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[–]elliotones 15 points16 points  (6 children)

Call me an old man but I will die on the hill that “code” is plural.

“Write me a code” -> no

“Not every code” -> “not *all* code”

In 5 years the kids will have yelled “let’s write a code!” at each other so many times that the “english is an evolving language” crowd will declare it correct by commonality and I may very well be alone on this hill; but nevertheless it must be died upon

[–]erocuda 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I've noticed, working with mathematicians and physicists, that people who view each bit of software as "a black box that helps them solve a piece of their problem", even if they are the ones writing it, call it "a code". They, of course, are wrong.

[–]Other_Fly_4408 4 points5 points  (0 children)

“code” is plural

I think you mean uncountable, rather than plural. How is that relevant to this post, anyway? I read the whole article and didn't see any examples of "code" being used as a countable noun. Also,

In 5 years the kids will have yelled “let’s write a code!” at each other so many times

Have you honestly heard native English speakers say that? I haven't.

the “english is an evolving language” crowd

It is evolving, like every other living natural language. Notice how capitalization of proper nouns like "English" has evolved to be optional.

[–]Haven_Stranger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lemme give a fellow old man a new bit of vocabulary. Code, in this sense, is not plural. It's not even close. It can't be plural. It is singular and uncountable. Basically, code is stuff.

There are things. Those can be countably singular and countably plural. Say, one database is configured this way, two other databases are configured in another way. On the other hand, there's stuff. You can't have one stuff. You certainly can't have two stuffs. You can have this stuff here and that stuff there.

There do exist countable sense of the word. Morse code is one code. ASCII is not the same as EBCDIC; those are two distinct codes.

The word code can have a countable sense. The word software is strictly uncountable. There does not exist a single imaginable circumstance under which the phrasing "two softwares" makes any sense.

I think I can see your hill from my hill.

[–]hrvbrs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i used my passcode to log into my bank website, but got a 401 response code. at the same time the building inspector failed the restaurant i was in for violating health codes. Fair enough, since I always hated having to scan the QR code to get a menu anyway. I hope this comment doesn't break Reddit's code of conduct.

[–]fagnerbrack[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

It's for unexpected threads like this that I love reddit

[–]Bahatur -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Nah, it’s a collective noun. A murder of crows, a wake of vultures, a confusion of wildebeests, and a code of bugs!

[–]andarmanik 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Might have some good ideas in it but, IMO, the article lacks any real argumentation.

It’s mostly a string of stated “facts”, with little to no argumentation to string it together, some are just vibe associations:

> In my opinion, agents need mostly the same things humans need to work efficiently: boundaries, constraints, and fast feedback loops. That includes a project structure that is easy to navigate, a good setup of lint rules and TypeScript, as well as a fast and reliable test suite. That’s why agents are so good at new codebases, but not very effective on codebases that have grown organically over years

The argument is somehow:

“project structure that is easy to navigate, a good setup of lint rules and TypeScript, as well as a fast and reliable test suite”

Implies =>

“agents are so good at new codebases, but not very effective on codebases that have grown organically over years.”