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The Programmers’ Stone
Personal blog · the-programmers-stone.comprogrammingcareer
The Programmers’ Stone is a personal blog at the-programmers-stone.com about programming and career. Since 2007, 28 different Hacker News readers have linked it 40 times, most often “Thinking about Thinking (2007)”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (25) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link this blog as a deep reference on the cognitive side of programming: stress, mapper vs packer thinking, productivity, and the physical environment. Readers often cite it for these topics.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 25 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Thinking about Thinking (2007)8 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2009-10-30
- Stress impairs cognitive functions - The loss of those functions can explain why programming is hard5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2007-12-08
- The Programmers’ Stone » The Original Talks2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2008-07-22
- /about/the-dreaded-jungian-backlash/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2008-01-22
- The Programmers’ Stone – Neuroscience2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2008-12-28
What Hacker News says?
I didn't say they're not a positive filter; just that they're a black and white positive filter. Usually, hiring isn't about "passing or failing" candidates; it's about ranking candidates relative to one-another, and hiring the "best" ones (under whatever utility-function you think will help your business succeed.) And putting people into "really impressed me in solving a puzzle" and "did not really impress me in so…
Comment linking /about/the-dreaded-jungian-backlash/
on “Why we don't hire programmers based on puzzles and tricks”Submitted Thinking about Thinking (2007) as a story · 85 points
HN discussionThere is another good reading.) http://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-th...
Comment linking /the-original-talks/day-1-thinking-about-thinking/
on “Modern Java – A Guide to Java 8”Submitted Stress and its consequences for software development as a story · 83 points
HN discussionTell us, please, what language comes to one's mind instantly afer reading this chapter below? http://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-th...
Comment linking /the-original-talks/day-1-thinking-about-thinking/
on “Modern Java – A Guide to Java 8”Submitted The Programmers’ Stone – Neuroscience as a story · 45 points
HN discussionMaybe the point then is that if we are aiming for diversity, then we aim for diversity: come out of your own comfort zone and get to know something or someone that feels uncomfortably foreign, try to appreciate this for what it is. It applies as much for "engineering-types" getting to know "sales-types" as it is for people of different racial heritages. Why should we expect "diversity" to have an appended, "as long…
Comment linking /
on “Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom”Submitted Stress impairs cognitive functions - The loss of those functions can explain why programming is hard as a story · 44 points
HN discussionLike any other primitive, dogmatic religion, Java will stay for ages, because there will never be a shortage of idiots to repeat the dogmas and mediocries to have a decent living by manipulating the crowd. Java is triumph of the "packers mindset". http://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-th...
Comment linking /the-original-talks/day-1-thinking-about-thinking/
on “Java: Real or Not?”Submitted Stress, Neurochemistry and why Programming is Hard (slides from OSCON 2008 talk) as a story · 16 points
HN discussionObligatory link to The Programmer's Stone, which was a real eye opener for me when I read it. http://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/ It starts with Mapper vs. packer mentality, stress level mismatches, and the effect of stress on your brain, and goes forwards from there :)
Comment linking /the-original-talks/
on “Relax. You'll be more productive”Submitted Linux Kernel Modules in Haskell - Ubuntu 9.04 Details as a story · 6 points
HN discussionHe didn't say doctors don't solve problems. He said they "don't do much problem solving". He wasn't talking about the result at all. He was talking about the method: mere recalling, or (re)discovery? Like ahpeeyem said below, this is a lot like mappers and packers. Here is the link he provided: http://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-th...
Comment linking /the-original-talks/day-1-thinking-about-thinking
on “Does math have big scary teeth or something?”- eb · 2008-03-04
Submitted A First Haskell Experience as a story · 5 points
HN discussion The comment is quite similar to the idea of "mappers and packers:" http://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-th... This theory goes that some people (mappers) create a mental map of how the world works, and any new knowledge has to be integrated into the map - or if it doesn't fit, the entire map has to be rearranged. Packers just store little packets of knowledge for each situation, without connecti…
Comment linking /the-original-talks/day-1-thinking-about-thinking/
on “Does math have big scary teeth or something?”Submitted Embedded Figures Test confirms that stress hurts cognitive ability as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI you haven't seen it, go read The Programmer's Stone, http://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/ , which goes into detail about dopamine, stress, brain states and group dynamics, and how it impacts programming and creative thinking. It's ironic that stressing out about building the next big thing could be preventing you from building the next big thing...
Comment linking /the-original-talks/
on “Don't Waste a Single Moment”Submitted What To Do Per Individual as a story · 2 points
HN discussion(As a new member of this forum I'm a bit shy to add to this thread, but here it goes anyway.) I suppose you've both seen the writings of Alan Carter ( http://the-programmers-stone.com/about/ ) and it seems to me that it just might be a way of getting these two seemingly differing viewpoints aligned. If stress is the biggest factor then age or marital status might have very little to do with it. At least directly. Ma…
Comment linking /about/
on “Hire Family People”Submitted The Programmers’ Stone » The Original Talks as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThis Programmer's Stone has a lot to say about the whole subject, here's an entry point: http://the-programmers-stone.com/about/implications-for-soft...
Comment linking /about/implications-for-software-engineers
on “Open-plan offices are making workers sick”Submitted Dirty Little Secrets - Response to Grady Booch as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI'm a huge minimalist, and there's basically nothing else that embraces the minimal aesthetic. I paid a lot of money (as a college kid) for a pair of dressers that were made by Komfort and are very similar to this dresser: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Danish-Modern-Teak-Bedroom-Dresser-b... As a programmer and a reductionist it's very appealing to me. It's about as simple as it can be with no extraneous ornamentation. Th…
Comment linking /the-original-talks/day-1-thinking-about-thinking/
on “Why the World Is Obsessed with Midcentury Modern Design”Submitted Stress as major cause of bad programming and impaired cognition as a story · 2 points
HN discussionhttp://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-th... The author might be wrong in a few details, but similar intuitions and insight could be found in writings of variety of thinkers, from Navokov to and J. Krishnamurti to Chomsky (who suggested that language acquisition process is, well, a processes) and the inventors of NLP (with the notions of the deep structure and the surface structure) to Marvin Mins…
Comment linking /the-original-talks/day-1-thinking-about-thinking/
on “Design Principles Behind Smalltalk (1981)”Submitted The Programmers’ Stone – Implications for Software Engineers as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI wanted to share the parent URL but HN didn't allow me. In "Why No-One’s Noticed This Before"[1] the author makes a distinction of `self-consistents` and `confabulators`. I've found this very similar to Robert Pirsig's `classical thinkers` vs `romantics`[2]. It is unfortunate that ZAMM devolves into rationalizing irrational behaviour and ends with a shrug after having raised the reader's expectations. I haven't rea…
Comment linking /about/why-no-one%E2%80%99s-noticed-this-before/
on “The Programmers’ Stone – Neuroscience”Submitted Thinking About Thinking as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThe other factor is environment. High stress environments are a killer. Reading The Programmer's Stone ( http://the-programmers-stone.com/about/ ) was a real eye opener for me in terms of mental state and what was possible if given enough space.
Comment linking /about/
on “The 10X Developer In You”Submitted Embedded Figures Test - Distinct Signature Emerges as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
