Difference between pages "Fun in coding" and "If life was one day"

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(Created page with "{{pubdate|16|May|2020}} This article really was grinding my gears today. Coding is not fun, it claims, and everyone who says otherwise is lying for evil reasons, like luring...")
 
(Created page with "{{pubdate|23|April|2020}} If the evolution of animals was one day... (600 million years) * From 1am to 4am, most of the modern types of animals have evolved (Cambrian explosi...")
 
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This article really was grinding my gears today. Coding is not fun, it claims, and everyone who says otherwise is lying for evil reasons, like luring more people into programming.
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If the evolution of animals was one day... (600 million years)
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* From 1am to 4am, most of the modern types of animals have evolved (Cambrian explosion)
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* Animals get on land a bit at 3am. Early risers! It takes them until 7am to actually breath air.
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* Around noon, first octopuses show up.
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* Dinosaurs arrive at 3pm, and stick around until quarter to ten.
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* Humans and chimpanzees split off about fifteen minutes ago, modern humans and Neanderthals lived in the last minute, and the pyramids were built around 23:59:59.2.
  
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Programming requires almost superhuman capabilities, it says. And other jobs who do that, such as brain surgery, would never be described as fun, so it is wrong to talk like this about coding.
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In that world, if that was a Sunday:
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* Saturday would have started with the introduction of sexual reproduction
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* Friday would have started by introducing the nucleus to the cell
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* Thursday recovering from Wednesday's catastrophe
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* Wednesday photosynthesis started, and lead to a lot of oxygen which killed a lot of beings just before midnight
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* Tuesday bacteria show up
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* Monday first forms of life show up
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* Sunday morning, planet Earth forms, pretty much at the same time as the Sun.
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* Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is about a week older
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* The Universe is about another week older - about 22 days.
  
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That is all nonsense. The article not only misses the point, but it denies many people their experience. What's the goal? Tell those "pretty uncommon" people that they are not only different than other people, but that their experience is plain wrong, that when they say they are having fun doing this, they are lying to others, to the normal people, for nefarious reasons? To "lure people to the field" to "keep wages under control"?
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There are several things that surprised me here.
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* That dinosaurs were around for such an incredibly long time. Dinosaurs were around for seven hours, and humans for a minute.
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* That life started so quickly after Earth was formed, but then took so long to get to animals.
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* That the Earth and the Sun started basically at the same time.
  
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I feel offended by this article.
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There are many highly complex jobs that some people have fun doing some of the time. Think of writing a novel. Painting. Playing music. Cooking. Raising a child. Teaching. And many more.
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Addendum April 27: Álvaro Ortiz, a graphic designer from Madrid, [https://populate.tools/blog/if-life-was-one-day turned this text into an infographic].
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To put it straight: coding can be fun. I have enjoyed hours and days of coding since I was a kid. I will not allow anyone to deny me that experience I had, and I was not a kid with nefarious plans like getting others into coding to make tech billionaires even richer. And many people I know have expressed fun with coding.
 
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Also: coding does not *have* to be fun. Coding can be terribly boring, or difficult, or frustrating, or tedious, or bordering on painful. And there are people who never have fun coding, and yet are excellent coders. Or good enough to get paid and have an income. There are coders who code to pay for their rent and bills. There is nothing wrong with that either. It is a decent job. And many people I know have expressed not having fun with coding.
 
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Having fun coding doesn't mean you are a good coder. Not having fun coding doesn't mean you are not a good coder. Being a good coder doesn't mean you have to have fun doing it. Being a bad coder doesn't mean you won't have fun doing it. It's the same for singing, dancing, writing, playing the trombone.
 
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Also, professional coding today is rarely the kind of activity portrayed in this article, a solitary activity where you type code in green letters into a monotype font on black background, without having to answer to anyone, your code not being reviewed and scrutinized before it goes into production. For decades, coding has been a highly social activity, that requires negotiation and discussion and social skills. I don't know if I know many senior coders who spend the majority of their work time actually coding. And it's in that level of activity where ethical decisions are made. Ethical decisions are rarely happening at the moment the coder writes an if statement, or declares a variable. These decisions are made long in advance, documented in design docs and task descriptions, reviewed by a group of people.
 
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So this article, although it has its heart in the right position, trying to point out that coding, like any engineering, also has many relevant ethical questions, goes about it entirely wrongly, and manages to offend me, and probably a lot of other people.
 
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Sorry for my Saturday morning rant.
 
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* [https://aeon.co/ideas/coding-is-not-fun-it-s-technically-and-ethically-complex Walter Vannini: Coding is not fun]
 
  
 
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Latest revision as of 16:28, 15 November 2020

23 April 2020

If the evolution of animals was one day... (600 million years)

  • From 1am to 4am, most of the modern types of animals have evolved (Cambrian explosion)
  • Animals get on land a bit at 3am. Early risers! It takes them until 7am to actually breath air.
  • Around noon, first octopuses show up.
  • Dinosaurs arrive at 3pm, and stick around until quarter to ten.
  • Humans and chimpanzees split off about fifteen minutes ago, modern humans and Neanderthals lived in the last minute, and the pyramids were built around 23:59:59.2.

In that world, if that was a Sunday:

  • Saturday would have started with the introduction of sexual reproduction
  • Friday would have started by introducing the nucleus to the cell
  • Thursday recovering from Wednesday's catastrophe
  • Wednesday photosynthesis started, and lead to a lot of oxygen which killed a lot of beings just before midnight
  • Tuesday bacteria show up
  • Monday first forms of life show up
  • Sunday morning, planet Earth forms, pretty much at the same time as the Sun.
  • Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is about a week older
  • The Universe is about another week older - about 22 days.

There are several things that surprised me here.

  • That dinosaurs were around for such an incredibly long time. Dinosaurs were around for seven hours, and humans for a minute.
  • That life started so quickly after Earth was formed, but then took so long to get to animals.
  • That the Earth and the Sun started basically at the same time.

Addendum April 27: Álvaro Ortiz, a graphic designer from Madrid, turned this text into an infographic.

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About
Simia +
Author
Denny +
Calendar month
May +
Day
16 +
Language
English +
Month
May 2020 +
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May 16, 2020 +
Publisher
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Year
2020 +
Yearnumber
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