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  3. What every programmer should know about...

What every programmer should know about...

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  • R Rob Philpott

    I'd rather people read that than that bloody Gang of Four bilge. Worryingly, people just by virtue of having 'read' it seem to consider themselves competant.

    Regards, Rob Philpott.

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    Nemanja Trifunovic
    wrote on last edited by
    #10

    Rob Philpott wrote:

    I'd rather people read that than that bloody Gang of Four bilge

    Amen. The GoF stuff is IMHO harmful.

    Programming Blog utf8-cpp

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    • N Nemanja Trifunovic

      Granted, our profession would benefit from increase in standards, but this is simply not realistic: What every programmer should know about memory[^] What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic[^]

      Programming Blog utf8-cpp

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      Dan Neely
      wrote on last edited by
      #11

      There's a major difference between knowing something in and out, and being aware that there are potentially serious pitfalls and knowing when to consult a detailed reference. The former isn't overly realistic if if's something that you're not doing on a regular basis. Not knowing the latter is one of the common sources of wtfware code. Thanks for the memory article. I hadn't seen that one before, and will have to spend some quality time with it.

      It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains. -- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

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      • L Lost User

        They could still read them, reading is not hard.. Of course it's better if they understand it, but if they at least read those documents then even without understanding they should be more aware of possible pitfalls. Being aware of them is more important than knowing how exactly to avoid them - one could always look it up or ask someone else.

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        dojohansen
        wrote on last edited by
        #12

        Did you even read them yourself? I suspect you did not. Or do you seriously think that every programmer needs to know the circuit diagram for a 6-transistor SRAM cell? Or the capacitor charge and discharge timing of DRAM cells? The entire first part (which is substantial) consists of hardware details that are utterly irrelevant to the vast majority of programmers. In fact, only those who write assembly code (or compilers - i.e. programs that write assembly code) could even potentially use detailed knowledge about the internal caching design of modern CPUs. Given how many programmers fail to grasp, not to mention make good use of, the fundamental concepts of OOP, I can think of a few things I'd recommend studying before this.

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        • N Nemanja Trifunovic

          harold aptroot wrote:

          IMO every programmer should have at least read those documents, and preferably understand most of it

          I am pleasantly surprised to see the attitude, but it is just never going to happen :)

          Programming Blog utf8-cpp

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          Lost User
          wrote on last edited by
          #13

          Nemanja Trifunovic wrote:

          but it is just never going to happen

          You're right of course, but it's not good :(

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          • R Rama Krishna Vavilala

            Christopher Duncan wrote:

            people equate programming with putting up a web page

            You never miss an opportunity to take a jibe on Web development?:)

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            Jim Crafton
            wrote on last edited by
            #14

            Maybe because it's so epically full of failure? :)

            ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow

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            • C Christopher Duncan

              When I started coding, back in ancient times, it was more important to understand things like memory (what do you mean 64k segments???). Failure to do so would result in some long and interesting nights with your C debugger. Today, people equate programming with putting up a web page. When your primary tools are papyrus and ink, about the only thing you need to worry about is steering clear of the Pharaoh's daughter.

              Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Got a career question? Ask the Attack Chihuahua!

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              Jim Crafton
              wrote on last edited by
              #15

              Christopher Duncan wrote:

              the only thing you need to worry about is steering clear of the Pharaoh's daughter.

              Does Doug know about this yet? Someone should really let him know!

              ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow

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              • C Christopher Duncan

                When I started coding, back in ancient times, it was more important to understand things like memory (what do you mean 64k segments???). Failure to do so would result in some long and interesting nights with your C debugger. Today, people equate programming with putting up a web page. When your primary tools are papyrus and ink, about the only thing you need to worry about is steering clear of the Pharaoh's daughter.

                Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Got a career question? Ask the Attack Chihuahua!

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                dojohansen
                wrote on last edited by
                #16

                Yeah, but the fact that programming is becoming easier is a good thing. Maybe not for programemrs' salaries, but for society as a whole... surely a good thing.

