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How to improve your programming skills

antoarts.com

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Re: How to improve your programming skills

#2

Post by stephen_dryden »

Really good article, I agree with every point.

If I were to add to it I stress the importance of reading books by different authors and publishers, even if they're about the same subject. This helps you get a much wider, well-rounded view and it often improves the learning experience.

Re: How to improve your programming skills

#3

Post by antoarts »

stephen_dryden wrote: post #2

Really good article, I agree with every point. If I were to add to it I stress the importance of reading books by different authors and publishers, even if they're about the same subject. This helps you get a much wider, well-rounded view and it often improves the learning experience.

Thank you :). I agree it is always good to see a thing from as many angles as possible. Additionally, some author might have left something out which another one did not.

Re: How to improve your programming skills

#5

Post by bajsejohannes »

The article suggest reading code, which I agree is a good way to improve programming skills. But I'm a bit unsure what to do with the advice to read the linux source code. Where would you start? I find the only way to actually get to reading code, is if you have a need to understand some part of it (e.g. to fix a bug or add a feature).

So perhaps a more actionable proposal is to try to fix a bug, preferably one you care about, in some open source project.

Re: How to improve your programming skills

#8

Post by Tashtego »

highace wrote: post #4

+1 for don't rush to StackOverflow! You don't get better if you don't tax your brain a little, much like how you don't get stronger if you use a winch or wheelbarrow to carry a load instead of carrying it yourself.

I've been trying to get better at this myself. Although, you do feel foolish when you bang your head against something for six hours, and then you get your first (correct) answer on stack overflow five minutes after you post.

Still, if you're not feeling foolish often, you're not learning. Competence is deadly that way.

Re: How to improve your programming skills

#9

Post by peteretep »

Learning Javascript changed my Perl for the ... more fun to write. Possibly better, too. I've started passing around coderefs as arguments to functions a lot more recently, and allowing people who use my APIs to do just that...

I've been writing code that allows you to describe a website in data and at a high level recently, and builds you up all the methods you need to interact with it. In general, when people need to provide parameters, I also let them pass in coderefs that can be executed to provide those eg:

            my $name = ref($args{'form_name'}) eq 'CODE' ?
                $args{'form_name'}->( $self, @user_options ) :
                $args{'form_name'};
            my $form = $self->mech->form_name( $name );

Re: How to improve your programming skills

#10

Post by wccrawford »

Tashtego wrote: post #8
highace wrote: post #4

+1 for don't rush to StackOverflow! You don't get better if you don't tax your brain a little, much like how you don't get stronger if you use a winch or wheelbarrow to carry a load instead of carrying it yourself.

I've been trying to get better at this myself. Although, you do feel foolish when you bang your head against something for six hours, and then you get your first (correct) answer on stack overflow five minutes after you post. Still, if you're not feeling foolish often, you're not learning. Competence is deadly that way.

Learning to find the answer yourself is -way- more helpful than having it provided to you. Don't regret those 6 hours. It's a process.
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