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People say stuff like this all the time, but what does it actually mean? Like, isn’t the details of the code, at least at some level, part of the “architecture”? I’m so curious about what people who say this are actually making where they just sit around all day and dream up new lego structures without ever having to look at any of the bricks.

by Karrot_Kream6 hours ago|

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The bricks are pretty standardized? I mean, you're not reinventing singly-linked and doubly-linked lists from first principles no? When I program I think in terms of data structures, data hierarchy, and algorithms. I want to use a queue here, a lock here, a double linked list there, an array list over here, maybe a hash dictionary with linked-list chaining for collisions. It's only a few times in my career that I built a bespoke data structure from the ground up and they were all for very hot loops and one case involved working on a lock-free algorithm.

I've done a lot of functional coding in the past (in academia, in Haskell as a hobby, and Scala for a unicorn where I was an early hire.) This probably affects how I think. But I find it quite natural to organize my code this way. After all the fundamental data structures and the hierarchies relating them are what often determine core properties of your programs such as being CPU, Memory, or IO bound.

I also work as a pretty senior engineer and my tasks before agents were usually about leading a team to implement something. I would often do the v0 implementation to make sure we met customer requirements and then take a step back and help the team scale the service up. These days the team is a lot smaller and maybe just another engineer; the agents make up the rest.

by retsibsi8 hours ago|

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I may have it wrong, but I think 'architecture' can include relatively low-level details: you could even design a program down to the level of what each function does, and still only be doing 'architecture', not coding, so long as you're not writing the code or specifying exactly how it should work.

by skydhash6 hours ago|

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> you could even design a program down to the level of what each function does, and still only be doing 'architecture', not coding, so long as you're not writing the code or specifying exactly how it should work.

So it all wishes and prayers? no wonder software quality is down.

by itishappy4 hours ago|

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> So it all wishes and prayers?

Software is built on wishes and prayers. Programmers don't ship pixels to be installed in monitors, nor do we (mostly) work with compiler internals. We write a detailed set of instructions and hope that a bunch of systems we don't necessarily comprehend follow them well enough to get the intended results. It works because some folks got together and wrote down their wishes and prayers so good that others were able to understand and follow them later.

by Karrot_Kream6 hours ago|

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We can be curious about how others approach problems or we can try to find the faults. I feel like this comment is a great example of jumping to the negativity rather than trying to understand a different perspective.

I ultimately think learning how other people structure programs is an enriching task and not one that should cause you to dig in and discredit differently-shaped approaches.

by skydhash5 hours ago|

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> I ultimately think learning how other people structure programs is an enriching task

Learning from others is great. But there should be actually something to learn. When someone says

  so long as you're not writing the code or specifying exactly how it should work.

It means they’re not creating software. They’re just playing with randomly generating something.

A software is the recipe for some process. The code is the formal version where everything is exhaustively specified. Not thinking about the code means you’ve stopped thinking about the software somewhere and no longer can say if it’s ok or not.

by Karrot_Kream5 hours ago|

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What's the point of leaving a comment if you're not going to change your mind and they're not going to change theirs? Is it just to advocate for your position?

by skydhash4 hours ago|

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As you're being very vague, I write more about my opinion, which is based on a guess of what your approach. Basically the Q of P imply Q where P is the guess (and P is the thing you're being vague). I'd like if you can prove that either P is not valid or that there's a different Q that exists.

  Axiom: A software is the recipe for some process. The code is the formal version where everything is exhaustively specified.
  P: Not thinking about the code
  Q:  means you’ve stopped thinking about the software somewhere and no longer can say if it’s ok or not.

To further go with my point, it's like explaining how to make a cake and you said that instead of a recipe, it's fine to provide just the name of the ingredients and a general instruction like: mix everything together and put it in the oven.