11–20 of 87 posts
Personally, I've always read '=' as meaning the left hand side was equal to the right. So if I see x = 5 then I'm already assigning the value of 5 to x, because they're equal! Does that make sense? Curious to see what others think, because before reading this article, I didn't even realize that was a particular tripping point for anyone looking to start programming.
IIRC, the assignment notation mas annoying to me at the very beginning.
> Equals is a lie: = ≠ = This has occurred opposite to me while learning Mathematics. As a programmer, who has been learning fundamental mathematics from the past year, the whole assignment/equivalence thing screwed me up so many times.
Question: I'm curious to hear other people's experiences with "4. Stop asking questions". I ask questions quite a bit. It does slow me down. But I feel like if I understand something, I can move faster in the longer term, besides the value derived from just understanding how the system/abstraction works.
I'm also a proponent of constantly asking "why? how?", but at the beginning, you have to at least pause between your questions to process what's happening, and sometimes trust that you have enough to work with, or trust others to tell you what you don't need right away.
Question: I'm curious to hear other people's experiences with "4. Stop asking questions". I ask questions quite a bit. It does slow me down. But I feel like if I understand something, I can move faster in the longer term, besides the value derived from just understanding how the system/abstraction works.
The part where I disagree is that beginners should stop because it's advised. Some foundation in theory can really help to frame the lessons you learn as you hack your first projects together. The understanding also helps you recognize patterns and learn some vocabulary. When you're naturally ready to say "screw the theory, let's just do it" -- that's when you'll make measurable progress.
I'm just starting out[1] and recognise all of these points, especially number 4 even though on first glance it might seem the wrong attitude.
Every time I run into something new I feel the need to 'fully' understand it before moving on. With such a vast corpus of information out there and a lifetimes worth of skill development in just one particular branch (database admin anyone?) I have certainly felt that sinking feeling when yet another new thing pops up.
Learning part time has not helped this as it becomes easy to say 'oh I'll catch up on that later but I won't start anything new yet'. That leads to a 6 month gap of getting anything appreciable done, at least for me!
Tomorrow I start full time in this learning endeavour (very lucky I know) and these 8 points probably won't be far from my mind when trying to actually get stuff done.
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So what? Is your HN karma so important all of a sudden? :-)
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You're not a misogynist, you just seem like a bit of a prick. Your instinct wasn't telling you you'd be downvoted, it was telling you not to post something utterly meaningless.
Anyway it's on HN because it's interesting. The perspective of a fresh coder is certainly interesting and this is a better written account than you commonly find on the web. It was a good read, a bit short maybe.
9. Learn to call it programming, not "coding". It's like a professional chef referring to what they do as "chopping".