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Advice to a novice programmer

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Re: Advice to a novice programmer

#111

Post by throwaway5959 »

pictureofabear wrote: post #103
user3939382 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theory vs career training in college is not a simple issue. In reality many students are going to college because they want a job, that’s the goal, that’s why they’re there, that’s why they’re paying. Employers want graduates with practical skills. This is a huge divergence from the University landscape in the 20s for example, where the purpose really commonly was “we’re here to think thoughts, for their own sake.” I…

And trade school enrollments are up. https://thehustle.co/04242023-trade-school-enrollment/ Universities will need to get used to smaller enrollments. https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/college-enrollment-sta... .

Everyone going to trade schools is just as stupid a line of thinking as everyone going to college, and yet I hear the former now all the time.

Re: Advice to a novice programmer

#112

Post by reassembled »

icyberbullyu wrote: post #25

I really have to disagree with the disparagement of vim/scp at the beginning. It's a bit slower to start if you begin with command-line tools, but the dividends payed out by learning the standard command-line utilities are huge. Learning the command-line utilities means you have the tool-set to build your own tool-set; since it's a lot easier to using CLI tools as building blocks for larger tools. At both of the last…

In my current job I was forced to learn Vim and a lot of the other Unix command-line tools as we mainly do embedded Linux development. For a while I scraped by with VSCode and it’s integrated debugger as a crutch, and I do still use it via the SSH remote extension but some systems I work on are just too lightweight on resources to set that up, particularly for shorter tasks.

My advice to other novice programmers would be to learn the tools that your job requires when it becomes a priority, but always keep yourself at least somewhat familiar with tools outside of the scope of your current task. You never know when you will need to quickly get up to speed with a new tool set or language. Part of the keys to success is also gaining an intuition of when the need to learn new tools and skills is on the horizon and when to start practicing in anticipation of needing to use them.

Re: Advice to a novice programmer

#113

Post by mnky9800n »

throwaway5959 wrote: post #111
pictureofabear wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And trade school enrollments are up. https://thehustle.co/04242023-trade-school-enrollment/ Universities will need to get used to smaller enrollments. https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/college-enrollment-sta... .

Everyone going to trade schools is just as stupid a line of thinking as everyone going to college, and yet I hear the former now all the time.

What if we combined universities and trade schools then we kill two birds with one stone.

Re: Advice to a novice programmer

#114

Post by tincholio »

IshKebab wrote: post #27
ghostpepper wrote: post #2

This is great advice, although personally I will continue using vim over vscode. If vscode is a sharp kitchen knife then vim is a katana sword. Novice programmers should probably not start with vim.

I still don't really understand what Vim users see in it. They always seem to claim that you can edit faster... and sure you can if you're comparing with Notepad++. But modern editors have multiple cursors and tons of useful editing tools that let you be easily as fast with much less pain.

Here, this will help: https://gist.github.com/nifl/1178878

(Emacs user happily using Evil mode since 2011 or so)

Re: Advice to a novice programmer

#115

Post by AlchemistCamp »

bsder wrote: post #107
icyberbullyu wrote: post #25

I really have to disagree with the disparagement of vim/scp at the beginning. It's a bit slower to start if you begin with command-line tools, but the dividends payed out by learning the standard command-line utilities are huge. Learning the command-line utilities means you have the tool-set to build your own tool-set; since it's a lot easier to using CLI tools as building blocks for larger tools. At both of the last…

> I really have to disagree with the disparagement of vim/scp at the beginning. It's a bit slower to start if you begin with command-line tools, but the dividends payed out by learning the standard command-line utilities are huge. No, it simply doesn't. And certainly not in the timeframe of a single semester course. The best things to get someone through a CS program today are VSCode and Python. VSCode works. VSCode…

Even if you use VS Code, learning and using VIM bindings can make much much faster and reduce risks of and even help existing repetitive stress injuries.

(Speaking from personal experience)

Re: Advice to a novice programmer

#116

Post by mvdtnz »

icyberbullyu wrote: post #25

I really have to disagree with the disparagement of vim/scp at the beginning. It's a bit slower to start if you begin with command-line tools, but the dividends payed out by learning the standard command-line utilities are huge. Learning the command-line utilities means you have the tool-set to build your own tool-set; since it's a lot easier to using CLI tools as building blocks for larger tools. At both of the last…

For a vast majority of programmers today, CLI editors are not "the standard". Sorry, they're just not. The world has moved on.

Re: Advice to a novice programmer

#117

Post by AlchemistCamp »

andrewstuart wrote: post #72
probably_wrong wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that this feature is only available in the Professional (that is, paid) version. And since VS Code can do it for free, it has the upper hand in money-tight environments.

If you can't afford to pay for an IDE then your employer should get out of software development. That's a hard fact. Any organisation that can pay a salary or a contract rate, pay for a computer for the person to work on, pay for the hosting of their service, well they can also afford to pay for the tools that the developers need to do their job. And if they really can't, as I say, they should stop doing development…

Developers clearly don't need Jetbrains in order to work. Millions and millions work every day without it.

Re: Advice to a novice programmer

#118

Post by AlchemistCamp »

infrabr0 wrote: post #79
conor- wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't even have to read a vim tutorial. The tutorial is already baked in. I learned vim by doing vimtutor every couple of months to learn more advanced features after getting basic navigation and editing motions down and forcing myself to use it for as much of my work as I possibly can. Learning vim early paid dividends in terms of productivity and also by forcing me to learn more about how to actually leverage o…

> I learned vim by doing vimtutor every couple of months to learn more advanced features after getting basic navigation I think you're missing the point. Should a novice programmer postpone their education by months because they need to satisfy the imaginary pre-requisite of learning vim via vimtutor? There's a lot of thinking involved at all levels let alone at the novice stages. I cant imagine how frustrating it'd…

This is an incredibly dishonest framing. I learned enough about vim to get around in it in a single sitting. In fact, learning to use an IDE has taken more time in many cases.

Re: Advice to a novice programmer

#119

Post by mvdtnz »

IshKebab wrote: post #27
ghostpepper wrote: post #2

This is great advice, although personally I will continue using vim over vscode. If vscode is a sharp kitchen knife then vim is a katana sword. Novice programmers should probably not start with vim.

I still don't really understand what Vim users see in it. They always seem to claim that you can edit faster... and sure you can if you're comparing with Notepad++. But modern editors have multiple cursors and tons of useful editing tools that let you be easily as fast with much less pain.

My experience with vim faithfuls is that they have no idea what modern tools are capable of and convinced themselves 23 years ago they they had found the peak editing experience. Watching them struggle through intra team demos with their shitty editors is a highlight of my week.

Re: Advice to a novice programmer

#120

Post by namaria »

throwaway5959 wrote: post #111
pictureofabear wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And trade school enrollments are up. https://thehustle.co/04242023-trade-school-enrollment/ Universities will need to get used to smaller enrollments. https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/college-enrollment-sta... .

Everyone going to trade schools is just as stupid a line of thinking as everyone going to college, and yet I hear the former now all the time.

The human tendency to decree how large scale, complex systems ought to be never ceases to amaze me. Everyone thinks they understand and have the right opinion about problems that have been with civilization for 5 thousand years or more.

The very nature of economics and education paradigms means the continuous adjustment is the correct process. Yet all sorts of people who never had to be responsible for more then a household and some team of workers think they have the answer.

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