Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looks great! Reminds me of some of my early classics!
You forgot , which was my bread and butter as a 12 year old. Bonus points if it’s wrapped inside .
Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)
251–260 of 323 posts
Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how people’s learning habits will change with AI tools like GitHub Copilot. I used it for several months but randomly got logged out and am now finding myself valuing the slight inconvenience of looking up official documentation (and surprised how much more sluggish I felt for the first week). Going through extra steps to learn something through primary sources and valuing being uncomfortable at times are im…
ChatGPT has been a blessing for learning C. How do you calculate the conjugate for a complex double when the compiler doesn't support complex numbers? ChatGPT will give you the correct answer together with math examples. One example out of many. Then I verify the result by looking at other people's code - and now I know what to look for. I wouldn't use Copilot. I've noticed how it distracts people in screen recording…
Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)
#253I bought a copy of "Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 24 Hours" at a CompUSA in 1999. The guy at the checkout looked at it, laughed, and told me about this article. When I was 16 I was looking at programming books at Borders and a guy handed me a copy of "The C Programming Language"; changed my life. So much of my career has been shaped by running into developers or just people interested in programming out in the world. Th…
My first ever programming book, a well-intentioned gift from my parents, was “Sam’s Teach Yourself C++ in 10 Minutes” - meant of course as a quick reference but always conceptually funny to me because… it’s C++.
Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
I resent Gladwell to this day, possibly because I was assigned to read him in high school. He is quoted too much -- the 10,000 hours thing is just a meme at this point, for me anyway.
Not to mention the whole Igon Value Problem.
That sentence shocked me. It was the last Gladwell sentence I read.
Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)
#255>>>> Why is everyone in such a rush?
Because programming can be a means to an end. You can do both: Learn enough programming to do useful things for yourself -- maybe not in 24 hours, but 24 weeks is not unthinkable. And spend longer to learn it as an art if you manage to get over the initial "hump" and are still interested.
Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
+1. What are the fundamentals of CS? Algorithms?
If software engineering whiteboard interviews are anything to go by, strictly hash tables. Hash tables are the only thing that matter, unless of course the interview process is broken...
Bonus points if some kind of list requirement comes up and you deftly maneuver the conversation back to using your hash table with array indexes as keys.
Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)
#257I bought a copy of "Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 24 Hours" at a CompUSA in 1999. The guy at the checkout looked at it, laughed, and told me about this article. When I was 16 I was looking at programming books at Borders and a guy handed me a copy of "The C Programming Language"; changed my life. So much of my career has been shaped by running into developers or just people interested in programming out in the world. Th…
> So much of my career has been shaped by running into developers or just people interested in programming out in the world. This is probably less common now, but remember not to laugh at young girls in the programming section of a bookstore. In the 90s, that was a pretty standard response: no advice, just incredulity.
> remember not to laugh at young girls in the programming section of a bookstore
I can't believe anyone needs a reminder to act like an actual human being, much less not to belittle someone -- anyone! -- who is interested in learning anything constructive.
Unbelievable that anyone, ever, would act that way.
Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're most likely getting downvoted because the modern lets-hot-glue-a-bunch-of-dependencies-together approach notwithstanding programming has gotten significantly more complex over the years. Can you muddle through with youtube videos and SO? Sure, if you want the career equivalent of staggering around in the dark stepping on rakes.
The idea that one needs MIT-level training with SICP and AOCP is elitist and sickening. You start by writing small and useful tools that help you explore the language features. You compare your code to other people's code solving a similar problem. You look for ways to make it shorter, more readable, more efficient by reading SO and watching YouTube.
Nobody said an Ivy League educations is (or should be) a requirement to write code. That said without some form of guidance a fledgling developer has no way to discern good code from bad or grasp the architectural or security implications of some random-ass code snippet they lifted off of SO. So again, unless your plan is to spend the bulk of your career repeating other people's mistakes in an effort to learn the hard way getting some kind of formal training should be a primary goal. I'm entirely self-taught and let me tell you from experience rediscovering a design pattern from first principles years after the book was published isn't as heroic as it sounds.
Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know exactly what you mean. Felt like the world was opening up. I don't know who it was, it might have been one of the guys my dad worked with, be they said "You won't be able to write a game with a book like that, but you might be able to write a phone directory." Didn't phase me. I remember someone asking me later on if I was going to write a game. I just looked at them blankly and said: "I'm going to write a pho…
CompUSA and Borders have a special place in my heart. I'm from a 3rd world country, so visiting them was a sacred ritual anytime I had the privilege to visit the US. I always brought an extra bag mostly for books, and sometimes a Sound Blaster, some extra memory or a US Robotics card, or a fancy Handspring Visor and some Dreamcast games :)
Back when Creative Labs was a company deserving of consumer support, nowadays I actively avoid them completely.
Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)
#260I bought a copy of "Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 24 Hours" at a CompUSA in 1999. The guy at the checkout looked at it, laughed, and told me about this article. When I was 16 I was looking at programming books at Borders and a guy handed me a copy of "The C Programming Language"; changed my life. So much of my career has been shaped by running into developers or just people interested in programming out in the world. Th…
One of the hills on which I am prepared to die on is that "The C Programming Language" is the best programming language book I've ever read. Every developer should read it and learn C at least once, even if they promptly forgot it all.
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