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> What is hard about it? Young children seem to pick it up with ease. It cannot be that hard?

They do? I've known plenty of kids and young adults who utterly failed to become even borderline competent at programming.


They don't? It is taught in schools in the early elementary level. I see no indication that most are failing.

I think we can agree that few of them would be economically useful due to not knowing what to program. There is no sign of competency on that front. Certainly, even the best programmer in the world could theoretically be economically useless. Programmers only become economically useful when they can bridge "what to program".


> They don't? It is taught in schools in the early elementary level. I see no indication that most are failing.

Programming in elementary schools typically involves moving a turtle around on the screen. (My mother taught 4th grade in New York for many years, and I believe her when she explained the computer instruction.)

Economically valueable programming is much more complex than is taught in many schools through freshman college. (I taught programming at the college level from 1980 till I retired in 2020.)


Because economically valuable programming has to consider what to program, not simply follow the instructions handed down by a teacher of exactly where and how to move a turtle on the screen. But nobody questions "what to program" not being hard. It was explicitly asserted in the very first comment on this topic as being hard and that has also carried in the comments that have followed.

> artificial deadlines preventing me from writing proper unit tests, or the requirement for code review from people on my team who don't even work on the same codebase as I do on a daily basis

I have never experienced this, and it sounds remarkably dysfunctional to me.


Believe me, it is very dysfunctional. As I've mentioned to your first replyer, my boss has only had developers for less than a year. This is an operations team I was assigned to in order to provide them some much needed tooling. The pressure my boss has perceived from above has led to my own significant burnout. The guy does not take days off and has always been logged into Slack on the odd hours I would need to pull up some HR form or another. I am currently off work for several months dealing with the fallout from all that.

I've tried everything I can to cope and am not sure I will be willing to return to that team once I am past my medical leave.


[flagged]


Beg pardon? I've been doing this for 20 years. My boss has been a boss for two years and has only had developer headcount for less than a year. This degree of pressure is unprecedented in my career.


[flagged]


Please explain, I'd like to have a productive dialogue about this. I assume you are referring to my boss?


You've missed the point. The point is that the women in question demand it. There is no shortage of women on social media ranting about how lazy or cheap men are who want to do coffee or drinks for a first date. Or especially a walk. If you suggest a walk for a first date there's a strong chance you'll never hear from her again.


So, you've saved yourself the time and expense of a shared walk and two cups of coffee. Isn't that a win? Unless you are just looking to get laid, in which case, suck it up and buy dinner, I guess.


Yes, but the point is that people are not successful on these apps because of those expectations. A lot of people have sort of let the whole online dating thing go straight to their head. And now, theyd rather die alone than be slightly uncomfortable for a few minutes.


Why are you guys so concerned with these people?

Let them live their lives. I guarantee you they are not dying alone or whatever mortal curse you wish to invoke.


I'm not, was just responding to the apparent frustration and finding people who want expensive dinners dates. If that's not your thing, great, there are people out there who would love a coffee and a walk or whatever. I'm one of them. A formal dinner on a first date sounds awful to my slightly shy and introverted self. I'd much rather go hiking or something.


I don’t think they were talking about you


I'm not concerned with them - I'm just explaining why dating apps suck.

I'm also not casting a curse on anyone, you misunderstood. I'm not saying I'm better than them so this doesn't happen to me. No, it also happens to me.

Because this is by design. This is systemic. The apps are designed in such a way to make your expectations unrealistic and thereby perpetually let you down, because that's how you continue to use the app!


Most of the complaints I've seen are about men being rude and aggressive.

I can tell you from experience that it's a lot scarier to date men.


Practically that would be very likely to be the case to the reader, but grammatically no, it's still ambiguous.

> They went to Oregon with Betty, a maid and a cook.

Betty could be both a maid and a cook. So there is still ambiguity.


What's much more sensible than taking an IQ test is looking at your experience with math to date.


Yes.

Apart from the fact that IQ tests are racist bunk, there's no need to do some fancy self-discovery journey or anything to determine whether you're cut out for pure math or not: if you have to ask, then it's not for you.


Or more. Actually some of them seem inverted. Simple compiler takes 3 months but a GameBoy emulator takes 2 weeks? That’s not my experience at all.


I was wondering if that was time spent toying with the thing, not necessarily time to a complete or even functional result.


Yes, exactly. The point is to make a toy that proves the concept and gives you insight into the overall design, not to build something with polish!


C++ has indeed added many features that help with memory safety, at the cost of getting increasingly more complicated and harder to work with.


I think the idea that Lisp was so much more productive than other languages originates from a much earlier time. But now the most important features of Lisp - like garbage collection - are commonly available in most languages.


I always thought calling it Xbox One was the most bizarre choice in the history of branding and marketing. Given how common it is to retroactively refer to the first item in a series as "One" (Rambo 1, Rocky 1, Playstation 1, etc), it seems intentionally designed to cause confusion.


This is beyond being bizarre. I have never owned an Xbox, and always thought that Xbox One was a re-release of the original Xbox, similar to the Original PlayStation -> PS One. I am hearing it for the first time here that it was a third generation device.


I find that name even more baffling when the reason they apparently branded the previous one Xbox 360 was so that they wouldn't go against the PS3 with an Xbox 2. Somehow it was now fine for an Xbox One to go against a PS4.


I tried to use a CPAP machine for a while. I honestly could never figure out how I was supposed to breathe with it. At all. It seemed to be physically impossible. I'd try for a while each night, then get frustrated and stop so I could get some sleep. Completely useless to me.

Fortunately I was able to just return it, but if I hadn't been able to, why should that mean insurance wouldn't cover it? I was prescribed this device and it didn't work for me.


Insurers don't want to pay for unnecessary treatments, including equipment. Maybe your provider could have done a better job selecting the right mask or settings for the CPAP? Maybe they could have trained you in their office?

I'm not saying the surveillance and payment-held-hostage model is the best, but it does at least attempt to provide some useful incentives.


CPAP makes breathing harder than normal. It's antiquated technology, superseded by something called bilevel-CPAP (BiPAP) which has the quality that it makes breathing actually _easier_. It's slightly more expensive than plain CPAP so insurance and doctors withhold it from the patients and try to keep it a secret.


CPAP is NOT "antiquated technology." It has different indications from BPAP. Some people tolerate one better than the other. We are not "keeping one a secret."


I'm sorry to hear you had that problem, you're not alone. I hope you found some alternative treatment that works for you! It's possible to succeed with CPAP even if it's hard at first, too, with various adjustments. I hope you've found a way to get a good night's sleep.


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