Deploy your silicon bit-editors

Do you guys know why are text editing (investing time on difficult-to-use text editors, learn macros and bindings of text editors, learn text editing utility like sed, diff, patch, grep, awk, regex) and version control (the most famous one being Git, investing time to learn confusing things like tree structure, merging, fetching, committing) these 2 things peculiar to only the world of digital bits and the world of computer software dudes?

Computer codes and softwares can't be the only things on Earth that fiddle with texts. Other fields that deal with texts a lot: writers, journalists, lawyers, academicians, teachers, professors or even finance, accounting and medicine dudes, they should have equal passion in version control and text editors'[1] techniques and hacks no? But you don't see an attorney or a journalist shouting "Use xxx version control apps" or "Use xxx text editor" because "They make you a better and a more productive lawyer/professor!"! Even within the world of computer bits and softwares, are version control and text editing hacks that important? When I was learning how to program computers, lots of people digressed from the core stuff and techniques (data structures, paradigms, algorithms or even libraries and frameworks), started talking about text editing and version control's techniques and hacks, in the name of "These techniques make you a way more productive developer". Aren't text editing and version control the peripheral trivial stuff? Can a person who is clueless on what is a Objects and classes, hash table, garbage collection but is a maestro of Git and text editing get anything done? The vice versa: A maestro in data structures but very clumsy clueless in git and text editing, he could still get something done, couldn't him?


[1] Other than text editing & version control, people who fiddle texts for a leaving might also want to check out databases and its related utility (such as SQL language).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

End of The Life with Phones :(

Image
29th July 2011 Officially, I ended my career as a Marketing Executive (ME) in Teledirect Telecommerce Pte. Ltd. 3 months ago, simply surfing in Jobstreet.com, and simply clicking few jobs without studying much details (tikam only..haha) And dramatically, I got a chance for interview, and then get hired. Never thought i will work for such job in my life..sometime destiny and luck are really fishy XD Start from that moment, my hectic lifestyle started. I have to wake up at 6.30am everyday Take ride on the BEST transportation in Malaysia >>> KTM and went back home late at night.. And really live like a typical white collar, wearing formal everyday My task ? sell credit cards from Public Bank to customers through phones ! My first impression was : OMG..isit posible for customer to commit such thing through a phone call only? After a few weeks..I found the answer is, YES. Practice makes perfect. Faced lots of problems at first, some customers will hang up the ca...
Read more

What I wish I'd known when I was 20

  The following are some examples of things I wish I'd known or done when I was 20 in year 2013 (This advice is suitable for people who were born in year 2003 and beyond) - Be careful of popular things like law, medicine, accounting (translating into 2023 it might be something like web 3.0, crypto, data science). They are not necessarily bad, but think twice because you are gonna be sucked into the prestige magnet - Always aim for the super long term. Want to have a girlfriend/boyfriend? Ask yourselves if you could still live with such a person 10 years later? Want to choose a career? Ask yourselves could you stand doing that thing consistently for 10 years. If the answer is not a solid yes then they are not your right partner or your right career. - Dare to give harsh criticisms to friends and family. Being too nice to them in the short term by sugar coating is actually harming them in the long run. By being truthfully harsh to people around you, they also tell you the truth in r...
Read more

Problem-solvers vs. Problem-solved-ers

I wish people talk more about the difference between a problem-solver and a problem-solved-er. The latter is a person whose sole motive is to get rid of problems at all costs. You would find such a person agonizes at every step and every second during the actual problem solving process. Never for a second he would marvel at the odd idea of "problems are fun as they challenge you and push your limits". "Equating the word 'problems' with 'fun'? You can't be any more lunatic!", he said.  The former, while caring about getting a problem solved at the very end (because otherwise he is just a lazy-bum who never gets anything done), derives equal amount of (if not more) delight from the apparently gnawing problem on his hand.  For a problem-solved-er, the sole reason to bend over backwards is the final reward of "problem solved". Anything before that is excruciating evil. For a problem-solver, the struggle during the problem-solving process is...
Read more