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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

#71

Post by BonsaiDen »

stonewhite wrote: post #27
sanxiyn wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it a terrible advice?

Because programming != web programming, and sure as hell HTML/CSS is not programming. About javascript(vanilla js), nobody even wants touch it anymore. Almost anybody who interacts with javascript code does it with a 5 foot stick(coffescript, clojurescript), and/or behind huge frameworks that protects you from its perils. Something that is more usable and understandable in its barebones state like python makes more s…

Vanilla JS is perfectly fine and there are a ton of people out there who are using it every day on a highly professional level.

There is a huge amount of tooling these days and specially the Node.js community and ecosystem are flourishing. Code coverage, static analysis, test frameworks for every use case imaginable, you name it.

Coffeescript and its brethren are a "solution" for people who are not interested in JavaScript and don't care about performance / maintainability in the long term. The additional compile step and the resulting problems with not being able to know exactly what it ends up generating become a huge burden in the long run. If you're really good in JS, you know what we'll be JIT'ted and what not, just like a really good C++ developer knows what the compiler will eventually optimize away and what not.

Seriously, building your cool, new library in is like writing the latest addition to Boost in C89. Nobody wants to depend on it in the long run.

From what I have seen, the people who are mainly using things like Coffeescript are coming from Ruby or Python and want their cool-aid back.

If you don't want to learn a language, don't use it and if that means you won't be able to do stuff on the web, well I'm totally fine with that. I've seen enough code that looked like a J2EE developer just started coding C the other day.

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

#72

Post by bostik »

stevewilhelm wrote: post #36
yen223 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

By repeatedly talking with natives. It'll infect you by sheer osmosis.

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

#73

Post by jdiez17 »

1_player wrote: post #65
jdiez17 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, thanks. Yeah, being able to recognise non-native speakers (based on accents and non-idiomatic sentences) is apparently a significant evolutionary advantage. I remember reading most people can identify a person speaking in a foreign accent within 80ms. That's pretty impressive! I'm currently trying to actively get rid of my accent. I've been asked a few times whether I'm actually British, and pretty much nobody c…

How long have you been living in Britain, for people to think you're British from your accent? I started pretty much the same way, trying to make sense of C++ and VB manuals when I was young and I think I have pretty good reading and writing skills now, although a native speaker can notice English is not my primary language. Spoken English is still an obstacle for me, I moved to London a year ago, I got a pretty good…

About a year now. My spoken English was pretty rough back then, but I started copying the sounds I heard when other people spoke, and it seems to have helped.

Yeah, it's a lot harder to convey thoughts by speech in a foreign language, and I think it's because you have to make a conscious effort to find the right words or expressions. It's like getting data from RAM (foreign language) or from the L1 cache (native). It gets better though, with practice.

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

#74

Post by jdiez17 »

noonespecial wrote: post #66
jdiez17 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, thanks. Yeah, being able to recognise non-native speakers (based on accents and non-idiomatic sentences) is apparently a significant evolutionary advantage. I remember reading most people can identify a person speaking in a foreign accent within 80ms. That's pretty impressive! I'm currently trying to actively get rid of my accent. I've been asked a few times whether I'm actually British, and pretty much nobody c…

I always hated it when I was learning German when people would point out that I'd said something silly but not tell me the "right" way to do it. In that spirit, as a native speaker: "...from the context and the few words I recognised." would work just fine. That's english for you. When the peasants are revolting, its very different from when the food is revolting...

Yep, thanks. Getting a basic handle on English is not too hard, because of the lack of gender pronouns and a few other things, but masquerading as a native speaker is exponentially harder :)

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

#75

Post by russgray »

Over time I have come to the conclusion that one of the best ways to identify a really interesting problem is when your attempts to google a solution come up blank. Google doesn't have all the answers, and if it becomes literally your only mechanism for moving forward you will hit a wall sooner or later.

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

#76

Post by tanto »

laichzeit0 wrote: post #49
jdiez17 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your English is excellent. It's sad that a single non-idiomatically phrased sentence can "blow" your cover though, e.g. "some few words", that gave it away instantly.

I am curious. What exactly is wrong with "some few words"? In german it would make total sense.

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

#77

Post by tux3 »

tanto wrote: post #76
laichzeit0 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your English is excellent. It's sad that a single non-idiomatically phrased sentence can "blow" your cover though, e.g. "some few words", that gave it away instantly.

I am curious. What exactly is wrong with "some few words"? In german it would make total sense.

You can't say "some few". Either are fine, but not together.

It makes sense to me, but I'm not a native speaker either so I don't know if there's an actual rule behind this.

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

#79

Post by foobarge »

rjsw wrote: post #63
foobarge wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France here - starting as a student and stepping into the university library, it took me 30 seconds to realize that everything interesting was written in English and not being able to proficiently ingurgitate vast amount of it was going to be a problem. I just shunt French as written input for the next 5 years. When the valley called for a job, I was ready. Pasteur said "Chance favors the prepared mind" - he was rela…

With the change to digital TV in France the original soundtrack is often available too so people can get exposure to English.

Indeed - it makes a few broadcasts palatable. I don't think that option is widely used though and I'd say mostly by people who don't speak French.
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