God kill SubSonic pretty please
The road to hell is paved with layers of abstraction.
I just wanted to type out that title... a bit of a rant against LINQ, SubSonic, Ruby On Rails ("doing rails is more like it", snickered joe.) and such... I'll actually write it later.
Who needs to understand SQL or HTML or any of this when we have such a wonderful array of abstraction code generating thousands of lines of "in-case" code I may need some day.
Actually writing now...
A friend and I recently had a conversation regarding coding conventions and the state of how one actually learns to code in any given environment. Fundamentally the argument is as essential as Nature vs. Nurture.
On the nature of coding and it's inhabitants
It's a Flatland reference, moving on... The nature of coding is an endless predicament of converting natural language requirements into code, and on a more base level, math.
Requirement: We need to show these very specific user stats on this page in this format
Code Interpretation: How can I gather the required data and then render the HTML for such a report in the most efficient way, using the most efficient methods?
Reciprocal Interpretation
How can I gather the required data
The most efficient way to gather the data from tha assumed data source is a single SQL statement that returns the exact data one needs. This also means having an understanding od database architecture, indexes, traces and so forth. Without these things one cannot retrieve the data in the most efficient way
...render the HTML
Personally I think this is the most overlooked job of a coder. You actually have to deliver this data a user... perhaps many, many users. This requires an understanding of browser technologies, HTML optimizing and more importantly at this time, CSS
...using the most efficient methods
Herein lies the rub friends. Your humble narrator gets a bit teary-eyed on this point.
Abbreviated Summary
In an "im too tired right now" summary, the bottom line is how can someone understand how to build an efficient application if they only use tools that keep them from ever understanding what the implications of the tools may be.? If all the interactions they have with the datasource and the end user are interpreted for them by a tool of some sort?
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