The CEO of one of my former employers was interviewed on the radio recently and made a statement about programmers with which I fundamentally disagree. He stated that mathematics is “absolutely essential” for a programmer. Later in the interview they returned to the subject and he agreed with the suggestion that it should have “double points” for the leaving cert.
I have been working in software development for over 30 years and I have never found a significant use for the mathematics I learned in secondary school or in university.
He may have meant that that the people who are good at maths would also be good at programming (although this is not what he was saying). Even in this I would disagree. I was discussing this with one of the best developers I know and he said “he should take a look at my leaving cert maths results”.
I remember the MD of my first employer (there were no CEOs in those days) telling me that he believed that the best developers were the ones who had worked with punched cards. He believed that being able to see and touch the data gave the developer a more visceral understanding of it. He believed that seeing a card sorter in action gave the developer a deeper understanding than just being able to say “order by region, country, city”.
I disagree with him also.
The thing that makes is good developer is the ability to visualise how the code will run: effectively to have your own emulator in your head. You can hold a picture of the code in your head and step through it in your mind so that you can compare what you were trying to achieve with what is actually going to happen. The skill is to be able to juggle lots of “what if” ideas in your head at one time. It requires and orderly mind and intense powers of concentration. It requires the ability to constantly challenge assumptions. It appeals to problem solvers.
And because this ability to “imagine” the code is so critical, I don’t think we need to see physical cards holding data and you don’t need to see them being sorted by a machine.
The most experienced and skilled developers will sometimes be dissatisfied with a piece of code because it doesn’t feel right or because they judge it to be insufficiently elegant. This desire for elegance sets the best developers apart and can apply to everything from a single method to the architecture of an entire solution. There is a point at which programming is much closer to an art than a science.
Wednesday 9 November 2011
Tuesday 8 November 2011
Adam Ant
Happened to catch Adam Ant on The Late Late Show last weekend and decided to watch (being a huge fan of 80s music).
He and his band performed "Stand and Deliver", a hit for him in 1981.
I have to admit that I was disappointed to see him wearing a costume and make-up not dissimilar in my eyes to what he would have worn then. And basically performing what seemed to be to be the same routine. I would have imagined that he would have grown as a performer in the intervening 30 years. Or at least outgrown the gimmicks that he used at that time (I have no problems at all with using gimmicks when you're trying to become established).
Of course, this is a little naive of me. It is much more likely that he has outgrown them but he is "giving the public what they want".
Then Ryan Tubridy had the audacity to open the interview with: "Do you still get a kick out of performing that song?". No really - he did.
Adam paused for a moment (looking at the ground for inspiration while trying to control his gag reflex, I imagine) before coming up with: "Always yeah. Just trying to get them right really". Well done Adam.
After that rocky start, he gave quite a good interview covering disparate topics including his stalker, his conviction in the Old Bailey, and his struggle with bipolar disorder. He also told an interesting story involving his mother and Paul McCartney.
He and his band performed "Stand and Deliver", a hit for him in 1981.
I have to admit that I was disappointed to see him wearing a costume and make-up not dissimilar in my eyes to what he would have worn then. And basically performing what seemed to be to be the same routine. I would have imagined that he would have grown as a performer in the intervening 30 years. Or at least outgrown the gimmicks that he used at that time (I have no problems at all with using gimmicks when you're trying to become established).
Of course, this is a little naive of me. It is much more likely that he has outgrown them but he is "giving the public what they want".
Then Ryan Tubridy had the audacity to open the interview with: "Do you still get a kick out of performing that song?". No really - he did.
Adam paused for a moment (looking at the ground for inspiration while trying to control his gag reflex, I imagine) before coming up with: "Always yeah. Just trying to get them right really". Well done Adam.
After that rocky start, he gave quite a good interview covering disparate topics including his stalker, his conviction in the Old Bailey, and his struggle with bipolar disorder. He also told an interesting story involving his mother and Paul McCartney.