                Steve EcholsS 1 Reply Last reply
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                • L Lost User

                  They could still read them, reading is not hard.. Of course it's better if they understand it, but if they at least read those documents then even without understanding they should be more aware of possible pitfalls. Being aware of them is more important than knowing how exactly to avoid them - one could always look it up or ask someone else.

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                  jeffwask
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #17

                  Exactly, no one is saying memorize the circuit diagrams but understanding the concepts is enough. Just skim the parts that get a little thick...

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                  • N Nemanja Trifunovic

                    Granted, our profession would benefit from increase in standards, but this is simply not realistic: What every programmer should know about memory[^] What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic[^]

                    Programming Blog utf8-cpp

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                    Single Step Debugger
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #18

                    In my university there was a discipline called “Computer Architectures” which covered this subjects and a lot more in very deep basis. In fact this discipline was so hard that eventually some 10-15% of the students from my class failed to take this exam and had been suspended from the university.

                    The narrow specialist in the broad sense of the word is a complete idiot in the narrow sense of the word. Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.

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                    • D dojohansen

                      Did you even read them yourself? I suspect you did not. Or do you seriously think that every programmer needs to know the circuit diagram for a 6-transistor SRAM cell? Or the capacitor charge and discharge timing of DRAM cells? The entire first part (which is substantial) consists of hardware details that are utterly irrelevant to the vast majority of programmers. In fact, only those who write assembly code (or compilers - i.e. programs that write assembly code) could even potentially use detailed knowledge about the internal caching design of modern CPUs. Given how many programmers fail to grasp, not to mention make good use of, the fundamental concepts of OOP, I can think of a few things I'd recommend studying before this.

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                      Lost User
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #19

                      dojohansen wrote:

                      Did you even read them yourself? I suspect you did not.

                      Of course I did.

                      dojohansen wrote:

                      Or do you seriously think that every programmer needs to know the circuit diagram for a 6-transistor SRAM cell? Or the capacitor charge and discharge timing of DRAM cells?

                      No, they don't need to remember it, but they should know that it works that way (not the exact diagram and figures)

                      dojohansen wrote:

                      could even potentially use detailed knowledge about the internal caching design of modern CPUs.

                      Cache trashing is far to easy to get, for example with naive large-matrix multiplication..

                      dojohansen wrote:

                      Given how many programmers fail to grasp, not to mention make good use of, the fundamental concepts of OOP, I can think of a few things I'd recommend studying before this.

                      That is definitely true.

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                      • N Nemanja Trifunovic

                        Granted, our profession would benefit from increase in standards, but this is simply not realistic: What every programmer should know about memory[^] What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic[^]

                        Programming Blog utf8-cpp

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                        Saurabh Garg
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #20

                        I have never heard of the first article but I have read the second article. You should notice that it is not for programmers but for computer scientists. And IMHO it should not be a very difficult reading for any comptuer scientist worth his salt. -Saurabh

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                        • D dojohansen

                          Did you even read them yourself? I suspect you did not. Or do you seriously think that every programmer needs to know the circuit diagram for a 6-transistor SRAM cell? Or the capacitor charge and discharge timing of DRAM cells? The entire first part (which is substantial) consists of hardware details that are utterly irrelevant to the vast majority of programmers. In fact, only those who write assembly code (or compilers - i.e. programs that write assembly code) could even potentially use detailed knowledge about the internal caching design of modern CPUs. Given how many programmers fail to grasp, not to mention make good use of, the fundamental concepts of OOP, I can think of a few things I'd recommend studying before this.

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                          ToddHileHoffer
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #21

                          Well said.

                          I didn't get any requirements for the signature

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                          • N Nemanja Trifunovic

                            Granted, our profession would benefit from increase in standards, but this is simply not realistic: What every programmer should know about memory[^] What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic[^]

                            Programming Blog utf8-cpp

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                            Chris Losinger
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #22

                            Nemanja Trifunovic wrote:

                            What every programmer should know about memory[^]

                            does .Net have classes to handle capacitor discharge and DRAM column de-multiplexer control, or do i have to handle this in C++ ?

                            image processing toolkits | batch image processing

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                            • L Lost User

                              dojohansen wrote:

                              Did you even read them yourself? I suspect you did not.

                              Of course I did.

