What could you have done better? Or you wish you'd known certain things before?
Ask HN: What was your biggest regret about learning programming?
1–10 of 40 posts
Re: Ask HN: What was your biggest regret about learning programming?
#2Probably wasting so much time trying to make languages work that weren't really necessary. I spent so much time messing with C++ and performance and it was pointless because CPU's went from 4.77 Mhz to 3 Ghz. Also I probably would have just headed straight for a top CS school instead of wasting time teaching myself out in the sticks or learning 20-30 year old tech at whatever local university is nearby. Literally a lot of schools are still in the cold war era when it comes to teaching.
Re: Ask HN: What was your biggest regret about learning programming?
#3Probably wasting so much time trying to make languages work that weren't really necessary. I spent so much time messing with C++ and performance and it was pointless because CPU's went from 4.77 Mhz to 3 Ghz. Also I probably would have just headed straight for a top CS school instead of wasting time teaching myself out in the sticks or learning 20-30 year old tech at whatever local university is nearby. Literally a l…
Have your tired the online CS courses?
Re: Ask HN: What was your biggest regret about learning programming?
#4Postponing to learn SQL.
This should be done sooner rather than later.
Re: Ask HN: What was your biggest regret about learning programming?
#5Probably wasting so much time trying to make languages work that weren't really necessary. I spent so much time messing with C++ and performance and it was pointless because CPU's went from 4.77 Mhz to 3 Ghz. Also I probably would have just headed straight for a top CS school instead of wasting time teaching myself out in the sticks or learning 20-30 year old tech at whatever local university is nearby. Literally a l…
Yes! One thing they don't tell you about autodidactism is just how slow the process is, without a mentor to help you out.
Re: Ask HN: What was your biggest regret about learning programming?
#6Probably wasting so much time trying to make languages work that weren't really necessary. I spent so much time messing with C++ and performance and it was pointless because CPU's went from 4.77 Mhz to 3 Ghz. Also I probably would have just headed straight for a top CS school instead of wasting time teaching myself out in the sticks or learning 20-30 year old tech at whatever local university is nearby. Literally a l…
Strongly agree on the point of "... wasting time on getting languages to work ...".
That time could have been spent on growing ideas and design rather than now let's find out where this segmentation fault is coming from...
Re: Ask HN: What was your biggest regret about learning programming?
#7I wish I had learned about testing earlier.
The idea of testing code was never covered in any of the introductory books I read. I learned the basics of C, Fortran, and Pascal while doing a physics undergrad in the 90's, then I learned Java and Python in the 00's on my own from books and websites. None of the introductory books I read introduced the concept of testing. It wasn't until I started reading programming blogs on a regular basis that I started writing tests for my code. Once I did, the quality of my code immediately improved and I felt much more confident in the code I wrote.
When I wrote an introductory Python text recently I included a chapter on the most basic aspects of testing. Beginners don't need to write tests for everything they write, but they should definitely be aware of the concept.
Re: Ask HN: What was your biggest regret about learning programming?
#8My biggest regret about learning programming is that I tend to approach things in the real world from an engineering perspective, which isn't always best for a given situation.
I try to avoid it and over time I've done a better job of approaching things dynamically.
Re: Ask HN: What was your biggest regret about learning programming?
#9Still my regret because I keep doing it: losing focus and switching context too much (languages, frameworks, etc). Getting better at it though.
Re: Ask HN: What was your biggest regret about learning programming?
#10Being cocky because "I knew how to code", rather than having any idea about how much I didn't yet know.