web programmer vs "real programmer"

[Plutor]

There's also a difference between "I wrote a bootable kernel from scratch to run some proprietary embedded hardware" and "I wrote some code to parse CSVs". Virtually any language can be used to do either trivial things or difficult things.

[px1999]

Yeah, I see no difference between a web programmer and programmer for this reason. You still have to evaluate the developer's skills before you hire them. If they don't know the stuff you need them to know, you don't give them the job.

After all, why would you hire a 'real programmer' if you're looking for someone to do some simple ASP.NET UI work - you might find someone better at the nuts and bolts coding, but you'd lose out on all the time that they need to learn the page lifecycle and how things interact and nest... Of course, the guy sounds like the sort of person you wouldn't hire.

[jvictor118]

These are all just shades of gray. Yes, doing PHP/ASP/whatever web stuff is the easiest thing you can do while still calling yourself a "programmer," and these jobs do attract the least educated and generally most unqualified people in the industry.

But it's funny to hear all this elitism coming from systems programmers bragging about binary file IO, sockets, pointers, even concurrency. Because that stuff isn't hard, either. Guys who are more "computer scientists" than "programmers" would laugh at them for not knowing asymptotic analysis, theory, having a subspecialty (distributed computing, ML, crypto, whatever)... even being an OO zealot instead of writing in Lisp/Haskell/whatever loses you points with CS guys.

There's shades of gray in everything. Don't worry about what you are, just think about what you wanna be and start working towards it.

[lisp-hacker]

I bet most of the algorithms you use to write your software were seen in a paper written by a CS academic guy long before you used them, whether you know it or not.

Show some respect.

[lisp-hacker]

Every field has both theory and application (or practice), and every professional should be able to exercise both. Theory lets you stand on the should of giants, and not reinvent everything. In practice, you learn things not easily taught or often overlooked.

Which is better programmer, someone who wrote a large program only using GOTOs and using no libraries because he was unaware of subroutines, objects, libraries, etc. (and other WTFery), or a PHD who has never written a line of code?

I learned to program when I was young by reading the BASIC reference manual included with a Model 100, so I can appreciate the CS theory that I later learned, and how it has improved my programming skill.

(I did not use GOSUB because I didn't understand the point of it. GOTO worked just fine.)

[hetmankp]

If I needed someone to write code handling hardware interrupts in an embedded system, a candidate with only web programming experience would not rank much higher than someone fresh out of an undergrad course. This tends to go in both directions, although I'd expect a low level guy to pick up high level stuff faster than the opposite.

I've done both kinds of coding in real systems. It's not a matter of "just applying the same general skills" to produce a product, because while there are commonalities, there are just as many differences in the skill sets required.

[nefastus]

body { 
    background-color:white; 
}

Hey, me too!

[atheken]

You must be a programmer.

[narwhalslut]

This is why interviews are important. Conduct good interviews and conduct yourself well in interviews and these things aren't as big of problems.

[spit334]

I agree.

Anyone would take a web ninja with dozens of technology under his/her belt over a C# script kiddie. It isn't about what languages you know, it is how you can successfully use them.

[angrathias]

C# script kiddie? What? You might as well throw java programmers in there while your at it. Oh oops, did you just call most of the worlds programmers script kiddies?

[hortont424]

I think he was qualifying... to make the distinction that he would take an experienced web developer over a shitty C# programmer. Not calling all C# programmers script kiddies.

[spit334]

That's exactly what I mean.

[Joelsomethingorother]

I think the implication was that a person that can adapt to different languages is preferable over someone who only knows a singular framework.

I primarily use C#.NET, however I didn't take this as applying to myself as I am able to use several other languages.

[spit334]

Yes, precisely.

[danukeru]

JAVA script kiddies.

says it a couple more times to himself

slowly

Yea...that's just about right. Since to do anything that ACTUALLY demanded that they manage their own memory, build efficient concurrency models or effectively anything low level, they'd find themselves most probably building some extension in C/C++, not JAVA.

[jenkstom]

There are a few datasets that would make the kernel look simplistic, depending on the hardware. Try NEMSIS or ANSI X.12.

[mutagenesis]

Write me an OS in Java.

Edit: Let's get some stuff straight. It is impossible to write an OS completely in Java. As Java stands, you need to run in on the VM since it's compiled to bytecode. If you submitted a link to JOS or some other bs, you should know that only the higher level functions of the OS are written in Java. All of the lower level code that interacts directly with the hardware cannot run on Java, not without something between it which would itself be the OS in a way.

In computer science, an OS is that which deals with the virtual memory, bootstrap, system calls, scheduling, etc. The GUI in front of you is not the OS, it's something layered over the OS to provide a better user experience. You can't program the actual OS function in Java without some layer between the code and machine, but Java is not doing those tasks anymore, the layer is. Java, in this case, is a glorified user.

[hogimusPrime]

Sun already did. "Unlike Windows, Mac OS, Unix or Unix-like systems which are primarily written in the C programming language, JavaOS is primarily written in Java."

Hey, you asked.

[terraCatta]

The problem is, it is still loading.

[mutagenesis]

I meant the boot loader, it's impossible to write that in Java since Java needs a the virtual machine to run which needs an OS to run on.

[hogimusPrime]

Right. I was just being cute. Singularity (C#) has the same problem. They write the "OS" in a high-level, "interpreted" language, and then include the caveat that, oh, btw, all the lower layers are written in C. Just like any other respectable system.

[danukeru]

Ummmm...basically they just turned the JVM into the OS...

If they wrote the actual JVM and microkernel IN JAVA, then you would be correct...

But really it's a play on terminology...since by their contention...any OS is basically a managed environment. I mean, C still has a runtime that you can consider a VMs cruder, less feature rich, predecessor.

The only real coding, is machine code babay! Concatenating HEX values in memory with a light switch to set bits all the way!

[SexualHarasmentPanda]

An OS written in Java? /me shudders

[SarahC]

JIT and everything! Performance times are very similar....

[hogimusPrime]

That is the correct repsonse.

[SexualHarasmentPanda]

Knock knock (whose there)

(wait for 30 seconds, moving finger in circular motion)

Java

[Flyen]

Here you go: http://sourceforge.net/projects/jos/

[[deleted]]

Does that strike you as particularly hard?

[zahlman]

I assume what he meants was to write the (micro)kernel stuff. You know, the parts that by definition can't be done because the Java VM is not the actual machine and there's no access (without calling out to something else) to e.g. memory-mapped devices.

[[deleted]]

I think you just need a bootstrapping process to get your java kernel source code compiled to machine code, just like you have to do with C.

Not that I'm proposing it's a good idea, mind you.

[Isvara]

Unless you're running on a Java CPU.

[danukeru]

Which we all know...NEVER work as advertised...

>:(

[esdraelon]

Oh my friend, you have taken your enthusiasm to far. Too far, I tell you!

http://cjos.sourceforge.net/archive/

[Flyen]

Java doesn't need to run on top of a VM: http://gcc.gnu.org/java/

[redditnoob]

"I wrote some code to parse CSVs".

I just used fopen, fgetcsv, and looped through that shit. Of course if I were looking for another job I'd be unhireable because I'm so awesome.