Show HN: Going into freshman year, figured I should build an interpreter • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Going into freshman year, figured I should build an interpreter

#81

Post by sam0x17 » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 3:53 PM UTC

Serenacula wrote: post #77

sam0x17 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't agree more with this. I ended up double-majoring Philosophy and it was fantastic and has surprisingly helped several times in my career

I still honestly believe coding should be a requirement in all philosophy courses. A system for layout out logical structures efficiently was something philosophy to this day sorely lacks, with formal logic being practically unreadable. And computer science has literally spent 50 years working on how to do that well.

I actually ended up getting to teach a 20 minute segment on neural networks to my fellow philosophy students during a senior seminar on phenomenology, was great fun

Re: Show HN: Going into freshman year, figured I should build an interpreter

#82

Post by brailsafe » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 9:44 PM UTC

adithyassekhar wrote: post #46

soligern wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends. When I was young I could spend hours coding and it felt amazing and like a great use of my time. Now in my 30s? No way, writing detailed code and spending all my time in front of the screen feels like I’m throwing away my life. All that minutia, whether useful or useless, is repulsive.

I'm in my 20s and I'm disappointed in myself for not spending time with my friends during school instead of wasting time making hacked together programs. I came to realise I don't even like "real" programming only random quickly put together scripts. When my friends explored all kind of things I was so stuck on coding and web dev and php. I didn't check out any other fields of interest or professions. When I read all…

As I've entered my 30s, I've noticed that people have also squandered their opportunities to get reps at friendbuilding outside of school, instead focusing on work, and everything has a cost. Now they're more employable than me, but I know exactly how to go about establishing strong friendships, and many of them are hopelessly stuck to either their spouse or their high school buddies and the prospect of moving elsewhere to advance the opportunity in the field they invested in would be quite difficult for some.

Regarding parents, what's made me cringe lately has been the shutting down of opportunities for their kids to form new bonds and play. There's a park I go to regularly that seems to be attended by well-off parents who go in groups. Last time I overheard a kid who must have been 5 playing with some other kid she just met on the swings. She ran over to her mother and said "This is ___ she's my new friend" and the mother basically wrote it off and said that's great but the other one has to go and then they left. The same outgoing kid had earlier wanted to try climbing this artificial rock I was doing, and the parent just showed absolutely no enthusiasm for letting their kid do it, she had somewhere else to be. I get that people are busy, but let your fucking kids play.

Re: Show HN: Going into freshman year, figured I should build an interpreter

#83

Post by _a_a_a_ » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 10:21 PM UTC

grumblingdev wrote: post #76

_a_a_a_ wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say so but give no actual evidence against it. I can't learn from that.

There are a ton of resources online about "why OO is bad". I think knowing that this viewpoint exists is a good lesson in itself.

You don't consider the fact that I've worked successfully with OO many times on various systems of various sizes to be of any significance, then tell me "there are a ton of resources online" which translates to "now go and google for viewpoints that support grumblingdev" instead of actually giving me any data.

You've given me nothing to work on, nothing to learn from, nothing I can even oppose because your objection is so nebulous. I can't even knock down your claims because you haven't really made any except "muh, OOP baaad". I haven't learnt anything, equally you haven't learnt anything... what was the bloody point in you saying anything at all?

> I think knowing that this viewpoint exists is a good lesson in itself

I'll skip the sarcastic reply and just say I draw rather different conclusions.

Re: Show HN: Going into freshman year, figured I should build an interpreter

#84

Post by eru » Fri, Sep 01, 2023, 9:50 AM UTC

poulsbohemian wrote: post #39

Here's perhaps some unexpected and unsolicited advice... so pretty clearly you aren't going to have a hard time with the CS curriculum (assuming that's what you intend to study) so my $0.02 is - find a second or even third major to augment your skill set. If you are already able to get to this level on your own, you'll likely breeze right through a typical undergrad CS course of study. So consider other courses of st…

The part of the advice that suggests acquiring more skills is good.

The other part, that suggests doing more courses of study is somewhat questionable.

Uni courses are designed partially to help you learn skills. But also for other requirements.

If OP wants to learn more skills, they should go for that. Whether in uni or outside. If OP wants to relax and have fun, that would also be a good use of time in your twenties.