Ask HN: When does writing scripts turn into being “programmer”

1 pointszeroecco2y ago3 comments

As an SRE who is constantly fixing software bugs, adding features to open-source software, and writing scripts in various programming languages, I often wonder: At what point does my scripting work transform into full-blown programming work? What else is necessary to make the leap?

3 comments

flamesofphx2y ago

Highly dependant on who you ask...

For some printing your first "Hello World" program qualifies you.. get that to be output on a webpage with a set of <h1> & <center> tags, you become full stack...

For other(s) though you could write an even more feature rich and faster version of ZFS filesystem, and they would still not consider you a programmer.

bediger40002y ago

Empirically, at about 150 lines. That seems true for sh, PHP, Python and Perl.

Edit: somewhat fewer lines for Tcl/Tk for some reason.

sargstuff2y ago

Transcribing steps or developing/implementing steps?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse