What are some important topics that you feel new programmers should learn about, but are often skipped over?
Ask HN: What are important topics for new programmers?
1–10 of 18 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are important topics for new programmers?
#2If we are talking about the most used languages then we are talking about object oriented programming.
OO is pretty hard for newcomers to wrap their head around.
Hell I still have my difficulties with it, really trying to find the "right" way to solve the problem I have.
Just try to get the concept, and know that there are certain patterns you can use for correctly structuring and architecting your code. E.g. factory pattern, dependency injection, observer, etc.
Re: Ask HN: What are important topics for new programmers?
#3Testing
Re: Ask HN: What are important topics for new programmers?
#4Data structures, algorithms, problem solving, understand the machine and how an OS is working.
Re: Ask HN: What are important topics for new programmers?
#5Software engineering. Many people go to theoretical programs (nothing wrong with that) and start their careers at places with underdeveloped software engineering practices. They then view this as unimportant, which in turn hurts them when they try to tackle larger projects.
Re: Ask HN: What are important topics for new programmers?
#6How to ship a functioning (if rough) product, how to communicate effectively with other people (how to match your words to their background and experience), and how to value their time.
The first will make sure you can do work, the second will make sure that you can explain your work to other people, and the third ensures that you'll be paid well for your work.
Re: Ask HN: What are important topics for new programmers?
#7I'd say that after they've gained a basic familiarity with the basic ideas ("hello world", variables, basic control structures, functions), they should really be introduced fairly early on to working with data structures (particularly linked data structures, trees, graphs, and the like) and how to manipulate them. Recursion is critical to manipulating these, and I think getting new programmers to think in that way is a good thing.
I think it's too common to have "instant gratification" tutorials where you learn some trick or some library to make a particular technology do what you want (for example, some little javascript or css snippet so that when you move your mouse over some text, it disappears). That's not real programming. Sure, a lot of work has to be put into learning little tricks and new libraries and whatnot, but real programming is thinking about data structures in an abstract way and manipulating them.
Get them to write a todo list application with the ability to sort the items in the list. The interface isn't terribly important, so try to get them to care more about the data structures.
Also, I've found that implementing Conway's game of life is useful. The map can be stored in several different ways (e.g. simple matrix of cells, two-dimensional linked list of live cells, quadtree as in hashlife) and manipulating each of those structures would give them techniques that are useful in many situations.
Re: Ask HN: What are important topics for new programmers?
#8Some form of test driven development. Helps programmers get a better grasp of what they want to solve while creating some meaningful tests. I sadly only really got into it well after I finished school. Not a good idea to try this out while learning a new language though (makes learning both 3 times harder since your changing code so often)
Re: Ask HN: What are important topics for new programmers?
#9Structuring and refactoring code.
Many consider algorithmic knowledge to be the holy grail of programming, but you easily spend 10x more time with basic structuring and restructuring code.
Don't confuse designing algorithms with problem solving; debugging, refactoring, even naming functions are all problems you're solving. Heck, I bet you're not even designing algorithms, you're simply implementing known algorithms (and modifying them to your needs).
Re: Ask HN: What are important topics for new programmers?
#10Writing clearly and precisely in English. Managing conflicts and expectations. Business and financial matters.
If you can't express yourself clearly to your peers and managers, you won't control your career. If you can't work well with people, you won't control your career. If you don't understand the business context of your work, you won't control your career.