Monday 7 November 2011
Limitless
Watched the movie Limitless starring Bradley Cooper the other day.
Really enjoyed it.
But as well as being enjoyable, I found it thought provoking.
Firstly it is interesting to try to imagine what the impact will be when we have a pill that will make us more intelligent, or more charismatic, or something similar. Will it become widely available? Will it be expensive? What will happen to people who can’t afford it?
Sport is already blighted by performance-enhancing drugs. The reaction is to have mandatory testing and to penalise those who are caught using. Could something similar be applied? Will people be tested for performance-enhancing drugs when taking a test, during a job interview, appearing on a quiz show?
Secondly it makes you wonder how your own life would be affected if you could improve your own performance. I’m not talking here about using the other 90% of your brain (the theory that we only use a small proportion of our brains is a myth apparently). But I am talking about improving our focus, or our attitude, or simply trying harder.
We may not be able to use more of our brains at any one time. But we could use our brains more often! So we could trade time spent in front of the TV, or surfing the web, for time spend in a more productive pursuit.
Bill Cullen (Irish entrepreneur and motivational speaker/writer) in his book Golden Apples (subtitled “Six Simple Steps to Success”) does not extoll the virtues of searching for a performance-enhancing drug. But he does recommend (among many other things) that people cut the time they spend sleeping down to 6 hours a night (he says that he only needs 5 hours of sleep himself). And you then divert the extra time into being successful. He suggests that this can be done by taking 2 minutes off your alarm clock every week over a period of 2 years.
I must give that a try.
Really enjoyed it.
But as well as being enjoyable, I found it thought provoking.
Firstly it is interesting to try to imagine what the impact will be when we have a pill that will make us more intelligent, or more charismatic, or something similar. Will it become widely available? Will it be expensive? What will happen to people who can’t afford it?
Sport is already blighted by performance-enhancing drugs. The reaction is to have mandatory testing and to penalise those who are caught using. Could something similar be applied? Will people be tested for performance-enhancing drugs when taking a test, during a job interview, appearing on a quiz show?
Secondly it makes you wonder how your own life would be affected if you could improve your own performance. I’m not talking here about using the other 90% of your brain (the theory that we only use a small proportion of our brains is a myth apparently). But I am talking about improving our focus, or our attitude, or simply trying harder.
We may not be able to use more of our brains at any one time. But we could use our brains more often! So we could trade time spent in front of the TV, or surfing the web, for time spend in a more productive pursuit.
Bill Cullen (Irish entrepreneur and motivational speaker/writer) in his book Golden Apples (subtitled “Six Simple Steps to Success”) does not extoll the virtues of searching for a performance-enhancing drug. But he does recommend (among many other things) that people cut the time they spend sleeping down to 6 hours a night (he says that he only needs 5 hours of sleep himself). And you then divert the extra time into being successful. He suggests that this can be done by taking 2 minutes off your alarm clock every week over a period of 2 years.
I must give that a try.
Friday 4 November 2011
Irish Euphemisms
We Irish have a fantastic facility with language. We have produced some of the best writers, poets and playwrights to work in the English language: Yeats, Joyce, Beckett, Swift, Wilde, Heaney to name but a few.
And one of the things that may have helped us through tough times was the use of euphemisms. World War II was “the emergency” for us. The conflict in the North of Ireland that cost over 3400 lives was “the troubles”.
At the moment we are going through an awful time. Lots of people have lost their jobs. We have surrendered our sovereignty to foreign banks. People are struggling. Some are losing hope.
I find myself wondering if a suitable name would help to rob this thing of some of its power.
We had our “Celtic Tiger” (which in hindsight we should have called the “unsustainable Celtic bubble powered by greed and stupidity” or “Celtic con perpetrated by the few on the many”).
So what could we call the current difficulty?
Politicians are already offering some euphemistic words. The “recession” has been called a “downturn”. They refer to our “current difficulties”. They talk about the IMF “coming to our aid”.
