Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years by Peter Norvig (2001)

philbarr wrote: post #4

gamechangr wrote: post #3

This gets posted about once a week here. It good though...

Yes - hardly counts as "news". Why does this get posted so often, and how on earth does it get to the front page of Hacker News?

one reason, i think, is that you can't downvote articles.

Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years by Peter Norvig (2001)

#6

Post by GHFigs » Sun, Jan 08, 2012, 4:51 PM UTC

Learn at least a half dozen programming languages. Include one language that supports class abstractions (like Java or C++), one that supports functional abstraction (like Lisp or ML), one that supports syntactic abstraction (like Lisp), one that supports declarative specifications (like Prolog or C++ templates), one that supports coroutines (like Icon or Scheme), and one that supports parallelism (like Sisal).

I'd be interested in current opinions on this. e.g. is there something one should look at before Icon if they want to lean about coroutines?

Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years by Peter Norvig (2001)

#7

Post by mfonda » Sun, Jan 08, 2012, 4:56 PM UTC

It was around ten years ago that I first read this article, and I've since followed just about every piece of advice given. I have since come along ways, but am still learning and improving every day.

I think this article gives excellent advice, and it has certainly worked for me. I always recommend it to people just starting out.

Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years by Peter Norvig (2001)

#8

Post by mattdeboard » Sun, Jan 08, 2012, 5:42 PM UTC

I would like to make the point that Dr. Norvig nowhere in this article says, "It takes 10 years or 10,000 hours to be a programmer." Dr. Norvig himself refutes that notion explicitly here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3278080

In a brief email exchange I Had with him, he even suggested he may rewrite this essay to address the fact that it is often used (inappropriately, obviously) to bludgeon new programmers into thinking that they're not actually programmers.

I think often on HN this essay is used to create some kind of caste system based on longevity in the biz or number of hours coded, which is horse shit.

Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years by Peter Norvig (2001)

#9

Post by mechanical_fish » Sun, Jan 08, 2012, 5:42 PM UTC

philbarr wrote: post #4

gamechangr wrote: post #3

This gets posted about once a week here. It good though...

Yes - hardly counts as "news". Why does this get posted so often, and how on earth does it get to the front page of Hacker News?

Articles can be resubmitted after a given time. Google shows me several submissions of this article from years ago but none recently, though citations of it do show up often in comments.

Why does it get to the front page? Because it's relevant and good, of course, unlike almost everything that is merely new.

I'm pleased to see more classics turning up on HN; Periodic reviews of the classics are the only way to get new visitors onto the same page as older ones.

Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years by Peter Norvig (2001)

#10

Post by Dn_Ab » Sun, Jan 08, 2012, 5:54 PM UTC

GHFigs wrote: post #6

Learn at least a half dozen programming languages. Include one language that supports class abstractions (like Java or C++), one that supports functional abstraction (like Lisp or ML), one that supports syntactic abstraction (like Lisp), one that supports declarative specifications (like Prolog or C++ templates), one that supports coroutines (like Icon or Scheme), and one that supports parallelism (like Sisal). I'd b…

Lua is probably the most useful one to know that has that.

See also: Actors, async and reactive programming