Comments on: Why there will always be programmers http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/10/27/why-there-will-always-be-programmers/ The blog of John D. Cook Sat, 11 Feb 2012 22:42:11 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Your job is trivial. (But I couldn’t do it.) — The Endeavour http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/10/27/why-there-will-always-be-programmers/comment-page-1/#comment-60530 Your job is trivial. (But I couldn’t do it.) — The Endeavour Fri, 14 Jan 2011 14:47:47 +0000 http://www.johndcook.com/blog/?p=737#comment-60530 [...] Why there will always be programmers The buck stops with the programmer It doesn’t pay to be the computer guy ? X [...] [...] Why there will always be programmers The buck stops with the programmer It doesn’t pay to be the computer guy ? X [...]

]]> By: AnnMaria http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/10/27/why-there-will-always-be-programmers/comment-page-1/#comment-52127 AnnMaria Wed, 17 Nov 2010 05:37:55 +0000 http://www.johndcook.com/blog/?p=737#comment-52127 Writing programs requires understanding a language. In my mind, mathematics is a type of language and, as Daniel said, many programs require mathematics as well as knowing the computer language. It's one of my cliches - knowing a programming language doesn't make you a great programmer any more than knowing English makes you Hemingway. What programmers do is get a computer to solve a problem someone has. The more complex, larger scale the problem, the better programmer you need to be. Writing programs requires understanding a language. In my mind, mathematics is a type of language and, as Daniel said, many programs require mathematics as well as knowing the computer language.

It’s one of my cliches – knowing a programming language doesn’t make you a great programmer any more than knowing English makes you Hemingway. What programmers do is get a computer to solve a problem someone has. The more complex, larger scale the problem, the better programmer you need to be.

]]> By: Daniel Lemire http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/10/27/why-there-will-always-be-programmers/comment-page-1/#comment-20709 Daniel Lemire Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:13:49 +0000 http://www.johndcook.com/blog/?p=737#comment-20709 Just like English is still made of sentences, words and characters, I think that programming will always be made of functions and variables. Of course, as you point out, there are higher levels of programming, and lower ones, but it will be awfully hard to get away from Mathematics (variables, functions...). Mathematics works unreasonably well. Just like English is still made of sentences, words and characters, I think that programming will always be made of functions and variables. Of course, as you point out, there are higher levels of programming, and lower ones, but it will be awfully hard to get away from Mathematics (variables, functions…). Mathematics works unreasonably well.

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