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Larry O'Brien
knowing.net · Personal blog · on HN since 2007
Larry O'Brien writes about software development, programmer productivity, and language learning, including the 15 Exercises series.
What HN saysHN commenters recommend his 15 Exercises to Know a Programming Language series and cite his skepticism about claims of 10x programmer productivity.
22HN people shared it
4linked it in comments
23stories submitted
262story points
5 years agolast shared
2007people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Forbes is wrong about “Developernomics”2 people · 59 points · first shared 2011 · 42 comments on HN
- 2Project Manager's View vs. Developer's View1 people · 47 points · first shared 2010 · 27 comments on HN
- 3Bad Programmers Are Not Good Programmers Who Are Slow1 people · 31 points · first shared 2008 · 14 comments on HN
- 4220 Billion Lines of COBOL? BS1 people · 22 points · first shared 2009 · 15 comments on HN
- 5No Silver Programmers1 people · 21 points · first shared 2008 · 36 comments on HN
- 630K application lines + 110K testing lines: Evidence of...?1 people · 21 points · first shared 2008 · 19 comments on HN
- 7"I'm getting really freaking tired of experiencing this level of incompetence"1 people · 20 points · first shared 2008 · 21 comments on HN
- 8Incompetent American Programmers1 people · 6 points · first shared 2008 · 3 comments on HN
- 915 Excercises to Know a programming language1 people · 5 points · first shared 2008 · 4 comments on HN
- 10Fast Ranking Algorithm1 people · 4 points · first shared 2008 · 2 comments on HN
- 11Lectures are Ineffective1 people · 4 points · first shared 2007 · 1 comments on HN
- 12Why 10x Ticks Me Off1 people · 4 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 13Brilliance From Siggraph: Bokeh-Based Tiny Barcodes1 people · 3 points · first shared 2009 · discussion on HN
- 14Star hopping : Goto Scope: vi : IDE1 people · 3 points · first shared 2009 · discussion on HN
- 15Rails And PHP Are The Access(es) Of The Web1 people · 2 points · first shared 2009 · 1 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
ExpiredLink · 2014-11-17
> Professional talent does vary, but there is not a shred of evidence that the best professional developers are an order of magnitude more productive than median developers at any timescale, much less on a meaningful timescale such as that of a product release cycle. There is abundant evidence that this is not the case
http://www.knowing.net/index.php/2011/12/09/forbes-is-wrong-about-deve…
> The Myth of the Rockstar Programmer
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheMythOfTheRockstarProgrammer.aspx
lelele · 2012-01-10
This is my favorite: http://www.knowing.net/index.php/2006/06/16/15-exercises-to-know-a-pro…
Flemlord · 2008-09-24
> Why is emacs a great editor?
It isn't--don't believe the hype. On the other hand, I couldn't write a line of code without IntelliSense.
Does anybody know anything about Emacs.Net that Microsoft is working on?
http://www.knowing.net/PermaLink,guid,31fdc849-db2a-4f7d-bf96-44df005a…
Zanni · 2021-06-19
I like Larry O'Brien's three-part series, "15 Exercises to Know a Programming Language," [1][2][3] mostly for the overall philosophy ("should be tough enough to require problem solving: try to embrace the language's idioms") and for the rationale that comes with each exercise (e.g. implement this to learn that about your chosen language). Note: the internal links between parts of the series are broken, so here are all three parts:
[1] https://knowing.net/posts/2006/06/15-exercises-to-know-a-programming-l…
[2] https://knowing.net/posts/2006/06/15-exercises-to-know-a-programming-l…
[3] https://knowing.net/posts/2006/06/15-exercises-to-know-a-programming-l…