Submitted 1 year ago by canpolat@programming.dev to programming@programming.dev
https://blog.ploeh.dk/2018/09/17/typing-is-not-a-programming-bottleneck/
I’m a bit confused about the premise of the article. Does anyone assert that typing speed is a bottleneck at all? I’ve been in the industry for years, and have never heard that claim.
I do agree about the whole “less code is not always more”, but I get confused when the author keeps bringing it back to typing speed.
I’ve watched some slow typists program, and I think I have the answer. If it takes you a while to type the code out, you are much more likely to stick to the first approach that works, and not rewrite it as much.
I’ve heard the argument as a positive of learning vim and while it did finally force me to touch type I can’t say that it had any impact on my programming speed.
Same. I think vim and touch typing are more about comfort tbh.
yeah the issue honestly is how much someone else has to read to understand your code, that’s the issue. it’s weird because the whole article is about making readable code for the next person and he never stops to address the fact that leaving 10x as much code to read might also make life more difficult.
I feel like he just wanted to make a point about how it’s nice to make types immutable and suggest other techniques can be worth implementing too, which I agree with, but honestly his premise is a trainwreck.
The code that I suggest is too verbose. It involves too much typing.
This seems to be the whole premise and it’s obvious that one does not follow from the other.
Overly verbose code is code that can be expressed more minimally for some benefit. I can think why anyone would argue that one of those benefits is less typing.
The author can solve this easily though: ask them why verbosity is an issue. Then they will know the answer and won’t have to presume something as tenuous as “amount of time spent typing”.
I discovered this very quickly after breaking a finger. One-finger typing didn’t slow me down at all. Turns out my brain was the bottleneck.
aaa
Wrong. Yes, typing speed does not matter when counting up lines of code. Code programmers however are not just code monkeys. They write documentation and comments, communicate with peers and potentially users, take notes on their own thoght processes when pondering on the best solutions for hard problems, etc. On all of these point and many more, typing speed matters. People who can type and type fast(-ish) communicate more expressively, document more comprehensively, make less mistakes when spelling, etc.
So yes, typing skill matters.
People who can type and type fast(-ish) communicate more expressively, document more comprehensively, make less mistakes when spelling, etc.
That’s just pure conjecture on your part though
Sure, if you regard scientific studies and statistics as conjecture, then your right, it’s pure conjecture.
People who can type and type fast(-ish) ... make less mistakes when spelling, etc.
I wish.
-Guy who types over 100WPM but still makes a lot of spelling mistakes.
From the article:
(…) but recently, another type of criticism seems to be on the rise.
The code that I suggest is too verbose. It involves too much typing.
This reads like a one-sentence strawman. Describing code as “too verbose” is really not about the risk of carpal tunnel syndrome. It’s about readability and cognitive load.
The blogger seems to almost get the point when he writes the following:
In short, the purpose of source code is to communicate the workings of a piece of software to the next programmer who comes along. This could easily include your future self.
The purpose of source code is to communicate (…) to the next programmer who comes along.
If you make the mistake of going the “enterprise quality java code” meme approach, you’re making the next programmer’s life needlessly harder.
The blogger then tries to make his case with verbose code, and makes the following statement:
Which alternative is better? The short version is eight lines of code, including the curly brackets. The longer version is 78 lines of code. That’s ten times as much.
I prefer the longer version. While it takes longer to type, it comes with several benefits. (…)
This is yet another strawman. The longer version is awful code, not because it’s longer but because it’s needlessly jam-packed of boilerplate code. Ignorign basic things like interfaces and contracts, It’s been proven already that bugs in code are directly proportional to the number of lines of code, and thus the code the author prefers is likely to pack ten times more bugs.
The shorter code in this case would not be the 78-loc mess that the author picked as the thing he prefers. The shorter code in this case would be something like onboarding the project onto Project Lombok to handle all-args constructors, property methods, and even throw a builder in for free. This requires onboarding Lombok to the project, and add two annotations to the short example. Two lines of code, done.
Assuming this is C#, you could just make Reservation a record type, which can be defined with a one line primary constructor, is immutable and has value type equality. Second example is an insane amount of boilerplate.
And you can use the with expression to create clones of the object with some properties modified.
I agree, typing is not a bottleneck, repeating yourself is. All that boilerplate code in the example, shouldn’t have to be written. It’s wasted time.
The curse of OOP (java style…).
I mean why do you need to write getter and setter methods. I have wondered at the beginning of university 10 years ago, and am still wondering why you would need something like that…
You let your ide generate simple getters and setters or utilize something that generates them during a compilation process.
Who ever writes them per hand needs to utilize their tooling better or needs better tooling.
I write Java for a living and the places I’ve worked have used Lombok to cut down on the boilerplate code
Are people, their critics, really bothered with the writing aspect of verbose code?
