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Advice to Aimless, Excited Programmers

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Re: Advice to Aimless, Excited Programmers

#11

Post by kwellman »

nkassis wrote: post #5

My advice would have been to reinvent the wheel. Yeah it might not add to anything useful but there is an off chance it could. The reason why reinventing the wheel is good is that you have direction as to what you should implement. Trying to do something new all the time isn't possible. I used to build tic tac toe games It was never complete or useful but it helped me learn the tech I was using. Now days creating a b…

Agreed. I find that when you're actually building something, that's when the great ideas come. You start to think of improvements and new approaches that you just can't think of without first getting your hands dirty.

Re: Advice to Aimless, Excited Programmers

#12

Post by RyanMcGreal »

Swizec wrote: post #10
orblivion wrote: post #6

It's funny because some of us have the opposite problem. Too many ideas, but not that much interest in learning new languages for their own sake. So when it comes down to implementing a new idea, we want it done quickly. We don't want to take the time to try to figure out how to make it in Haskell, and just revert back to Python.

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

When all you have are nails, anything hard and flat will do as a hammer.

Re: Advice to Aimless, Excited Programmers

#14

Post by billswift »

nkassis wrote: post #5

My advice would have been to reinvent the wheel. Yeah it might not add to anything useful but there is an off chance it could. The reason why reinventing the wheel is good is that you have direction as to what you should implement. Trying to do something new all the time isn't possible. I used to build tic tac toe games It was never complete or useful but it helped me learn the tech I was using. Now days creating a b…

I haven't done this myself (not enough experience) but I saw a similar idea discussed years ago - for an experienced programmer learning a new language, reimplement something you have already written in the new language. Supposedly, the fact that you had written the first application shows that you understand the problem domain, so you can concentrate on the new language.

Re: Advice to Aimless, Excited Programmers

#15

Post by jacobolus »

billswift wrote: post #14
nkassis wrote: post #5

My advice would have been to reinvent the wheel. Yeah it might not add to anything useful but there is an off chance it could. The reason why reinventing the wheel is good is that you have direction as to what you should implement. Trying to do something new all the time isn't possible. I used to build tic tac toe games It was never complete or useful but it helped me learn the tech I was using. Now days creating a b…

I haven't done this myself (not enough experience) but I saw a similar idea discussed years ago - for an experienced programmer learning a new language, reimplement something you have already written in the new language. Supposedly, the fact that you had written the first application shows that you understand the problem domain, so you can concentrate on the new language.

Not enough experience to make a tic-tac-toe game? No time like the present to try!

Re: Advice to Aimless, Excited Programmers

#16

Post by [deleted] »

billswift wrote: post #14
nkassis wrote: post #5

My advice would have been to reinvent the wheel. Yeah it might not add to anything useful but there is an off chance it could. The reason why reinventing the wheel is good is that you have direction as to what you should implement. Trying to do something new all the time isn't possible. I used to build tic tac toe games It was never complete or useful but it helped me learn the tech I was using. Now days creating a b…

I haven't done this myself (not enough experience) but I saw a similar idea discussed years ago - for an experienced programmer learning a new language, reimplement something you have already written in the new language. Supposedly, the fact that you had written the first application shows that you understand the problem domain, so you can concentrate on the new language.

[deleted]

Re: Advice to Aimless, Excited Programmers

#17

Post by [deleted] »

billswift wrote: post #14
nkassis wrote: post #5

My advice would have been to reinvent the wheel. Yeah it might not add to anything useful but there is an off chance it could. The reason why reinventing the wheel is good is that you have direction as to what you should implement. Trying to do something new all the time isn't possible. I used to build tic tac toe games It was never complete or useful but it helped me learn the tech I was using. Now days creating a b…

I haven't done this myself (not enough experience) but I saw a similar idea discussed years ago - for an experienced programmer learning a new language, reimplement something you have already written in the new language. Supposedly, the fact that you had written the first application shows that you understand the problem domain, so you can concentrate on the new language.

[deleted]

Re: Advice to Aimless, Excited Programmers

#19

Post by nkassis »

jacobolus wrote: post #15
billswift wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't done this myself (not enough experience) but I saw a similar idea discussed years ago - for an experienced programmer learning a new language, reimplement something you have already written in the new language. Supposedly, the fact that you had written the first application shows that you understand the problem domain, so you can concentrate on the new language.

Not enough experience to make a tic-tac-toe game? No time like the present to try!

Yup, just try it, make the board and how to check if someone won or if it's full, figure out how to get input from the user. Then if you like the language move to implementing a simple ai (start with randomly putting pieces ;p).

By then you should know a good chunk (IO, loops, built in data structures ...)

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