[HN Gopher] What *is* code? (2015)
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What *is* code? (2015)
Author : bblcla
Score : 102 points
Date : 2026-01-01 22:08 UTC (6 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| dang wrote:
| Related. Others?
|
| _What Is Code? (2015)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33331697 - Oct 2022 (50
| comments)
|
| _What is code_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17259483 -
| June 2018 (36 comments)
|
| _What Is Code?_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9698870 -
| June 2015 (356 comments)
| kuharich wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9699945
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! That one had only one comment (a good one though -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9700322) so I merged it
| into https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9698870. (and yes,
| updated the comment count above)
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| A Paul Ford masterpiece. I loved this so much when it came out, I
| split the article into a bunch of tweets and had a bot repost
| them every hour. rip, https://twitter.com/whatiscode
| jurgenaut23 wrote:
| Wow. The guy can write, that's for sure!
|
| And what a refreshment from f*king AI slop that you find
| everywhere these days.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| You can say fucking here, one, we're all adults, two, there's
| no algorithms on HN penalising you (and if they were they'd
| penalise you anyway because it's not 1995 anymore), and three,
| it's almost insulting to believe replacing a letter with a star
| will make a word unrecognisable.
|
| That said, this is why I like HN or any other kind of curated
| website, the voting systems and comments and the like will
| (hopefully) make sure low-effort writing will be filtered out.
| immibis wrote:
| There are algorithms at play across HN. There are more types
| of algorithms than ones that penalize comments with swear
| words in them.
|
| Some HN algorithms are run by HN servers, some are run by HN
| moderators, and some are run by third parties.
| iqp wrote:
| Beautifully written, a joy to read but, sadly, it feels like
| something from a bygone era. Nobody chants "Developers!
| Developers! Developers!" anymore now that everything is dominated
| by AI, and the joy of coding is gone too. People like Steve
| Yegge, who I used to aspire to be like back in 2006, when I
| started my career as a developer, now writes about how he uses
| 10+ concurrent LLM agents to code, review, and ship & doesn't
| even bother to even look at the code being produced anymore. Just
| today, I implemented 2 features using Cursor & GPT-5.1 Codex-Max
| & I didn't have to write a single line of code myself. But it
| felt _wrong_. It makes me think, "What am I even doing here -
| Why not just let the product manager prompt the LLM?".
| nemosaltat wrote:
| Same, I got so much fomo from reading the gas town post I think
| you're alluding too. Someone else can link it but it's not
| "worth the read" in the way _this_ was communicates so many
| ideas and captures /distills the zeitgeist of that time.
|
| I guess the gas town one _does_ capture our moment, but
| embracing YOLO spaghetti-o with reckless abandon, is a)
| depressing, even though I also feel like a middling programmer
| and b) actually seems to be dazzling these newer beleaguered
| bureaucrats precisely because they think they could just talk
| to the LLM instead of TMitTB.
|
| Anyway, if that post and its ilk leave a bad taste, this was
| mouthwash for me. Lucky 10,000 I know, but I had never seen
| this (or felt so seen, as they say). I had to go check that he
| wasn't wrong about PHP being Personal Home Page. I somehow
| never picked up that the recursive naming thing is a
| backcroynm.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > It makes me think, "What am I even doing here - Why not just
| let the product manager prompt the LLM?".
|
| It feels different if you replace "LLM" with "outsourcing".
| Thing is, instructing a team of software engineers what you
| want is a lot more work (they need a lot more handholding), a
| lot more expensive, and a lot slower. But I'd argue that the
| work is the same - writing specifications, adjusting
| accordingly. Minus the human factor.
|
| LLM coding agents won't kill software development as a job, but
| it will affect outsourcing and agencies as an industry. Of
| course, outsourcing companies will / are using it too.
| bossyTeacher wrote:
| >LLM coding agents won't kill software development as a job
|
| They won't same as the industrial revolution didn't kill
| farming as a job but it sure did ate up most of the farming
| roles. Most of the people you have ever met are people who
| would have been farmers had they been born before the
| revolution. Developers without much leverage, underpaid,
| overworked and competing with hundreds of experienced devs
| for a single role is likely to be the eventual future of most
| software development thus gradually becoming similar to other
| stem roles in terms of pay, competition and negotiation
| power.
| wiseowise wrote:
| The difference is that before nobody forced you to be the
| manager of outsourced team, either you're fired or you're
| still working with code. Now you'll be expected to generate
| everything and oversee 10 agents.
| christoph-heiss wrote:
| Why are you using LLMs then, if you enjoy the actual process of
| thinking about a problem and solving it by writing code?
|
| It's definitely a more enjoyable world this way.
| tjr wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46424585
| christoph-heiss wrote:
| Fortunately, at least in Europe, there are definitely
| companies still around who either don't force the usage of
| slop machines or even have a culture of rejecting them
| completely (yes, that's a thing, and I'm glad to be working
| at such a company).
|
| So no, this isn't universally true.