                              dojohansen wrote:

                              Or do you seriously think that every programmer needs to know the circuit diagram for a 6-transistor SRAM cell? Or the capacitor charge and discharge timing of DRAM cells?

                              No, they don't need to remember it, but they should know that it works that way (not the exact diagram and figures)

                              dojohansen wrote:

                              could even potentially use detailed knowledge about the internal caching design of modern CPUs.

                              Cache trashing is far to easy to get, for example with naive large-matrix multiplication..

                              dojohansen wrote:

                              Given how many programmers fail to grasp, not to mention make good use of, the fundamental concepts of OOP, I can think of a few things I'd recommend studying before this.

                              That is definitely true.

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                              dojohansen
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #23

                              harold aptroot wrote:

                              No, they don't need to remember it, but they should know that it works that way (not the exact diagram and figures)

                              Why? Why should programmers have to even know that memory is implemented in transistors? I'm sure the article contains a lot of stuff that is of great use to some programmers. But like the OP, I take issue with the sweeping generalization that every programmer needs to know this. Perhaps I'm too generous in my usage of the term, but based on my sampling of code project articles I should think there are quite a few people out there who consider themselves programmers yet wouldn't know what a NorthBridge is. Personally, I think it is in many cases far better for the compiler to worry about hardware optimizations and for the programmers to worry about maintainable, reuseable code, extensibility, economy, useability, testability, and so on. Again, the priorities are not the same for ALL programmers, but I'd say that the majority of us need not and indeed should not assume anything about the CPU caching or other hardware implementation details when coding.

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                              • D dojohansen

                                Yeah, but the fact that programming is becoming easier is a good thing. Maybe not for programemrs' salaries, but for society as a whole... surely a good thing.

                                Steve EcholsS Offline
                                Steve EcholsS Offline
                                Steve Echols
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #24

                                No, it's not a good thing. VB made programming easier, and it made a lot of people think they were programmers, which gave the programming profession as a whole a black eye. IMHO. Take a look at the questions being asked in the forums, and you'll see what making programming easier leads to. :)


                                - S 50 cups of coffee and you know it's on! Code, follow, or get out of the way.

                                • S
                                  50 cups of coffee and you know it's on!
                                  Code, follow, or get out of the way.
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                                • D dojohansen

                                  harold aptroot wrote:

                                  No, they don't need to remember it, but they should know that it works that way (not the exact diagram and figures)

                                  Why? Why should programmers have to even know that memory is implemented in transistors? I'm sure the article contains a lot of stuff that is of great use to some programmers. But like the OP, I take issue with the sweeping generalization that every programmer needs to know this. Perhaps I'm too generous in my usage of the term, but based on my sampling of code project articles I should think there are quite a few people out there who consider themselves programmers yet wouldn't know what a NorthBridge is. Personally, I think it is in many cases far better for the compiler to worry about hardware optimizations and for the programmers to worry about maintainable, reuseable code, extensibility, economy, useability, testability, and so on. Again, the priorities are not the same for ALL programmers, but I'd say that the majority of us need not and indeed should not assume anything about the CPU caching or other hardware implementation details when coding.

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                                  Lost User
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #25

                                  Have you ever noticed how the "programmers" who don't know how a computer even works are generally completely clueless when it comes to optimization? And don't tell me that optimization is not important, especially caching optimizations are getting more important by the day due to the growing speed gap between RAM and processors. Other optimizations are still relevant in games and other high-performance software.

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                                  • L Lost User

                                    dojohansen wrote:

                                    Did you even read them yourself? I suspect you did not.

                                    Of course I did.

                                    dojohansen wrote:

                                    Or do you seriously think that every programmer needs to know the circuit diagram for a 6-transistor SRAM cell? Or the capacitor charge and discharge timing of DRAM cells?

                                    No, they don't need to remember it, but they should know that it works that way (not the exact diagram and figures)

                                    dojohansen wrote:

                                    could even potentially use detailed knowledge about the internal caching design of modern CPUs.

                                    Cache trashing is far to easy to get, for example with naive large-matrix multiplication..

                                    dojohansen wrote:

                                    Given how many programmers fail to grasp, not to mention make good use of, the fundamental concepts of OOP, I can think of a few things I'd recommend studying before this.

