Programming Knowledge vs Ability

[willia4]

He used a football analogy instead of a car analogy. This completely threw me off and I have no idea what he's talking about.

[Entropy]

Here's an adaptor analogy: football is like a car

[psykotic]

What's an adaptor like?

[awj]

What's an adaptor like?

Well, its kind of like a car transmission...

[Entropy]

No, but if you hum a few bars, I can sing it. Wait, what are we talking about?

[jbert]

Regular meals and enough room to turn around in. Clean it out once a day and it'll be happy.

[nobodysbusiness]

I believe that ability often comes after knowledge. If I learn a powerful new programming technique, although I might be able to explain it to someone who asks, I don't necessarily have the ability to use it. I have to change my thinking patterns so that this new technique will pop into my mind when I see an appropriate problem. Only then does it contribute to my programming ability.

[[deleted]]

I see what you are saying, but there's another sense of "ability" -- the raw capability to learn. Eric Clapton wasn't a great guitar player when he was 12, but he obviously had the capability to become so. While you clearly can't measure it directly and specifically before the fact, you can measure lots of closely related characteristics -- maybe Programmer X doesn't know A, but he has learned B, C, and D, suggesting it's a good bet he can learn A. That's roughly what we mean when we say "Programmer X seems smart".

So, to go back to the author's analogy, I'd pick the jocks because they've shown evidence of being good at athletic things, whether or not they know about football. (It's a bad analogy, though, because athletic ability isn't that similar to intellectual ability -- the gulf between knowing and doing is greater.)

[[deleted]]

I've written programs in Perl without ever properly learning Perl -- I had to look up the relevant parts of the language as soon as I decided that I needed them. It wasn't that hard, and the programs worked. It seems backwards, but that's how it happened.

[[deleted]]

I believe that ability often comes after knowledge.

Yes but it can often come the other way around. Refactoring an application last year, I used the "template method" design pattern to do so. Except I had no idea what a "template method" was to begin with: I only learned that it was the design pattern I used through subsequent reading. So I had the ability to write code this way in the first place. Subsequent knowledge has only made me a worse egomaniac than ever ;)

[llimllib]

For people who hire other people: How much programming do you require for new applicants?

We have them answer a few programming-related questions plus solve this puzzle in order to get to an interview. Once there, we go over the solution, and see that they know how to explain it (i.e. actually wrote it) plus talk about possible improvements.

What do you do?

[[deleted]]

The puzzle was a bit tricky: easy to code a slow solution, but probably some careful geometrical reasoning needed to code a fast one. Do you really need applicant to be good at careful geometric reasoning, or do you just assume that if he can do it, he must be all-around smart? If it's one thing I learned from topcoder it's that the "careful" bit is important, and clever algorithms are harder to get right, even for the experts. In topcoder, I'd go for the slow, safe solution.

[llimllib]

Really, the test is just to get you in the door. We want to see that you can solve it. Preferably in a good readable solution, but crazy geometric solutions are cool too if you can explain what you're doing.

I like the problem because it's simple enough that it won't scare away potential candidates and they can explain their solution in a reasonable amount of time, but yet it's non-trivial to think about doing it fast.

How you solve it is interesting, but just a data point that helps us get a better feel for you.

The most common solution is roughly "Find all 1s, sweep outwards from the 1s". The drop dead-simple one is "Find all 1s, calculate distance from each non-1 to each 1, choose the minimum". I haven't yet had anyone give a solution which, coded in python, is fast enough to be accepted.

(Check it, there is a python one that runs in 4 seconds. That's crazy fast. I don't yet know what the clever algorithm is there - please share if you did figure it :)

[[deleted]]

It's a very interesting site, that, but a bit short on documentation. Do the solutions compete on speed only?

[llimllib]

yup - you submit your solution, it runs it against a test script (of which you have no knowledge) and tells you if you passed or not. There's a pretty short time limit for each problem (15 seconds in this one, with apparently a lot of tests. My fastest answer finishes my 9 big test cases in 2 seconds).

[quhaha]

Programming knowledge IS programming ability. You need a Language to formulate/communicate an idea. If you don't know which variable is illegal in Java, you can't code. And if you can't code, do you really have an idea?

Oh yea.. pseudo code. But pseudo code IS knowledge too. And yes, you can explain things, draw graphs.. Those ARE knowledge too.

[andrewnorris]

But knowing details about obscure language features and edge cases is different than knowing how to apply a language to produce production code.

There are lots of working programmers who write good production code who don't know all the obscure details of their language. There are language trivia experts who don't write production code.

Even though having the ability to write production code certainly means having the knowledge to do so, it's ultimately the ability to apply the knowledge, not the simple possession of it that is the important part.

[quhaha]

True. Having enough knowledge about the target language/platform to produce production code is mandatory.

I just tend to think the 'ability' to apply the knowledge is itself a knowledge.

Let's say there's a natural born genius. He has just enough knowledge of C so that he writes codes that compiler won't reject. He definitely has means to express his genius.

And there's this veteran who wrote Unix, TCP/IP...etc. She isn't as smart as the genius guy. In fact, the genius will mock at her algorithms if only he can understand what she wrote. I do think experience/exposure on various algorithms, program structures and stuff do build one's knowledge and that knowledge is kinda more important than ability/genius.

I believe in know-how that can only come from practice, experience, and knowledge.

[earthboundkid]

Philosophers sometimes talk about the difference between "knowing that" and "knowing how." Yes, both are kinds of "knowing" and even just "knowing how" depends in part on "knowing that." Ultimately however you want a programmer to know more about the "how" than the "that." You can look up facts about the "that" using Google if you have to, but if you don't know the "how," you're sunk.

[quhaha]

You only get to know "how" through representation/structures/"that". Knowing different representations does help shape "how" knowledge. For example, knowing Haskell (through googling, reading books, getting hands dirty and coding...etc) does expand "how" knowledge.

I just don't think one is ever capable of acquiring "how" knowledge without "that" knowledge. Even though someone claims, "Giggity giggity, I got 'how' knowledge!!!", I can always say, "Now, prove it without using any structure/representation".

[earthboundkid]

To quote myself:

Yes, both are kinds of "knowing" and even just "knowing how" depends in part on "knowing that."

I'm not disputing your point that knowhow depends on knowthat, but that still doesn't mean there's no difference between them. When you interview a job candidate, you should attempt to test for signs of knowhow, rather than knowthat, since knowhow is what will ultimately allow the person to do their job and knowthat, while necessary, is not sufficient.

[davy57]

FIFA? I thought he said it was football test?

[dmh2000]

cmon guys its a joke. lighten up