| wiseowise wrote:
| It's because you're working in a retirement home (I do
| too), Europe lags a couple of years before US. Give it
| time.
| shawnz wrote:
| I used to think this, until I tried it. Now I see that it
| effectively removes all the tedium while still letting you
| have whatever level of creative control you want over the
| output.
|
| Just imagine that instead of having to work off of an
| amorphous draft in your head, it really creates the draft
| right in front of you in actual code. You can still shape and
| craft and refine it just the same, but now you have tons more
| working memory free to use for the actually meaningful parts
| of the problem.
|
| And, you're way less burdened by analysis paralysis. Instead
| of running in circles thinking about how you want to
| implement something, you can just try it both ways. There's
| no sunk cost of picking the wrong approach because it's
| practically instantaneous.
| layer8 wrote:
| I'm getting the impression that developers vary
| substantially in what they consider tedium, or meaningful.
| shawnz wrote:
| Sure, and that goes even for myself. Like for example, on
| some projects maybe I'll be more interested in exploring
| a particular architectural choice than actually focusing
| on the details of the feature. It ultimately doesn't
| matter, the point is that you can choose where to spend
| your attention, instead of being forced to always go
| through all the motions even for things that are just
| irrelevant boilerplate
| Groxx wrote:
| Shockingly, software developers are people, and are as
| varied as people are elsewhere. Particularly since it
| became (relatively) mainstream.
| danieltanfh95 wrote:
| Why not just let the product manager use some no-code tool?
|
| I think software engineers are having an identity disconnect
| from their roles as engineers vs coders. Engineering is about
| solving problems via tools and knowledge through constraints.
| An engineer is not diminished by having other engineers or
| better tooling as assistants. If you are having problems
| understanding your role in the problem, frankly you need to
| review your skillset and adjust.
| vacuity wrote:
| You are correct in the abstract, but concretely I contest how
| useful LLMs are for producing software. I don't doubt their
| usefulness in prototyping or, say, writing web apps, but I
| truly do not think they are revolutionary for me, or for
| software development as a whole.
| olowe wrote:
| I was lost, literally, hitchhiking across the Australian outback
| when this article was published. Going home felt scary because I
| was afraid to be alone with no one else sharing my interests.
| Travelling made life enjoyable again because just surviving felt
| like an achievement. But I felt so, so isolated (again,
| literally!) from modern society. I wanted to find out why I was
| so deeply interested in computers but not in "tech". They must
| work somehow... why did my iPhone (sold that) feel similar to my
| PC (sold that too) but only one is called a computer? This
| article framed things in a way that shook me out of a physically
| dangerous, homeless, jobless rut. It was all code. And I could
| learn it if I had the time.
|
| Perhaps it was the way it was written; I couldn't believe
| intrigue and passion of computing could be weaved together like
| this. But there it was.
|
| I did make it home eventually. Fortunately the first 2000km lift
| back from western Australia to the eastern states with a crystal
| meth addict on the run from the police didn't end violently. A
| few weeks back in Sydney with family some Linux nerds found me
| working as a receptionist answering phones and scanning paper
| records in at a failing medical practice. They got me doing
| desktop Windows and Linux server support. I'm an official
| software engineer now. I guess I should print this article out to
| show to my kids!
| adityaathalye wrote:
| This story is "best comments" material. It would be even if it
| were a fabulist tale. Thanks for sharing!
| olowe wrote:
| Haha thanks for saying that. It's real! It's relatively easy
| to get into the middle of nowhere in Australia after all ;)
| Actually still haven't published my journal scribblings on my
| blog 10 years on..
| bossyTeacher wrote:
| >some Linux nerds found me working as a receptionist answering
| phones and scanning paper records in at a failing medical
| practice. They got me doing desktop Windows and Linux server
| support. I'm an official software engineer now
|
| There is a gap between receptionist and official software
| engineer. Please, give us more details about your journey and
| what happened in between
| wavemode wrote:
| > There is a gap between receptionist and official software
| engineer.
|
| At many companies (especially old, stodgy companies) this gap
| is artificial. The day you get asked "hey, I've got some data
| .... and I need ..." and you successfully solve the person's
| problem, is the day you become the office's live-in software
| engineer. That person you helped will be back, and they will
| bring friends.
|
| The rest after that is just job title shuffling.
| bossyTeacher wrote:
| Not sure what country you live in, but where I live, a
| receptionist doesn't have access to any data processing
| tools that are not within the realm of a receptionist, and
| therefore this mobility does not happen. The receptionist
| ends up redirect the query to someone who has access to the
| relevant systems.
|
| What sort of companies are those were receptionists have
| access to tools beyond their role? and why are people
| approaching the receptionists asking for data queries?
|
| Like having to run a script on that data when your machine
| doesn't have the permissions to run arbitrary software
| without permission from the IT team
| piperswe wrote:
| In a small business, the receptionist may be responsible
| for inputting much of that data in the first place, and
| it may just live on the receptionist's computer.
