How I Learned to Program • Hacker News Board

Re: How I Learned to Program

#11

Post by jmsduran » Sat, Feb 04, 2012, 8:49 AM UTC

Nice article, I second that programming is a way of life. Although I'm in my early 20's right out of college, I look forward to how much knowledge & experience I will amass, and the radical transformations this industry will go through, 10 - 20 years down the road.

> "On linux, if you want to copy a file from one box to another, you use scp or rsync"

No, not really... I just SFTP at the moment simply cause I find it more convenient (granted, I'm not a Linux power user in any way).

Re: How I Learned to Program

#12

Post by KingOfB » Sat, Feb 04, 2012, 8:50 AM UTC

Wow, I never had any post summarize my growth as an engineer so well. Except for the writing and community bit, that's come a bit late.

I remember the day I realized that I could have windows and play heretic all day, or install linux and tinker all day. Linux quickly won.

The biggest skill I learned from linux is to never expect things to work, and to expect the internet to fix things. My round trip time from not working to google and back to working is by far my most valuable asset as an engineer.

And still, almost every day I leave work I think "God that was awesome!". I hope that never goes away.

Oh, and so +1 for 2 hour nr epic SC battles! Except it was under wine, and man did it quake!

Re: How I Learned to Program

#13

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Feb 04, 2012, 8:56 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: How I Learned to Program

#14

Post by samaraga » Sat, Feb 04, 2012, 9:35 AM UTC

The author speaks of writing some small scripts. I write some small scripts for my use for small tasks, if I come across any problem. Just in case, does anyone know a place(website,book etc.) where such small task scripts are collated so that anyone can use them like small assignments?

Advanced Bash Scripting Guide by Mendel Cooper(http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/) has some good scripts which I have come across for some practice but it isn't ordered. Any others ?

Re: How I Learned to Program

#15

Post by b14ck » Sat, Feb 04, 2012, 9:39 AM UTC

samaraga wrote: post #14

The author speaks of writing some small scripts. I write some small scripts for my use for small tasks, if I come across any problem. Just in case, does anyone know a place(website,book etc.) where such small task scripts are collated so that anyone can use them like small assignments? Advanced Bash Scripting Guide by Mendel Cooper( http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/ ) has some good scripts which I have come across for so…

Man, I'd love something like this.

Re: How I Learned to Program

#16

Post by mark_up » Sat, Feb 04, 2012, 9:49 AM UTC

samaraga wrote: post #14

The author speaks of writing some small scripts. I write some small scripts for my use for small tasks, if I come across any problem. Just in case, does anyone know a place(website,book etc.) where such small task scripts are collated so that anyone can use them like small assignments? Advanced Bash Scripting Guide by Mendel Cooper( http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/ ) has some good scripts which I have come across for so…

Github?

Re: How I Learned to Program

#17

Post by orjan » Sat, Feb 04, 2012, 10:04 AM UTC

samaraga wrote: post #14

The author speaks of writing some small scripts. I write some small scripts for my use for small tasks, if I come across any problem. Just in case, does anyone know a place(website,book etc.) where such small task scripts are collated so that anyone can use them like small assignments? Advanced Bash Scripting Guide by Mendel Cooper( http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/ ) has some good scripts which I have come across for so…

Not exactly what you're describing, but commandlinefu.com can be quite useful.

Re: How I Learned to Program

#18

Post by samaraga » Sat, Feb 04, 2012, 11:01 AM UTC

orjan wrote: post #17

samaraga wrote: post #14

The author speaks of writing some small scripts. I write some small scripts for my use for small tasks, if I come across any problem. Just in case, does anyone know a place(website,book etc.) where such small task scripts are collated so that anyone can use them like small assignments? Advanced Bash Scripting Guide by Mendel Cooper( http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/ ) has some good scripts which I have come across for so…

Not exactly what you're describing, but commandlinefu.com can be quite useful.

Thanks, will check it out.

Re: How I Learned to Program

#19

Post by hackermom » Sat, Feb 04, 2012, 11:05 AM UTC

I learned by typing in BASIC program listings from computer magazines on my VIC-20 in the mid 80s. That slowly transitioned to modifying programs to see what would happen. At some blurry point the trial and error shifted to me actually understanding the language - and more importantly, the realization of programming logics - and starting to use it intuitively to write my own programs.

Re: How I Learned to Program

#20

Post by Luyt » Sat, Feb 04, 2012, 11:41 AM UTC

Nice read. Did you also always wanted to open things to see how they work? When I was 6 or so, I asked my mother if I could open our hamster to see 'how it worked inside'. Maybe if I were allowed that, I'd be a surgeon now instead of a software developer!