If the bubble was a “tiger” then what animal provides a good metaphor for the current situation?
One possibility that springs to mind is the hyena. Wherever there is a tiger making a kill, there is a pack of hyenas waiting to feed on the left-overs. The problem with the analogy is that (a) hyenas operate in packs and (b) hyenas can make a kill too if the circumstances are right.
Another possibility is the pig. We have already been lumped in with Portugal, Italy, Spain and Greece to be the PIGS. Pigs have a reputation (unjustified their fans would say) for eating anything and liking dirty environments.
Primarily because of the negative connotations, I don’t think either of these animals fits our requirements for a euphemism.
The animal I have chosen is the bear. The bear analogy works on two levels:
So we’re experiencing the “Celtic Bear” at the moment. But keep the faith: it won’t last forever!
And one of the things that may have helped us through tough times was the use of euphemisms. World War II was “the emergency” for us. The conflict in the North of Ireland that cost over 3400 lives was “the troubles”.
At the moment we are going through an awful time. Lots of people have lost their jobs. We have surrendered our sovereignty to foreign banks. People are struggling. Some are losing hope.
I find myself wondering if a suitable name would help to rob this thing of some of its power.
We had our “Celtic Tiger” (which in hindsight we should have called the “unsustainable Celtic bubble powered by greed and stupidity” or “Celtic con perpetrated by the few on the many”).
So what could we call the current difficulty?
Politicians are already offering some euphemistic words. The “recession” has been called a “downturn”. They refer to our “current difficulties”. They talk about the IMF “coming to our aid”.
If the bubble was a “tiger” then what animal provides a good metaphor for the current situation?
One possibility that springs to mind is the hyena. Wherever there is a tiger making a kill, there is a pack of hyenas waiting to feed on the left-overs. The problem with the analogy is that (a) hyenas operate in packs and (b) hyenas can make a kill too if the circumstances are right.
Another possibility is the pig. We have already been lumped in with Portugal, Italy, Spain and Greece to be the PIGS. Pigs have a reputation (unjustified their fans would say) for eating anything and liking dirty environments.
Primarily because of the negative connotations, I don’t think either of these animals fits our requirements for a euphemism.
The animal I have chosen is the bear. The bear analogy works on two levels:
- Bears hibernate. I have decided to view the current situation as being analogous to hibernation. We will come out of it, but for now we need to conserve our energy and wait for the Spring.
- The term bear is used in relation to the stock market to describe poor economics circumstances, falling stock prices, and general pessimism.
So we’re experiencing the “Celtic Bear” at the moment. But keep the faith: it won’t last forever!
Tuesday 1 November 2011
Dreams
Really enjoyed this recording of a talk by Judymay Murphy at a previous TEDx in Tallaght.
While the topic of the presentation is ostensibly related to "failure" it is in fact mostly about the power of dreams.
I'm pretty sure she doesn't mention the "Law of Attraction" during her talk but, from my understanding of it, that is the backdrop.
I am not sure that I believe completely in the Law of Attraction but I do believe that it is difficult to arrive somewhere nice without planning your route or at least having an idea where you're going.
A lot of people have understandable difficulty in believing that visualising good things and being positive and open will make good things happen. But strangely it is much easier to accept that visualising bad things and having a poor attitude is likely to invite bad things into your like. Strange isn't it?
While the topic of the presentation is ostensibly related to "failure" it is in fact mostly about the power of dreams.
I'm pretty sure she doesn't mention the "Law of Attraction" during her talk but, from my understanding of it, that is the backdrop.
I am not sure that I believe completely in the Law of Attraction but I do believe that it is difficult to arrive somewhere nice without planning your route or at least having an idea where you're going.
A lot of people have understandable difficulty in believing that visualising good things and being positive and open will make good things happen. But strangely it is much easier to accept that visualising bad things and having a poor attitude is likely to invite bad things into your like. Strange isn't it?
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