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How to become a programmer, or the art of Googling well

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Re: How to become a programmer, or the art of Googling well

#31

Post by jdiez17 »

sanxiyn wrote: post #3

This is very true, but it's a bit more complicated than that. "I'd come to understand that the answer was out there, somewhere." The answer is out there, but so is the wrong answer. Recognizing the right answer is the hard part. I also must point out that the answer is out there if you know English . Knowing English is a strong privilege. Success rate plummets if you Google programming questions in a language other t…

As someone whose native language is not English (and didn't receive particularly good English classes at school, but had access to the Internet): if you start at a young enough age, you pick it up somewhat naturally. Seriously.

In my case, wanting to "do X thing in VB6" drove me to read heaps of text in English, and even if I couldn't make sense of everything I could kind of guess what they were saying from the context and some few words I recognised. Do this for a few years and you'll have decent comprehension skills in that language. I guess that's a pretty natural way to learn, rather than being drilled some abstract grammar rules.

Re: How to become a programmer, or the art of Googling well

#32

Post by jeffwass »

Tehnix wrote: post #11

Except for maybe Haskell[0] and Lisp[0], I've begun to feel like there isn't any language that I can't quickly learn with how I'm able to google at the moment. For example, I'm currently helping some fellow students with their F# assignments, even though I don't do F# at all. I just know what to google, because I know the concepts that I need translated to the specific syntax. [0] Maybe Lisp, but Haskell is way too d…

Curious if you've also tried Forth?

Re: How to become a programmer, or the art of Googling well

#33

Post by jmadsen »

sanxiyn wrote: post #3

This is very true, but it's a bit more complicated than that. "I'd come to understand that the answer was out there, somewhere." The answer is out there, but so is the wrong answer. Recognizing the right answer is the hard part. I also must point out that the answer is out there if you know English . Knowing English is a strong privilege. Success rate plummets if you Google programming questions in a language other t…

This. Seriously - I look around for the library or code snippet I need, I find x variations that all seem correct.

Recognizing the answer that will actually work and hold up under stress is a measure of the programmer.

A Go-cart & a Lamborghini are both "4-wheeled vehicles that will get you to the bottom of the hill"

Re: How to become a programmer, or the art of Googling well

#34

Post by checker659 »

brudgers wrote: post #19
Tehnix wrote: post #11

Except for maybe Haskell[0] and Lisp[0], I've begun to feel like there isn't any language that I can't quickly learn with how I'm able to google at the moment. For example, I'm currently helping some fellow students with their F# assignments, even though I don't do F# at all. I just know what to google, because I know the concepts that I need translated to the specific syntax. [0] Maybe Lisp, but Haskell is way too d…

Take a look at APL. There will be three.

Prolog, and there'll most likely be four.

Re: How to become a programmer, or the art of Googling well

#35

Post by emsy »

yen223 wrote: post #4
sanxiyn wrote: post #3

This is very true, but it's a bit more complicated than that. "I'd come to understand that the answer was out there, somewhere." The answer is out there, but so is the wrong answer. Recognizing the right answer is the hard part. I also must point out that the answer is out there if you know English . Knowing English is a strong privilege. Success rate plummets if you Google programming questions in a language other t…

This is something I've always wondered - how do programmers who don't natively speak, read, or write English cope with the sheer amount of literature they have to parse to have a career programming?

I Germany, most professional literature is translated into German. Most developers I know prefer the English version though.

Re: How to become a programmer, or the art of Googling well

#36

Post by stevewilhelm »

yen223 wrote: post #4
sanxiyn wrote: post #3

This is very true, but it's a bit more complicated than that. "I'd come to understand that the answer was out there, somewhere." The answer is out there, but so is the wrong answer. Recognizing the right answer is the hard part. I also must point out that the answer is out there if you know English . Knowing English is a strong privilege. Success rate plummets if you Google programming questions in a language other t…

This is something I've always wondered - how do programmers who don't natively speak, read, or write English cope with the sheer amount of literature they have to parse to have a career programming?

OT:

> "it's rather the exception than the norm"

> "Blood, toil, tears, and sweat are involved."

How does one learn to use idioms like a native?

Re: How to become a programmer, or the art of Googling well

#37

Post by rtpg »

yen223 wrote: post #4
sanxiyn wrote: post #3

This is very true, but it's a bit more complicated than that. "I'd come to understand that the answer was out there, somewhere." The answer is out there, but so is the wrong answer. Recognizing the right answer is the hard part. I also must point out that the answer is out there if you know English . Knowing English is a strong privilege. Success rate plummets if you Google programming questions in a language other t…

This is something I've always wondered - how do programmers who don't natively speak, read, or write English cope with the sheer amount of literature they have to parse to have a career programming?

OReilly has released basically all of their books in Japanese

Re: How to become a programmer, or the art of Googling well

#38

Post by aerique »

brudgers wrote: post #19
Tehnix wrote: post #11

Except for maybe Haskell[0] and Lisp[0], I've begun to feel like there isn't any language that I can't quickly learn with how I'm able to google at the moment. For example, I'm currently helping some fellow students with their F# assignments, even though I don't do F# at all. I just know what to google, because I know the concepts that I need translated to the specific syntax. [0] Maybe Lisp, but Haskell is way too d…

Take a look at APL. There will be three.

I think there's only two and Lisp doesn't need to be on that list, but maybe I say that because I've been using Common Lisp for so long.

Lisp ought to be easy since all you basically have to learn is: "(function parameter1 ... parameterN)".

Coming from Lisp I've been trying to learn some Haskell and holy cow syntax[1]! There's a lot to parse and know (compared to Lisp) before being able to write a small program.

[1] I know it is not literally syntax but mostly function calls, it's still a lot of extra special characters one needs to know about.

Re: How to become a programmer, or the art of Googling well

#39

Post by oevi »

mapcars wrote: post #22

>Some Small Advice: if you’re just beginning to program, I’d suggest starting with JavaScript/HTML/CSS because there is a plethora of help out there. What a terrible advice.

Why? For beginners web technologies are perfect. you can have results like a first static page within the first day and from that point go on to eventually build complex web apps. and all that with the same tools and languages. you will not be a programmer at first, but you might become one.

Re: How to become a programmer, or the art of Googling well

#40

Post by sanxiyn »

jdiez17 wrote: post #31
sanxiyn wrote: post #3

This is very true, but it's a bit more complicated than that. "I'd come to understand that the answer was out there, somewhere." The answer is out there, but so is the wrong answer. Recognizing the right answer is the hard part. I also must point out that the answer is out there if you know English . Knowing English is a strong privilege. Success rate plummets if you Google programming questions in a language other t…

As someone whose native language is not English (and didn't receive particularly good English classes at school, but had access to the Internet): if you start at a young enough age, you pick it up somewhat naturally. Seriously. In my case, wanting to "do X thing in VB6" drove me to read heaps of text in English, and even if I couldn't make sense of everything I could kind of guess what they were saying from the conte…

Well, before that you have to be able to read Latin alphabets. I had to.

You may be fortunate enough to have a native language that happens to share the writing system with English, but a lot of people don't. Actually, I think the majority of people don't.

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