Verbose code - and their example shows it quite well - is less concise. To me, their example and reasoning looks more overly verbose, over-engineered rather than well or thoroughly designed and safe.
What makes more sense depends on the context. Where is and will it be used? What is it being exposed to?
A simple data holding class for one “internal” layer to the next can have a very simple form, so it’s easily understood. It may not be safe against misuse or mistakes, but the simplicity and clear use-case and intention much outweighs those costly safeguards to me. For maintainability, for readability, for clarity.
It’s always a balancing act between simplicity and easy understanding vs safeguards and costs. If there’s less risk you can make it much simpler - which reduces other, less obvious risks and costs.
The example made me immediately spot how C# quite a while ago introduced language constructs for what would otherwise be a lot of boilerplate programming like they do in their example.
public record Reservation(DateTimeOffset Date, string Email, string Name, int Quantity, bool IsAccepted);
no need for 78 lines of code with 9 methods.
C# also has the with keyword for copy-adjusting immutable types.
And required init syntax provides another alternative for an effectively immutable type.
public class Reservation { public required DateTimeOffset Date { get; init; } public required string Email { get; init; } public required string Name { get; init; } public required int Quantity { get; init; } public required bool IsAccepted { get; init; } }
Why would it be? It’s one of the only ways to use your pc
good. article upvoted. as are also good curly braces after if/else. too many times I’ve seen if/else without curly braces. why I should carefully read tens of loc, to find ifs? why can’t I find it at a glance, quickly scrolling the file? y do i have to read the line horizontally too to understand if the instruction is there or in the following line? why do I HAVE to add the curly braces to fix stuff? juniors get arty with this “feature” and unwrapping their logic becomes a real pain: but it looks so good!
I agree with the need, but not you’re rationale, I’m in the “always curly braces” camp for two reasons:
well, in my rant, the bit about why do I have to add braces to fix stuff is very close to your first point, and the bit about reading while quickly scrolling to your second point, in which you say the right thing: not adding braces is something that one actively does. with no acceptable reason ever, imo.
Even less so now that docstrings can be mostly written by AI
it’s not a bottleneck to writing good code anyway
nous@programming.dev 1 year ago
This is irrelevant. Typing when coding is not evenly spaced out over those 5 hours. It is sporadic with most of the time thinking or reading documentation or reading source code and trying to figure out what you want to type. No good conclusions can be drawn from this logic and makes that whole part of the argument irrelevant.
If I were typing that slowly I would quickly forget what the hell I was even trying to do in the first place. Which is the bigger part - when you do need to type you want to quickly get the ideas you have down as fast as you can think them. Going too slow can cause your mind to wander and that can really hamper your productivity.
There is also the cost of context switching. And it is a context switch to go from writing ideas down to making sure I have all the boiler plate and syntax correct. The less of the need for doing that the better IMO.
And TBH I don’t really understand the rest of their arguments. They introduce two bits of code, one very short simple class then one with lots of helper methods to set various things while creating a new object. And then concludes with a short paragraph on some real benefits without really explaining why. With the whole paragraph being more of an argument about immutable code being better rather than longer vs shorter code. Then follows up with an entire section on why his code increases maintenance as refactoring requires more points to update with his immutable code and thus prefers languages like F# where the immutable version is a one liner… Which defeats the whole argument that typing is not the bottleneck? I really don’t follow his logic here.
I feel they have completely failed to convince me of this fact. Despite me already thinking it is not one of the more important factors of productivity and there are better things to optimise around.
My opinion is that code length is not that important a factor, but you should not go hog while and write the longest things you can either. Every extra bit of code should add some value somewhere. Like taking his examples, spending a bit of time writing the immutable version here lets you reduce the amount you need to write when using that code. Which is a trade-off that can be worthwhile - increasing typing now for reducing typing later. But also the reduced typing makes the where the code is used easier to read and clearer as to what is happening, get a copy of the object with one field updated. That is a nice concept to have and read. Without the need to refer to all the fields every time you want a copy.
minorninth@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Is it possible to be a productive programmer with slow typing speed? Yes. I have met some.
But…can fast typing speed be an advantage for most people? Yes!
Like you said, once you come up with an idea it can be a huge advantage to be able to type out that idea quickly to try it out before your mind wanders.
But also, I use typing for so many others things: writing Slack messages and emails. Writing responses to bug tickets. Writing new tickets. Documentation. Search queries.
The faster I type, the faster I can do those things. Also, the more I’m incentivized to do it. It’s no big deal to file a big report for something I discovered along the way because I can type it up in 30 seconds. Someone else who’s slow at typing might not bother because it’d take too long.
crimsonpoodle@pawb.social 1 year ago
Also m, while I agree typing speed is an advantage, there’s nothing stoping you from laying out the whole program on paper or with psudo code and then filling it in which can reduce the need to keep it all in your head
usernamesaredifficul@hexbear.net 1 year ago
I type slowly so i just write my ideas down on paper first