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0 pointsenneff4y ago0 comments

What this really means that once you get to a certain level of experience and seniority the actual code you write in the small is pretty much irrelevant. What matters is the overall architecture of what you’re building: the data structures and APIs. The challenge becomes about working together as a team, and with other teams within your ecosystem. Sophisticated language constructs don’t actually help you solve those problems, and imo their benefit is marginal where they do help.

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filoeleven4y ago

I view map/filter as better abstractions than for loops, and do not consider them to be sophisticated language constructs. They correlate with descriptions of a program’s goals much more naturally than for loops do: get the name of each user, remove everyone under 21, only show accounts with positive balances, etc. Reduce is more arguable, but I think it also applies: show the total amount of money in all of this user’s accounts.

“If” however seems pretty fundamental.

drugones4y ago

This!

With at additional level of abstraction you could say “goto jumps”, but “if and loops” gives an commonly understandable logic for everyone; deeper abstractions increase reading complexities, while higher abstraction is achieved via functions and overall architecture.

Scaling up those “if and loops” is the challenge as a team or a single, with the common goals being to keep the software under control.

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