[HN Gopher] Programmer in Wonderland
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       Programmer in Wonderland
        
       Author : BinaryIgor
       Score  : 18 points
       Date   : 2025-10-09 15:56 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
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       | mfro wrote:
       | I think this correlates more to individual culture and interest
       | in general computing than anything else. As you said yourself,
       | the 'lost programmer' isn't curious, isn't interested in the
       | details. They are interested in getting their specific tasks done
       | and collecting a paycheck. Many may have ended up in a field they
       | are not excited about. That's not something you can fix.
       | 
       | As an aside, it will only get worse as the technical
       | implementations get easier. Probably a lot of AI generated SQL
       | queries being put into prod nowadays.
        
         | BinaryIgor wrote:
         | True; but I would argue that even if you don't care that much,
         | when things don't work as expected - you pretty much always
         | need to understand your tools and/or the layers of abstractions
         | that are below. If you don't, not only you're going to feel
         | _lost_ , but you will not be able to solve certain set of
         | problems
        
       | djoldman wrote:
       | Similar to Chesterton's Fence.
       | 
       | We should probably learn CS from the least abstraction to the
       | highest.
       | 
       | So that when the abstraction breaks, we know where to look to
       | understand why.
        
         | BinaryIgor wrote:
         | Exactly; but, if you started from higher levels, it's never too
         | late to go lower, step by step. I did exactly that and I
         | highly, highly recommend doing it
        
           | MarsIronPI wrote:
           | On the other hand, if you have a 10-year-old who expresses
           | interest in "computers", you probably don't want to teach him
           | conditionals by showing him conditional jump instructions in
           | x86 assembler. Maybe teach him BASIC instead of the latest
           | trend in Javascript, but I think he would not be too
           | comfortable or happy with assembler.
        
       | bashmelek wrote:
       | I do often feel like a Lost Programmer.
       | 
       | C# is my Blub. I use Visual Studio (and not Visual Studio Code).
       | I also use some T-SQL and JavaScript, and sometimes C++ on the
       | weekends. In all of these, my understanding is still rather
       | shallow. And for my day job, and most of my hobbies, it works.
       | 
       | But there is a definite next level I haven't pierced, the level
       | of "real programmers". I want to understand the code I see on
       | GitHub, even contribute. I want to be capable of more. But it is
       | hard when I can't even tell what I'm seeing, when I'm just trying
       | to Make It.
        
         | BinaryIgor wrote:
         | Keep the curiousity up and learn your _Fundamentals_ - things
         | that do not change that often and on which most of our tools
         | and frameworks are built. Dive deep into OSes, networks - build
         | your own TCP and /or HTTP server, assembly and the machine code
         | - how the CPU and memory works? As well as some algos and data
         | structures for sure. These few things cover most of it ;)
        
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