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The Benjamin Franklin method for learning more from programming books

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Re: The Benjamin Franklin method for learning more from programming books

#31

Post by ivanhoe »

yesenadam wrote: post #19
yesenadam wrote: post #9

He doesn't really mention that the reason chess players and musicians can take more with each glance at a position/page is that they see in chunks, not individual elements - that comes from learning the patterns, e.g. in chess "short-castled white king with pawn on h3", in music "C7 chord with melody on the 7th" etc. It's just like adding more layers to a neural network, each layer building things from the elements o…

Q. Who are the great programmers, with inimitable or at least unmistakable and unique styles? Is there such a thing, as happens with music improvisers, composers, artists, writers?

IMHO every programer has a unique style to some extent, you just need to spend enough time looking at their code to start recognising those specific patterns. For some of my friends I can always guess that code is theirs by the way they name variables, how they structure the logic and other small details. So I guess you can just pick any elegant programming solution and try to replicate the logic on your own, and then compare it and see what they did differently.

Re: The Benjamin Franklin method for learning more from programming books

#32

Post by thesmallestcat »

> Traditionally, there are two ways to study a page like this:

> 1. Type out every line of code

> 2. Copy+paste the code from their website, maybe play around and make small changes

Um... wut? How about:

3. Read the code. Think.

If you're reading programming books as practice, and think you're supposed to copy the code examples to learn, you're doing it wrong. If you need eval() to figure out what's going on, you need to spend more time practicing the basics, then step up to the book.

Re: The Benjamin Franklin method for learning more from programming books

#33

Post by rootlocus »

thesmallestcat wrote: post #32

> Traditionally, there are two ways to study a page like this: > 1. Type out every line of code > 2. Copy+paste the code from their website, maybe play around and make small changes Um... wut? How about: 3. Read the code. Think. If you're reading programming books as practice, and think you're supposed to copy the code examples to learn, you're doing it wrong. If you need eval() to figure out what's going on, you nee…

> 3. Read the code. Think.

While this is definitely what I do, for some reason, I always believe I'm not doing things "they way you're supposed to", so I almost never argue when articles don't mention doing things the way I'm doing them.

Re: The Benjamin Franklin method for learning more from programming books

#34

Post by tw1010 »

__strisk wrote: post #25

Most programming books do not let you pause to reflect. They just go on and on. Consider Fluent Python by Luis Ramalho. If you read through the book, you will not get much out of it. However, if after each chapter, you try to come up with a practical application of the concepts discussed, then you will have a better chance at building a mental model around the topics. The code presented is just a solution to a proble…

I would say that's a problem with video (or a live lecture), not with a book. Books give you all the time in the world to pause and reflect.

Re: The Benjamin Franklin method for learning more from programming books

#35

Post by beagle3 »

yesenadam wrote: post #19
yesenadam wrote: post #9

He doesn't really mention that the reason chess players and musicians can take more with each glance at a position/page is that they see in chunks, not individual elements - that comes from learning the patterns, e.g. in chess "short-castled white king with pawn on h3", in music "C7 chord with melody on the 7th" etc. It's just like adding more layers to a neural network, each layer building things from the elements o…

Q. Who are the great programmers, with inimitable or at least unmistakable and unique styles? Is there such a thing, as happens with music improvisers, composers, artists, writers?

A lot of people would disagree but I would nominate Arthur Whitney of k/q/j/apl fame; others on my list are Bill Spitzak of FLTK, Salvatore sanfillipo (antirez), Richard Stillman (who hasn’t written a lot of code recently, but did write the original Emacs, GCC and a lot more)

Re: The Benjamin Franklin method for learning more from programming books

#36

Post by notspanishflu »

beagle3 wrote: post #35
yesenadam wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Q. Who are the great programmers, with inimitable or at least unmistakable and unique styles? Is there such a thing, as happens with music improvisers, composers, artists, writers?

A lot of people would disagree but I would nominate Arthur Whitney of k/q/j/apl fame; others on my list are Bill Spitzak of FLTK, Salvatore sanfillipo (antirez), Richard Stillman (who hasn’t written a lot of code recently, but did write the original Emacs, GCC and a lot more)

Stallman has never been still ;)

Re: The Benjamin Franklin method for learning more from programming books

#37

Post by JDevlieghere »

> Let’s face it, programming books suck.

While I agree that there are a lot of bad books out there, I don't agree that programming books suck in general. I very much prefer a well structured book over one of those chaotic tutorials that leave me with more questions than answers. Especially for languages where the "why" matters a lot more than the "how".

> It’s a lot like the way you may have already been doing it, just with more learning.

Maybe that's the reason why I disagree. Indeed, they way I read a book is by putting its content into practice.

Re: The Benjamin Franklin method for learning more from programming books

#38

Post by Zhyl »

One of the best examinations of learning, especially with structured media as described in the article, actually comes from a video game: The Witness.

A summary of how it does it and why it is so good can be found in this 10 minute demo from creator Jonathan Blow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDSrYiheVow

Re: The Benjamin Franklin method for learning more from programming books

#39

Post by phowat »

beagle3 wrote: post #35
yesenadam wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Q. Who are the great programmers, with inimitable or at least unmistakable and unique styles? Is there such a thing, as happens with music improvisers, composers, artists, writers?

A lot of people would disagree but I would nominate Arthur Whitney of k/q/j/apl fame; others on my list are Bill Spitzak of FLTK, Salvatore sanfillipo (antirez), Richard Stillman (who hasn’t written a lot of code recently, but did write the original Emacs, GCC and a lot more)

I would definitely add Fabrice Bellard to that list.
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