Geek: Some Stuff Makes Sense, Some Doesn't
August 28, 2008
Over the years of working in tech, I have noticed a pattern: certain technologies, languages, procedures, whatever, tend to make sense instantly and permanently to me. Other things, even if I work with them for months or years, never feel quite right. The latter leave me feeling less than intelligent.
I’ve also noticed that the types of things that tend to make sense to me tend to make sense to fellow Cloud Four-ian John. Not 100%, but it led me to wonder if certain patterns of thinking (I hope it’s OK to say that I think that some parts of my brain are wired like John’s) cause certain technologies to make sense and others to baffle.
Here is my distribution:
Inherently Makes Sense
- Object-oriented programming
- SQL/relational databases
- DOM and JQuery/good JavaScript frameworks
- PHP (sorry, but it’s so obvious and easy)
- Python (coding/reading)
- WordPress (as a PHP framework example)
- AJAX-y stuff
Gives me Grief
- CVS (please just kill me now; maybe it’s just the complexity of the specific CVS situations I’ve faced)
- Zope (the way it’s pieced together from bits of Python, bits of object DB, other stuff)
- Python (finding documentation and modules)
- Drupal (Something about the complexity of doing custom things)
- DNS (Thankfully no longer My Problem)
- SSH Keys
- XML parsing, also SOAP (“Simple”, my ass*)
I am not implying that the stuff I have trouble with is bad or hard, nor that I cannot do it at all–it just confounds or frustrates me consistently. Something about my perception of those items, my conceptions.
Does everyone have lists like this or do most techies just kind of “get” everything?
* Ha ha ha: Wikipedia: “SOAP once stood for ‘Simple Object Access Protocol’ but this acronym was dropped with Version 1.2 of the standard, as it was considered to be misleading” (laughing all the way to the “oh shit I have to use SOAP in my next project”)
5 Comments
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CVS is just terrible. Just don’t use it, there is no reason to anymore anyway. We’re 2 generations of VCS past CVS. Though many of the current generation bring even more complexity, but some of them hide it a bit better.
DNS just requires a good explanation. Maybe some white boarding, I’m sure you’d get it. It is amazing how poorly it’s understood by most people, including those who run DNS servers.
SSH keys also just require some explanation.
SOAP is just terrible.
Eh, gimme 20-30 minutes per topic, except DNS. I’d explain it in no time. DNS just bores me though.
As for CVS, does it include Subversion in your definition? Are we speaking source control in general? Any project worth 2 cents has source control. Even single person projects have source control. What is the issue with CVS?
…oh yeah, and PHP is crap. PHP is truly a decade behind.
J2EE/Java Stuff, .NET, Ruby, and other systems are vastly superior. Don’t spend too much time with PHP or I promise you’ll get stuck doing things that…
…well, it would be nearly as fun as the other things one does with the other tool sets.
My issue is with CVS, not source control. I’m not sure why you are confusing the two. CVS is not a blanket term for all source control.
A couple of clarifications:
* The “Gives me Grief” column doesn’t mean I patently don’t “get it” or “don’t know it,” but that it doesn’t feel intuitive or natural to me. No amount of whiteboard scribbling is going to elucidate the inner evils of CVS for me. I actually managed my former company’s DNS (we were, roughly, an ASP) for a long time with little upset, but I hated it.
* I’m not averse to source control. It’s CVS specifically.
* I think what it is about PHP that makes it feel natural to me is that its syntax is C-derivative. This occurred to me this week as I learning Cocoa (Objective-C based) and it felt relatively natural, too. So Java is not too bad either, for me. Et cetera. I don’t really want to “get in it” right now about PHP, its lameness or brilliance isn’t the thrust of my point…I’m relatively indifferent to it. But I knew I couldn’t bring it up without invoking ire :).