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Poor, Poor Child. You have no idea.

writing.bryanwoods4e.com

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Re: Poor, Poor Child. You have no idea.

#61

Post by loup-vaillant »

jimbokun wrote: post #30
kristiandupont wrote: post #3

While there are clearly differences between languages, I think it is rather deterministic to put that much weight on the first language? My first language was GW Basic. By your logic, there wouldn't be much hope for me I guess..

I think it's much more important what you choose as a second language. If it is significantly different from the first language in adding new concepts and ways thinking about programming, there is a good chance that between the two of them learning any other new programming language as needed won't seem as daunting. And you will have a wide range of techniques at your disposal regardless of which language you happeni…

There is a danger when your first and second language are too different: you may dismiss the second language as being cryptic, especially if it is more concise than the first.

Re: Poor, Poor Child. You have no idea.

#62

Post by loup-vaillant »

dandelany wrote: post #22
shin_lao wrote: post #2

Well, I'm sorry to say I strongly disagree with the mathematics part. Basis in linera algebra are a definitive plus and helped me approach programming in a sensible way.

"especially for a web developer" is the important part. As a fellow web developer, I agree. I'd certainly like to get into the mathier side of programming someday, but it's rarely necessary for my day-to-day operations. Remember, he's writing a letter to his former self, so the advice applies more to his life than it does in general.

The amount of math which you need in programming may not enormous, but it is certainly not limited to boolean algebra, and it needs to be internalized. For instance, if you don't understand that a function is a mathematical object like any other, you won't understand some very useful things in day to day web programming: closures, lambda, `map`, `filter`… Without those, my web site generator[1] would have been much more complicated.

[1]: http://www.loup-vaillant.fr/projects/ussm/

Re: Poor, Poor Child. You have no idea.

#63

Post by RyanMcGreal »

ubernostrum wrote: post #42
scott_s wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replying to your post in the recent discussion, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1033741 , I don't understand your reasoning. Sure, you can extend a language introduce a concept. But the lack of that concept can still have molded speakers' thinking.

The problem is that there isn't one "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis". There's a spectrum of such hypotheses, running the gamut from the mild "language has an affect on how we think" up to the extreme "if your language uses the same word for blue and green then you'll be blue/green colorblind". The extreme forms have been rather thoroughly debunked at this point. The milder forms verge on tautologies.

>The milder forms verge on tautologies.

Exactly. The hypothesis is clearly false in any articulation strong enough to matter.

Re: Poor, Poor Child. You have no idea.

#64

Post by scott_s »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #63
ubernostrum wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that there isn't one "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis". There's a spectrum of such hypotheses, running the gamut from the mild "language has an affect on how we think" up to the extreme "if your language uses the same word for blue and green then you'll be blue/green colorblind". The extreme forms have been rather thoroughly debunked at this point. The milder forms verge on tautologies.

>The milder forms verge on tautologies. Exactly. The hypothesis is clearly false in any articulation strong enough to matter.

What is the weakest articulation that you think is clearly false?

Re: Poor, Poor Child. You have no idea.

#65

Post by jimbokun »

andreyf wrote: post #45
jimbokun wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's much more important what you choose as a second language. If it is significantly different from the first language in adding new concepts and ways thinking about programming, there is a good chance that between the two of them learning any other new programming language as needed won't seem as daunting. And you will have a wide range of techniques at your disposal regardless of which language you happeni…

My first language was C, my second was C++, my third Java. I lost all love for them the moment I learned Scheme, and the all practical use the moment I learned Python. I don't think it really matters what language is first/second/etc, just that you keep searching and finding new ways of thinking.

My point is simply that you could have reached your current stage of proficiency as a developer quicker if Scheme immediately followed C. C++, Java, and Python would just seem like relatively minor differences in syntax for concepts with which you are already familiar, assuming you learned C and Scheme well.

Of course, the danger is that it can quickly become frustrating to program in the likes of Java once you realize all the things that are simple and straight forward in, say, Scheme but require ridiculous amounts of circumlocution in Java.

