do and do well, and sixty percent for the sake of having something which was in its metaphorical way alive, our offspring, which would do things on its own when we were finished. That's the great thing about programming, the magical appeal it has ... Once you fix a behavioral problem [a computer or program] has, it's fixed forever, and it is exactly an image of what you meant.

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We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code.

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If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.

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I entered college in 1993 and graduated in 1997. Halfway through, the Internet became a thing. Netscape said: “Here you go, here’s a door to a brand-new place in the existence of the universe. We just started letting people in. Go ahead, it’s fun. It’ll keep getting bigger for the rest of your life. Also, you can change stuff in it. You get to make up new rules for everything - thinking, remembering, communicating."

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When all else fails, read the instructions.

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Error, no keyboard -- press F1 to continue.

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Trying to outsmart a compiler defeats much of the purpose of using one.

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You wanted a banana but what you got was a gorilla holding the banana and the entire jungle.

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Should array indices start at 0 or 1? My compromise of 0.5 was rejected without, I thought, proper consideration.

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In the information age, the barriers just aren’t there. The barriers are self-imposed. If you want to set off and go develop some grand new thing, you don’t need millions of dollars of capitalization. You need enough pizza and Diet Coke to stick in your refrigerator, a cheap PC to work on, and the dedication to go through with it. We slept on floors. We waded across rivers.

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More computing sins are committed in the name of efficiency (without necessarily achieving it) than for any other single reason - including blind stupidity.

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We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time; premature optimization is the root of all evil.

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Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

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