| cestith wrote:
| In fact in some companies outside of tech proper with
| smaller headcount and less technically minded management,
| by the time the boss decides to look into systems like
| HRIS, CRM, ERM, and such the receptionist, office
| manager, and/or the interns already have about 837 Excel
| macros doing most of that work.
| wavemode wrote:
| You're still thinking too much in a "tech company"
| mindset. At the kind of company I'm talking about,
| concepts like "access" and "permissions" are irrelevant.
| Most of the company's employees barely know how a
| computer works.
|
| You seemed vaguely tech savvy, so someone asked you for
| help and emailed you a file containing the data (or
| perhaps just handed you a laptop and turned you loose).
| The rest is history.
|
| It's a modern invention that companies have separate
| software engineering orgs, software engineering roadmaps,
| software engineering managers. At older companies, a
| software developer is just another businessperson in a
| cubicle. Your manager probably has an English degree.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| > You seemed vaguely tech savvy, so someone asked you for
| help and emailed you a file containing the data (or
| perhaps just handed you a laptop and turned you loose).
| The rest is history.
|
| I know that someday I'll work in something other than IT.
| When I do I am going to make for damned sure that I don't
| express even the slightest bit of tech savvy for exactly
| this reason.
|
| It's similar to playing dumb w/ people I encounter
| outside work who find out I work in IT. If I get asked a
| question I play dumb and cop to working on some highly
| siloed subject (usually I'll claim to only work on
| "networking" or firewalls... >smile<).
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Many small business.
|
| The first job I had where I did anything technical (basic
| JS and HTML) also had me cold calling, answering phones,
| designing brochures, fiberglass repair, and some other
| stuff I'm forgetting. Small businesses frequently have
| more niche jobs than people and are more than happy to
| have people help where they are interested.
|
| My first full software job was a direct to consumer
| company, and during the Christmas rush the entire front
| office was on the packing line.
|
| Larger companies tend to appreciate people staying in
| their lane.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| >receptionist answering phones and scanning paper records
| in
|
| They were also converting paper records to digital.
| Asking the data entry person where the data is or how to
| find paper record xyz in the digital system doesn't seem
| odd.
| inopinatus wrote:
| Microsoft Excel is the #1 tool at the top of that rather
| narrowly envisioned slippery slope, since you ask.
| Followed by any web browser.
|
| As for data access; the vast majority of firms,
| worldwide, in every country, have abysmal internal
| controls, and in many cases, none at all. The filing
| cabinet is unlocked all day, everything from payroll to
| posters is in a share that every network login can R/W,
| and nobody cares.
| afavour wrote:
| Particularly those of us who don't have computer science
| training kind of end up falling into this stuff.
|
| One of my first jobs was as an admin assistant at a utilities
| company. We logged data about pipe replacement, which was
| done in something like five different spreadsheets, each
| optimized for its printed form (legal requirements for paper
| copies of various things). I knew just about enough about
| Access to know that entering the same thing in 5 different
| spreadsheets is a waste of everyone's time so set up a
| database where people entered the information once and Access
| forms generated the five printable versions. Management were
| impressed and asked me what else I think might be possible.
| Cue me diving into the world of complex forms, eventually
| VBA, then once I got frustrated with that, VB.NET via
| SharpDevelop (they sure as hell weren't paying for Visual
| Studio), on and on. I was doing software engineering while
| still keeping the job title of admin assistant.
|
| ...then I went and got a real engineering job with a real
| salary.
| comradesmith wrote:
| Code is rusty ankles and ashy kneecaps.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| Reminds me of this discussion between Alan Kay and Rich Hickey on
| this site 9 years ago. Rich Hickey always asserted that code is
| data (which aligns with the LISP view of the world), Alan Kay
| thinks that's a bad idea.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11941656
| dominicrose wrote:
| Clojure is pretty similar to EDN which stands for extensible
| data notation.
|
| cf. https://clojure.org/reference/reader
| weregiraffe wrote:
| Baby, don't hurt me
| andrewshadura wrote:
| Don't hurt me, no more.
| effnorwood wrote:
| atomic sequences that make other atomic sequences change energy
| states. now pass the butter.
| throw0101d wrote:
| One answer to the question, from Bryan Cantrill:
|
| > _The thing that is remarkable about it is that it has this
| property of being information--that we made it up--but it is also
| machine, and it has these engineered properties. And this is
| where software is unlikely anything we have ever done, and we 're
| still grappling on that that means. What does it mean to have
| information that functions as machine? It's got this duality: you
| can see it as both._
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHPa5-BWd4w&t=4m37s
|
| > _We suffer -- tremendously -- from a bias from traditional
| engineering that writing code is like digging a ditch: that it is
| a mundane activity best left to day labor -- and certainly
| beneath the Gentleman Engineer. This belief is profoundly wrong
| because software is not like a dam or a superhighway or a power
| plant: in software, the blueprints _are_ the thing; the
| abstraction _is_ the machine._
|
| * https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2007/07/28/on-the-beauty-in-bea...
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