Opinions of a middle-end programmer

hello_moto · on July 30, 2011

Programming is like religion: there are a few beliefs and people tend to choose.

Here are some of the beliefs: the hackers, the pragmatics, the engineers, the scrappers, the academics, the oops, the functionals.

They are all pursuing different ways to achieve the solution in their respective space. What matters for you is to pick one (or two) belief that you like the most as of today.

bbq · on July 30, 2011

Or, just do what you want and don't try to fit some label for which thousands of people have thousands of different definitions.

mtogo · on July 30, 2011

In other words: Programming, motherfucker.

jacques_chester · on July 30, 2011

Who or what is a "middle-end" programmer?

josscrowcroft · on July 30, 2011

I think it refers to somewhere between "back-end wizard" and "front-end ninja"

Usage: "middle-end half-giant"

sebkomianos · on July 30, 2011

Sometimes I wonder if people really consider themselves wizards, ninjas, rockstars or they are actually that lame.

(no offense intended and no hard feelings for the downvotes to come)

frou_dh · on July 30, 2011

If we're taking it seriously then we need to know which specific characteristics of the wizard, ninja or rockstar they feel they share :)

Tobu · on July 31, 2011

1. Arcane knowledge 2. penetration skills 3. mindless followers.

leon_ · on July 30, 2011

wizard? ninja? ... and I believed rockstar was stupid.

jamesaguilar · on July 30, 2011

The other two have been applied to hackers for much longer than "rockstar."

kragen · on July 31, 2011

Sounds like someone who has trouble with logic: the middle of something, by definition, is not one of its ends. Someone heard the compounds "high-end" and "low-end", which refer to the actual upper and lower ends of the range of prices in a market, and coined "middle-end" by analogy — either humorously or without being able to figure out the meaning of the other phrases.

46Bit · on July 30, 2011

Not brilliant, but not rubbish. Pretty standard phrase, at least here in the UK.

robtoo · on July 30, 2011

I'm a Brit and have never heard "middle-end" used like that. "Middling", yes. "Middle-end", no.

And to answer the grand-parent:

building infrastructure that will help other parts of the project -- part of why I call myself a ‘middle-end programmer’.

It seems that the author is using "middle-end" in a manner analagous to the more common "front-end" and "back-end".

Exactly what this involves is not entirely clear, but building frameworks, perhaps.

thwarted · on July 30, 2011

building infrastructure that will help other parts of the project --part of why I call myself a ‘middle-end programmer’.

Brooks called that role the toolsmith.

baha_man · on July 30, 2011

"Pretty standard phrase, at least here in the UK."

No, it's definitely not.

jacques_chester · on July 30, 2011

Thanks.

ZoFreX · on July 30, 2011

I quite liked these guidelines for documenting code:

1. explain the motivation 2. give at least one example of usage 3. explain implementation choices

(Not saying this is the best way - there are lots of different guidelines for documenting code that I like!)