what is most difficult in programming to you?

Most difficult what?

Algorithm? Topic? Language?

Most difficult what?

Algorithm? Topic? Language?

what you find a most dificcult (for you at this stage you doing things)

for me it would be probably two things

1) it is hard to hold a decent level of satisfaction from all my project state (some factors (some 'unperfections') low this satisfaction, and it is hard to keep it high)

2) creative aspect of things (force things to 'feel' good, for example even one separate bitmap font can feel good or not and it is hard to make all the things feel really fine [becouse to change something often you need to do quite heavy programming work in the background so it is not easy to just delete it and try something else)

Isn't now but was use singletons and global variables and follow the SRP.

The most difficult for me is Design and conforming to it (or try to make everyone on the team conform to it). I usually plan what general code architecture should be used for the project. And, usually, somewhere in the project I find a "better" design that I should have used. What happens is that I make compromises to the new and the old.

The most difficult thing is having clueless people on your team. Not necessarily programmers, it can be project managers or whatever. They need things slowly explained to them over and over again. But they usually still remain clueless.

For me it's not starting the really important changes in my code base (3d engine) but instead doing a lot of little things that are also sort of necessary and useful.

Most difficult things? Horrible documentation with the kidnapping of vowels by the Hungarian Mafia.

High-level architecture is a problem for me. I can make individual classes and functions, and do them nicely, but making everything fit together well is something I'm still learning.

Trying to decide between two (or sometimes more) relatively equally good alternatives, usually for minor details. The result is frequent decision paralysis.

Naming things.


... Come on, admit it. You know it's true.

I seem to have fair bit of difficulty with a few major things:

making UIs/artwork/... which doesn't suck;

doing stuff which lacks an obvious way forwards (I can do pretty good at throwing together implementations of various specs or cloning stuff, but often things are a lot slower/painful if I have to try to find the way forward for myself);

trying to do anything "from a clean slate" (vs hacking on or extending things);

...

some general things I seem to have difficulty with:

thinking "high-level", pretty much my entire world is "whatever I have on hand at the moment" (like, it gets frustrating with people always expecting me to think "higher level", for me, these sorts of "high-level" thoughts simply don't really exist in the first place);

thinking of "the future" as something which actually exists (it always just seems so distant, whereas whatever is going on at the moment, I can see it as it is taking place);

being expected to plan/research/... things in isolation, vs just going and "doing whatever" (and working out the specifics as they come up);

...

my way forwards is usually just to pile up various things and options / experiences / ..., and see whichever is more usable/promising/works-better/... then each thing seemingly opening the way to the next thing (like, if I do something myself, I have a better feel for what all is involved and how everything works), or if all else fails, lots of fiddling with stuff.

Design.

Oh and dealing with other programmers, the kind of people that could think 2+2=7 and nothing on planet Earth will change their mind about it. In fact they tend to take offense if you suggest 2+2 could equal anything but 7.

I don't find design, languages, etc difficult. The difficulty is understanding the problem domain and how to solve it.
Translating that solution into a design and then some code is the easy part, IMHO.

Maintaining the patience to sift through all the pointless rubbish like this on forums looking for worthwhile theads to participate in.

Maintaining the patience to sift through all the pointless rubbish like this on forums looking for worthwhile theads to participate in.

Yeah, and gasto's recent string of low quality threads... "Why is the sky even blue?"-type threads...

EDIT:
Not that I can say I'm much better... At least gasto actually has something to talk about :|

Alright, if we can't keep this vaguely on topic, it's a candidate for getting closed.

I will refrain from stating my opinion on the usefulness of this thread, but I will say that it deserves as much chance to live a healthy life as any other.

Interpret that how you will :-)

if we can't keep this vaguely on topic

Wait, there's a topic in this thread?

Maintaining the patience to sift through all the pointless rubbish like this on forums looking for worthwhile theads to participate in.

On the opposite i state that this kind of reaction as above is inferior and primitive - if it is rubbis for you get out and leave it for people with different opinion

if it is rubbis for you

I mean, it's kind of rubbish altogether to conduct a straw-poll of a technical forum with no actual content or guidelines in the initial post...

it would be considerably more relevant to ask a small number of targeted questions, rather than the scattershot approach.