Ask HN: Can pseudocode make you a better programmer?

5 points by 2ro 1 year ago | 4 comments

In modern software development, do people still use pseudocode before writing computer code?

I am kind of fascinated by the idea of improving my programming skill by focusing on the notation I use to think in - I remember reading an essay by Paul Graham: "The Hundred-Year Language"

How do people here use pseudocode? And, although Paul Graham has said languages are not really technologies but are more like notation, do people here agree? I tend to think of notations as technology - what are words in natural languages other than little "thought machines?" - anyway what do people here think? Feel free to share your preferred notations for pseudocode if you use them regularly when programming.

gregjor 1 year ago |

Rule 13 from The Elements of Programming Style:

> Write first in easy-to-understand pseudo language; then translate into whatever language you have to use. [1]

I write in a simplified version of C. Pseudocode helps you concentrate on the data structures, module boundaries, and control flow without getting bogged down and distracted with the details and trivia of a specific language. You can read and walk through the code in your head.

I know this advice seems contrary to the copy/paste let the IDE or "AI" do it mentality, but as the industry shakes out (again) the programmers who can actually write code to solve business problems will still have jobs, and those who memorize and automate won't.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Programming_St...

uberman 1 year ago |

When writing p-code I dont use any kind of formal notation on to formalize it would be to defeat the entire purpose in my opinion. For me, p-code is notes to myself describing intended functionality without implementation details.

2ro 1 year ago | |

So, this sounds like you could use a pure logic programming notation - specify intended functionality without any implementation details at all - that is basically what I am doing - I am attempting to create an ideal language notation for expressing general relations. I wonder if others might find this useful and if others are working in this space? If not, then why not?

dtagames 1 year ago |

I do think it helps. Sometimes I write pseudocode as comments if I have a complicated task to break down. It also lends itself well to LLM programming, especially with "reasoning" models where giving a complete picture of what you want in pseudocode-like terms can improve the results.

Donald Knuth said famously that code is for people and only incidentally for computers. And at the end of the day, only machine language code (not any "languages" we write) gets run. From that perspective, everything is a kind of pseudocode, including how you name and layout your variables and functions, etc.