Ask HN: What do you code when learning a new language/framework? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What do you code when learning a new language/framework?

#151

Post by gglitch » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 1:47 PM UTC

cthuluincognito wrote: post #23

Find out what the most common domain is for that language. If that domain is unfamiliar to me, I try to find a good tutorial on building something in it. The self-correcting part is if the language is good for the domain 99/100 a times an excellent tutorial can be found on it. I'm not gonna write a compiler in Rust, and I'm not gonna write a web server in Haskell (reading between the lines the opposite is true). So j…

I just can't help it, I have to break out this old Kent Pitman saw. I'm not posting this to evangelize; I just think it's funny in context:

"But please don’t assume this is an exhaustive list, and please don’t assume Lisp is only useful for Animation and Graphics, AI, Bioinformatics, B2B and Ecommerce, Data Mining, EDA/Semiconductor applications, Expert Systems, Finance, Intelligent Agents, Knowledge Management, Mechanical CAD, Modeling and Simulation, Natural Language, Optimization, Research, Risk Analysis, Scheduling, Telecom, and Web Authoring just because these are the only things they happened to list. Common Lisp really is a general language capable of a lot more than these few incidental application areas, even if this web page doesn’t totally bring that out."

Re: Ask HN: What do you code when learning a new language/framework?

#152

Post by stuckinhell » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 2:01 PM UTC

mikercampbell wrote: post #56

Pokemon games!! All of the algebra is solved, and you can dig as deeply as you like in any direction you like. Graphics? Check. And simple, top down, tilesheet or character maps work just fine. Battles? Check. You can leverage anything from purely functional, object oriented, websocket, long polling, SQL, you name it. Whether you use 3 elemental types or flesh out everything from multiturn, semivulnerable, exp/leveli…

Do you have a tutorial ?! I'm super interested in this.

Re: Ask HN: What do you code when learning a new language/framework?

#153

Post by fellellor » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 2:43 PM UTC

Currently I’m learning Elixir with some interfacing to Kafka and would like to know the answer to this question as well.

Re: Ask HN: What do you code when learning a new language/framework?

#154

Post by clintonwoo » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 6:00 PM UTC

I previously built side projects with a real idea for an app like a social media app for example. In the future I might focus more on just leetcode type questions in the language for hands on familiarity. The right thing for each person just depends where they are in their technology journey.

Re: Ask HN: What do you code when learning a new language/framework?

#155

Post by indrora » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

General development support schlub here.

I write 2...3 things over time: a photo copy tool that organizes photos off a camera card, a simple TCP server that spits out "Perhaps bonghits will fix my make file" or something similar, and then some kind of library, usually something that involves another library.

When exploring a library or domain, I generally go for something I can glean from examples, usually gluing two of them together.

Re: Ask HN: What do you code when learning a new language/framework?

#156

Post by tpoacher » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 8:00 PM UTC

mikercampbell wrote: post #56

Pokemon games!! All of the algebra is solved, and you can dig as deeply as you like in any direction you like. Graphics? Check. And simple, top down, tilesheet or character maps work just fine. Battles? Check. You can leverage anything from purely functional, object oriented, websocket, long polling, SQL, you name it. Whether you use 3 elemental types or flesh out everything from multiturn, semivulnerable, exp/leveli…

GOTTA CODE THEM AAAALLLLLL!

Re: Ask HN: What do you code when learning a new language/framework?

#157

Post by mikercampbell » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 8:22 PM UTC

stuckinhell wrote: post #152

mikercampbell wrote: post #56

Pokemon games!! All of the algebra is solved, and you can dig as deeply as you like in any direction you like. Graphics? Check. And simple, top down, tilesheet or character maps work just fine. Battles? Check. You can leverage anything from purely functional, object oriented, websocket, long polling, SQL, you name it. Whether you use 3 elemental types or flesh out everything from multiturn, semivulnerable, exp/leveli…

Do you have a tutorial ?! I'm super interested in this.

I should write one! I've tried it enough times haha.

I'll look into starting that tonight and will share here if I go through with it!

Re: Ask HN: What do you code when learning a new language/framework?

#158

Post by mikercampbell » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 8:22 PM UTC

debugnik wrote: post #110

mikercampbell wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As for nitty gritty graphics, I highly recommend https://pikuma.com . They have free and paid courses, and go into a lot of the in-depth aspects you wouldn't get from using a web framework like I typically do. As for game mechanics, Wikipedia is a surprisingly solid resource. I mean, it's expected that these things are covered, but the depth is amazing. Check out this page for example! https://m.bulbapedia.bulbagarde…

I'm sure it's just a typo, but that's Bulbapedia, not Wikipedia. Got surprised for a moment.

Oh jeez, you're totally right :sweat:

Re: Ask HN: What do you code when learning a new language/framework?

#159

Post by mikercampbell » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 8:26 PM UTC

throwaway123x2 wrote: post #141

mikercampbell wrote: post #56

Pokemon games!! All of the algebra is solved, and you can dig as deeply as you like in any direction you like. Graphics? Check. And simple, top down, tilesheet or character maps work just fine. Battles? Check. You can leverage anything from purely functional, object oriented, websocket, long polling, SQL, you name it. Whether you use 3 elemental types or flesh out everything from multiturn, semivulnerable, exp/leveli…

wow this sounds incredibly complex

Only as complex as you want to make it! My very first Pokemon game was a case statement where you picked your first Pokemon and it emulated the dialogue.

My second attempt was before I knew about OOP or FP, and just had a C++ array that held Pokemon data in set indexes. That was during my first programming class haha

Re: Ask HN: What do you code when learning a new language/framework?

#160

Post by nikonyrh » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 9:03 PM UTC

I pick interesting or semi-relevant problems from https://codegolf.stackexchange.com. And if you look at other answers you'll learn a lot about the syntax and (unique?) features of the language. Not that you'd ever submit such programs in a professional setting.