Re: Poor, Poor Child. You have no idea.

#66

Post by jpendry »

cabalamat wrote: post #46
nocman wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is always amazing to me how much of a mix Dijkstra was. Many of the hand-written articles of his I read are filled with valuable insights, and are absolutely worth the read. And then there's those other sets of comments (like this one) that make me want to pay no attention to anything he had to say. Of course, this is the guy who said "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.…

> If Dijkstra was still alive and well, and you put him, Guy Steele, and Don Knuth in a room and asked me to pick two of the three to spend the day with Or -- and more relevant to their professional competence -- to develop a large, complex and safety-critical system, such as air traffic control; I wouldn't choose Dijkstra over Knuth or Steele for that job either.

you realize you're saying you wouldn't choose the guy that _invented_ semaphores right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_(programming)

Re: Poor, Poor Child. You have no idea.

#67

Post by clutchski »

shin_lao wrote: post #2

Well, I'm sorry to say I strongly disagree with the mathematics part. Basis in linera algebra are a definitive plus and helped me approach programming in a sensible way.

Agreed. Graph theory, set theory and statistics are all great tools for a web developers belt.

Re: Poor, Poor Child. You have no idea.

#68

Post by nocman »

andreyf wrote: post #44
nocman wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is always amazing to me how much of a mix Dijkstra was. Many of the hand-written articles of his I read are filled with valuable insights, and are absolutely worth the read. And then there's those other sets of comments (like this one) that make me want to pay no attention to anything he had to say. Of course, this is the guy who said "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.…

If Dijkstra was still alive and well, and you put him... No harm, Dijkstra never struck me as the kind of person that would want to spend a day in a room with anyone, either. Computer Science is about studying the computation which can be done in hardware - not just Python, not just on one chipset, not just on a von Neuman machine, but in general. "Programming" as I think you mean it is a very small subset of that.

I was not arguing that programming is all there is to Computer Science (which is why I said I understood the point Dijkstra was making with his astronomy quote). However, I disagree with the notion that programming is "a very small subset" of Computer Science -- even though I think Dijkstra would probably agree with you on that. I think programming is a large subset of Computer Science. Yeah, there's a lot more to it than that, but in my book the practical side of things is more important than Dijkstra seemed to think it was.

He was obviously brilliant and very perceptive with regard to many things in the field. However I still think it is over the top that the guy didn't even own a computer.

There are many who would rather spend their careers just writing applications without ever analyzing the differences between two algorithms, much less ever studying or thinking about computation in general. Then there are those who would spend their careers strictly on theoretical endeavors, and do not wish to continue writing applications or software systems of significant value. It is my personal opinion that the best Computer Scientists are the ones that regularly do both.

Re: Poor, Poor Child. You have no idea.

#69

Post by NathanKP »

gabrielroth wrote: post #51
NathanKP wrote: post #28

Has anyone else checked out the main page of the site? http://bryanwoods4e.com/ Be sure to view the HTML code to see the "hail satan" comment. This guy has some personality thats for sure.... Another of his sites linked from the main page: http://www.howtousetwitterformarketingandpr.com/

I don't think http://www.howtousetwitterformarketingandpr.com/ is his site.

Okay, perhaps not. I didn't do a domain name search to see if he owns the domain.

Re: Poor, Poor Child. You have no idea.

#70

Post by kls »

shin_lao wrote: post #2

Well, I'm sorry to say I strongly disagree with the mathematics part. Basis in linera algebra are a definitive plus and helped me approach programming in a sensible way.

not to mention the points on elegance and simplicity may be a manifestation of a lesser understanding of mathematics. I found that after a more competent grasp on advanced mathematics concepts my systems became more ordered and elegant.

Even to individuals with a lesser grasp on certain forms of mathematics. Math helps you find elegant solutions to complex problems, this is hard to convey to someone who does not have the education in mathematics and they only get that they have been doing things the hard way after they have learned mathematics and found that the two are interrelated even for web development.

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