                                    That is definitely true.

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                                    P Offline
                                    PIEBALDconsult
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #26

                                    I'm with you. Given a programmer who doesn't understand these subjects, even if he reads the articles and still doesn't understand them, he is better off than before he read them; now he knows he doesn't understand them. This is part of why I firmly believe that a formal education is required; the students will (should) be exposed to a lot of such information that they won't find on their own or in "Learn C# in 21 days". I also agree that not everyone should be able to give a class on such topics at the drop of a hat.

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                                    • Steve EcholsS Steve Echols

                                      No, it's not a good thing. VB made programming easier, and it made a lot of people think they were programmers, which gave the programming profession as a whole a black eye. IMHO. Take a look at the questions being asked in the forums, and you'll see what making programming easier leads to. :)


                                      - S 50 cups of coffee and you know it's on! Code, follow, or get out of the way.

                                      D Offline
                                      D Offline
                                      dojohansen
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #27

                                      Well, it's true of anything that as it becomes easier to use some of those who do use them will be less proficient. But in my opinion it's no better blaming VB's possible* ease of use for bad programmers than it is blaming cars that are easy to drive for bad drivers. In both cases there's a grain of truth to it, but it doesn't mean the net effect is bad for everyone overall. Cars that are easy to drive enable a lot of people to get around, and VB perhaps enabled a lot of people to write macros for their spreadsheets. *) I personally find VB close to incomprehensible and think the lack of proper OOP features make it much *harder* to use than "real" programming languages. Let me be clear: I'm not talking about VB.NET here; VB.NET has little except name (for marketing reasons) in common with VB. As for the forums, I think "stupid questions", annoying as they can be, are partly a side effect of something rather beautiful: People all over the world can now take the initiative to learn a great many things, including programming, that were previously not available to so many. A bookstore or even a local library needs to have a certain number of people within a very local market interested in any particular title to be able to stock it. With the web, the playing field gets a bit more even. It's still awfully uneven, especially because of language bias (I'm no native user but was lucky enough to be born somewhere they at least taught me enough English in school that I am not too severely handicapped in this regard - with time I suppose this will be the case everywhere), but way better than it used to be. Lastly, 50 cups of coffee really is too much! Certainly if you (as I suspect) are American (due to American cup sizes, not your inability to cope with vast quantities of caffeine).

                                      S Steve EcholsS 2 Replies Last reply
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                                      • J Jim Crafton

                                        Maybe because it's so epically full of failure? :)

                                        ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow

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                                        Rick York
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #28

                                        And full of epic failures too. ;)

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                                        • D dojohansen

                                          Did you even read them yourself? I suspect you did not. Or do you seriously think that every programmer needs to know the circuit diagram for a 6-transistor SRAM cell? Or the capacitor charge and discharge timing of DRAM cells? The entire first part (which is substantial) consists of hardware details that are utterly irrelevant to the vast majority of programmers. In fact, only those who write assembly code (or compilers - i.e. programs that write assembly code) could even potentially use detailed knowledge about the internal caching design of modern CPUs. Given how many programmers fail to grasp, not to mention make good use of, the fundamental concepts of OOP, I can think of a few things I'd recommend studying before this.

                                          S Offline
                                          S Offline
                                          Shog9 0
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #29

                                          dojohansen wrote:

                                          In fact, only those who write assembly code (or compilers - i.e. programs that write assembly code) could even potentially use detailed knowledge about the internal caching design of modern CPUs.

                                          dojohansen wrote:

                                          Given how many programmers fail to grasp, not to mention make good use of, the fundamental concepts of OOP, I can think of a few things I'd recommend studying before this.

                                          Your assumption here is that the fundamental concepts of OOP are somehow more important to producing quality software than a basic understanding of how *RAM works. IMHO, that's a dangerous assumption: just about every program written will make use of one or more types of RAM, with even programs written in the most common high-level languages still affected dramatically by the interactions between processor caches and main memory... OOP, though a common technique and a useful tool, is still considerably less fundamental. The truth of the matter is, many programmers will manage to get away without a basic familiarity with either one.

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