Joel Spolsky is doing an IAmA on reddit • Hacker News Board

Re: Joel Spolsky is doing an IAmA on reddit

#11

Post by rubentopo » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 6:32 PM UTC

euroclydon wrote: post #3

I really want to learn C, like he says. I get plenty done without knowing it, and I have few doubts I can continue to find decent work without knowing it, but I haven't been able to gain any traction when I try to learn it. I've got the books sitting front of me, and I've written some trivial visualizations of sorting algorithms using terminal output, but damn if I can find a way to use C as a web developer. If there…

Maybe doing some time-consuming jobs in C?

Re: Joel Spolsky is doing an IAmA on reddit

#12

Post by Apocryphon » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 6:34 PM UTC

He mentions how functional programming is valuable, something that many graduates are lacking in. Does JavaScript count as a functional language?

Re: Joel Spolsky is doing an IAmA on reddit

#13

Post by jrockway » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 6:36 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #12

He mentions how functional programming is valuable, something that many graduates are lacking in. Does JavaScript count as a functional language?

Do Javascript programmers program in terms of function applications, or do they program in terms of sequences of state-changing operations?

If they do the first, then Javascript is a functional language. But without even a function composition or application operator (or function), it's obvious tht Javascript is not intended to be functional. It's an imperative/OO language with lambdas, like Common Lisp.

Re: Joel Spolsky is doing an IAmA on reddit

#14

Post by euroclydon » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 6:37 PM UTC

leon_ wrote: post #6

euroclydon wrote: post #3

I really want to learn C, like he says. I get plenty done without knowing it, and I have few doubts I can continue to find decent work without knowing it, but I haven't been able to gain any traction when I try to learn it. I've got the books sitting front of me, and I've written some trivial visualizations of sorting algorithms using terminal output, but damn if I can find a way to use C as a web developer. If there…

> but damn if I can find a way to use C as a web developer Write a web app in C? ;) But yeah, in most cases C won't improve your productivity as a web developer. But it will certainly make you understand the computer better. So maybe start a recreational project in C? A command line utility, a demon, a music streaming server - something not really web-dev related.

Listening to you, I'm thinking about just reading the C books and nothing more. If C's usefulness to non-C-programmers is simply that it gives them greater understanding of how computers work, then reading might suffice.

Re: Joel Spolsky is doing an IAmA on reddit

#15

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 6:37 PM UTC

leon_ wrote: post #6

euroclydon wrote: post #3

I really want to learn C, like he says. I get plenty done without knowing it, and I have few doubts I can continue to find decent work without knowing it, but I haven't been able to gain any traction when I try to learn it. I've got the books sitting front of me, and I've written some trivial visualizations of sorting algorithms using terminal output, but damn if I can find a way to use C as a web developer. If there…

> but damn if I can find a way to use C as a web developer Write a web app in C? ;) But yeah, in most cases C won't improve your productivity as a web developer. But it will certainly make you understand the computer better. So maybe start a recreational project in C? A command line utility, a demon, a music streaming server - something not really web-dev related.

[deleted]

Re: Joel Spolsky is doing an IAmA on reddit

#16

Post by jrockway » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 6:37 PM UTC

euroclydon wrote: post #3

I really want to learn C, like he says. I get plenty done without knowing it, and I have few doubts I can continue to find decent work without knowing it, but I haven't been able to gain any traction when I try to learn it. I've got the books sitting front of me, and I've written some trivial visualizations of sorting algorithms using terminal output, but damn if I can find a way to use C as a web developer. If there…

So, if you're a web developer, you probably use Perl, Python, Ruby, or some similar language. Guess what, these are written in C(+). When you need to add or fix a feature, guess what language you use?

(+) Yes, yes, programming languages are not written in anything. Their implementations are. I know you know what I mean.

Re: Joel Spolsky is doing an IAmA on reddit

#17

Post by olavk » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 6:45 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #12

He mentions how functional programming is valuable, something that many graduates are lacking in. Does JavaScript count as a functional language?

There is no canonical definition of "functional language", so I guess it depends on your definition. JavaScript is an OO-language, but it is possible to program in a functional style, just as with many other OO languages.

But typical JavaScript development will not teach you the functional programming paradigm, if that is what you ask.

Re: Joel Spolsky is doing an IAmA on reddit

#18

Post by volkadav » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 6:50 PM UTC

euroclydon wrote: post #3

I really want to learn C, like he says. I get plenty done without knowing it, and I have few doubts I can continue to find decent work without knowing it, but I haven't been able to gain any traction when I try to learn it. I've got the books sitting front of me, and I've written some trivial visualizations of sorting algorithms using terminal output, but damn if I can find a way to use C as a web developer. If there…

Try writing a custom apache module? (Or nginx, or similar...) You can do some pretty fun things once you get into that layer of the web transaction life cycle (e.g. modifying behavior of things outside of the usual request/response part of the http transaction that you'd usually work with).

Re: Joel Spolsky is doing an IAmA on reddit

#19

Post by scorpion032 » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 6:52 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #2

A dedicated ama.stackexchange.com could be an interesting experiment.

The native use of reddit is to be able to do an IAmA. Why would you even want anything else for that?

Re: Joel Spolsky is doing an IAmA on reddit

#20

Post by follower » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 7:01 PM UTC

euroclydon wrote: post #3

I really want to learn C, like he says. I get plenty done without knowing it, and I have few doubts I can continue to find decent work without knowing it, but I haven't been able to gain any traction when I try to learn it. I've got the books sitting front of me, and I've written some trivial visualizations of sorting algorithms using terminal output, but damn if I can find a way to use C as a web developer. If there…

For years as I developed with Python and Javascript I thought "I really should write something in C again and maybe I should learn some C++". But nothing I was doing was performance critical or low level enough that I needed C or C++.

Then, a funny thing happened and I started playing with the Arduino.

And, while they go to great pains to hide it from non-technical people, the whole Arduino stack (ignoring the IDE) is based on C/C++. So then I began writing C again and learning C++. (I always find it slightly odd that I'm using C++ on a microcontroller--admittedly it's very small subset of C++, mostly just used for the object encapsulation/abstraction. (Insert handwavy, "yes, yes, I know it's not strictly C above library level" here.))

So, you might like to take a look at playing with the Arduino if you want to get into C. And if nothing else it's fun playing with tangible things that interact with the "real world".