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deborahThis exchange on twitter (via the Internet Archive for obvious reasons) made me laugh:
Quoted Tweet from Zoë Schiffer ( Elon Musk is also asking for up 10 screenshots of the "most salient lines of code" from Twitter engineers Quote tweet from Ed Zitron ( anyone who understands coding (I do not): this is dumb right. This is a silly request? Why is it silly? please help me Reply from Lemurdusa ( This is like asking a librarian for their favourite numbers in the dewy decimal system
transcribed
ZoeSchiffer):
edzitron):
lemurdank):
Because I'm a librarian and a programmer, and yeah, my response to both questions is to look at you funny.
(As a programmer, because some of my best solo work isn't my lines of code, it's architecture of the system. And the lines of code I'm most proud of are either clever (clever code is often dangerous), or a convoluted and hideous hack to deal with a shitty system. Also who thinks of specific lines of code in complex systems? Probably any specific "salient lines of code" I could pick out are in silly personal side projects; half of what I write in a professional capacity is practically boilerplate. In the repository of all the lines of code ever written, the expertise of the programmer -- picking the right ones and putting them in order -- is what differentiates the programmer from GitHub Copilot.)
(As a librarian because, seriously, the Dewey Decimal System? Really? Library of Congress, obviously.)
(Also it's 398.2, obviously.)
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Date: 2022-11-20 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-20 07:57 pm (UTC)Who knows any other DDS number by heart?
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Date: 2022-11-22 01:27 am (UTC)Now I'm off thinking about what my 10 favourite lines of code might actually be, and picturing myself explaining them in the most self-important vocabulary I can muster. "You see, the bare return; statement is like the sound of one hand clapping...."