顶级程序员的心得 Coders at Work (I)

正在读 “Coders at Work”,   对15 位顶级程序员的采访， 总共600页。 从采访的模式看，有点像“艺术人生”， 一般都是音乐起，讲小时候的故事，你怎么开始写程序的?  (Brad 同学 5 岁开始写) ； 不过后来并没有神秘嘉宾上场，也没有声泪俱下的宣泄。 无论如何， 这些看似冗长的问答中有不少精辟的言论。 我摘录了一些关于挑选，面试程序员，优秀程序员的特点，和程序设计的句子。下面是前6个程序员的心得，和我的几句解释：

 

Coder	What they say about good programmer, interview, and design	My interpretation
Jamie Zawinski, LISP hacker, early Netscape developer, nightclub owner	Stay away from big fan of C++ templates;  Ability to argue their point is important. Curiosity is a key skill for programmers. There are people graduating with CS degrees who’d never written C. They started in java and they stayed there.  That just seemed bizarre and wrong.	不喜欢过度崇拜C++ 模板的程序员； 程序员的表达能力，说服能力好奇心很重要；   很多学生拿到了CS 学位，但是从来没写过C 程序，他们学了Java，仅此而已。 这是非常奇怪和不对的。
Brad Fitzpatrick creator of memcached, Perlbal, MogileFS.	interview question: Write a class to do arbitrary, bigint manipulation with multiplication and division	写一个大数的类，可以做乘除法。
Douglas Crockford  creator of JSON	Good Programmer: They have to read Knuth (TAOCP);   they are really literate in whatever language they write to other humans. I invite the candidate to bring in a piece of code he’s really proud of and walk us thru it.	读过Knuth 的TAOCP;  有很强的文字表达能力和沟通能力。 请应聘者带自己最得意的代码来，给大家看看。
Brendan Eich,  Creator of JavaScript	hiring: (rely on referral from team member) Bright people like each other and can judge each other.   I don’t give people puzzles to solve.  We give them fairly practical problems, Not esoteric puzzles or math-y things.	(他有时通过同事的推荐来招人)  聪明的人会互相欣赏，评价。 我不想通过智力题来判断程序员，我们给应聘者相当实际的问题，而不是那些奇怪的智力题或者数学题。
Joshua Bloch Java Architect, author of “Effective Java”	About programming: The older I get, the more I realize it isn’t just about making it work; it’s about producing an artifact that is readable, maintainable, and efficient.  …  it’s easier to optimized correct code than to correct optimized code. “do you ever use UML as a design tool?” No. I think it’s nice to be able to make diagrams that other people can understand.  But honestly I can’t even remember which components are supposed to be round or square.	关于编程: 我越来越意识到写程序不是仅仅把程序写出来，而是要让你写的程序可读，可维护，并且高效。  优化正确的程序要比改正已优化（但是有错）的程序要容易。   “你曾经用过UML 设计工具么?” 没有。 能把设计画成图，让别人理解当然很好。 但是说实话我记不起来哪些模块应该是圆形，哪些是方形。
Joe Armstrong creator of Erlang, and OTP.	Interview question: “what was the most fun project you ever wrote; show me the code for this stuff; how would you solve this problem?” I’m not so hung up on what they know about language X or Y.  they are either good at all languages or good at none.   You have to have a good memory to be a reasonable programmer.	面试问题: “你写过的最好玩的项目是什么? 让我看看代码， 你是怎么解决这个问题的?” 我并不一味要求他们已经知道某一两种语言。 好的程序员精通一种语言后，就会触类旁通，能学好所有语言。   好记性对一个好程序员很重要。