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Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

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Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#81

Post by h4kunamata »

Nobody code anymore!!

Before the rise of AI, developers were basically doing copy/paste from StackOverflow. There are few developers who knows how to code.

Even DevOps engineer, I worked with CI/CD "specialist" who couldn't work for sht, if you asked him anything outside StackOverflow, he couldn't answer.

But there is a silver line for everything.....

I am not a developer but I learned to code with Perplexity AI, but not copy/paste, anything I didn't understand I asked it to explain why.

I wrote my first python app with classes, functions, 94% code quality coverade, the mock unittest was 4x bigger than the actual code. I can start a python script from scratch without looking at my own examples.

I would never be able to do that within a few weeks by looking at forums that often have worse response than AI hallucination.

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#82

Post by colonelspace »

slashdev wrote: post #45
Legend2440 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why you never pay $1.8 billion for a social media company. It never ends well for the new owner. Not just Stack Overflow but also Tumblr, Vine, MySpace, Twitter, and more. Instagram might be the only exception. Good job on the founders for selling at the peak though.

Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp seemed to work out well. It’s always more complex than you think

Are YouTube and WhatsApp social media?

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#83

Post by Gigachad »

OneMorePerson wrote: post #80
Gigachad wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to get started with programming with books. But I just didn't seem to be getting anything, I'd read the chapters and not really learn or understand it. What really worked was interactive education like Codecademy and some others I have forgotten the name of. Reading a small paragraph and then immediately putting it in to action made everything clear far better than books did.

It's fascinating the different ways human minds work and learn. I'm the same way. It also shows up in other areas like language learning where some people prefer classes and grammar books, and others prefer to just learn via exposure to a lot of content.

I think this is probably just the common experience. Programming is probably best learned hands on rather than through a book, which is why the use of programming books has fallen off a cliff once we got other options. Even before AI I think programming books had already fallen off in popularity.

There would be some things books can provide that are probably better than other options, but for a lot of hands on skills it seems best to learn in a hands on way.

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#84

Post by CuriouslyC »

slashdev wrote: post #45
Legend2440 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why you never pay $1.8 billion for a social media company. It never ends well for the new owner. Not just Stack Overflow but also Tumblr, Vine, MySpace, Twitter, and more. Instagram might be the only exception. Good job on the founders for selling at the peak though.

Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp seemed to work out well. It’s always more complex than you think

Insta and YT were bought fairly early on the ascent and then pumped hard with some resources and autonomy before being folded in completely. WhatsApp is a legit counterpoint though.

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#85

Post by shirro »

It doesn't matter so much if the LLMs are better or worse for learning things. I tend to think much worse in the long term. The problem is the reduction in choice. Soon we won't have web search. No user generated content. No genuine personal interaction. No blogs. No personal computer industry. No tech book publishers. Its all going to be LLM generated content owned by a small group of people. It sucks. I am in the opt out group wondering what exactly will be left to opt out into.

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#86

Post by bluefirebrand »

shirro wrote: post #85

It doesn't matter so much if the LLMs are better or worse for learning things. I tend to think much worse in the long term. The problem is the reduction in choice. Soon we won't have web search. No user generated content. No genuine personal interaction. No blogs. No personal computer industry. No tech book publishers. Its all going to be LLM generated content owned by a small group of people. It sucks. I am in the o…

Hey if it means anything there's other people here in the opt out group with you

Maybe we can build something else in parallel for the other opt-outers

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#88

Post by boothby »

shirro wrote: post #85

It doesn't matter so much if the LLMs are better or worse for learning things. I tend to think much worse in the long term. The problem is the reduction in choice. Soon we won't have web search. No user generated content. No genuine personal interaction. No blogs. No personal computer industry. No tech book publishers. Its all going to be LLM generated content owned by a small group of people. It sucks. I am in the o…

There's a wide world outside of tech jobs. Most of it isn't immensely lucrative, but I hear it can be quite fulfilling

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#89

Post by dwd »

Gigachad wrote: post #36
DANmode wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too early to call, but that is a crazy stat. Wow.

Too early to call? It's hit rock bottom. I've never seen a major site die so completely before.

Groupon? Did an IPO with a 12.7b valuation and was mostly dead within a year.

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#90

Post by skydhash »

nritchie wrote: post #31

Not true for everyone. I learned Rust from The Rust Programming Language ("The Rust Book") and "Rust for Rustaceans." Sure, coming from C/C++, I could have learned the syntax online but learning best idioms and styles required the time and commitment to read a book cover-to-cover. In fact, I've probably read each page in "Rust for Rustaceans" at least twice to ensure that I understood some of the more subtle points.…

My method is to get some hands-on experience first with the technology: Tutorials, Getting Started pages, the first chapter of a book. The fumble for some time and getting exposed to various sources of information. Then I take a book and skim it from start to cover, stopping at interesting bits. Then I reread various parts.

Sometimes I start with reading the books. But I already known I won't retain anything deeply. But it will gives me all the right keywords to learn more about the technology.

It always amaze me when I see fellow programmers struggle with problems that could have been solved easily by just reading that introductory book on the subject.

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