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Search - "learning a new programming language"
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Me: Mom, I'm learning a new programming language
Mom: How is it called
Me: go
Mom: do u like it?
Me: yes, it's pretty
Mom: do u like it more than linux?41 -
Initial steps of learning any new programming language :
*heck yeah I created a calculator. Guess I'll show my family that I actually can code! *
-hey mom, dad look I made a simple calculator using python B)
- uhm... That's great son but dont we already have one of those?
- yeah but like... this is completely different it uses a different programming language than what you and I have been using all this time.
- ah I see. Good for you then
*muttering to each other*
-are you sure he's got the aptitude to be a cse?
-at this point we can just hope.
Me:*stares blindly in my dark room contemplating why I'm alive*7 -
TL;DR: I dont work in IT, but I code at work, and the non-IT higher-ups lack of knowledge shows brutally.
So I work in aviation, not IT. Through coincidences, I was tasked to work on our flight plan distribution logic years ago, which was then written in BRL (Business Rule Language). In lockdown 2020, I finally started to learn "real" programming with Python, but soon shifted to Java. Which was good, since all of a sudden a few months ago the company ditched BRL and the godawful IBM ODM IDE for... Java and IntelliJ. Nice. BUT my teammates have zero clue about Java and no real inclination to learn it by themselves. So I have been appointed their mentor, despite me stating Im still a beginner myself. Its somewhat doable, I get the hard problems, they do basic maintenace, basically renaming variables and stuff. One of my yearly goals is to make sure a completely new guy is able to do everything I do by september. It took a LOT to talk them out of it.
In my last yearly review I got some flak for not "selling" myself to other teams enough, whatever that means. So, as a learning project, I designed a new intranet page for our department in Javascript. Its loved by all. It has links to all the stuff we need woth a nice interface and built in tools to make work easier and more efficient. I did it on my own, in my spare time, simply because I was fed up with the old crap and it was an enormously good learning opportunity. Now they want to give some other guy the responsibility over that page/tool because apparently it is "not in my process team description". They even planned a day for me and him so he can "learn Javascript then". Suuure...
I also did a digital checklist tool as a webapp. All this runs from a local folder, no server at all because reasons. I made it work. Now they want it integrated into some other tool some other guy made. He wrote his tool in PHP entirely so merging the two will take considerable time. Which I told them multiple times. No, it does not take about two hours.
Sometimes, comrades, sometimes....
Im still grateful for the opportunity to code at work but the lack of knowledge really REALLY shows. My goal now is to talk management into paying for a Java course for me (they are very expensive here). That way, they get a better employee and I get more knowledge and an actual certificate thats worth something. Usually in this company, this has higher chances of success than straight up asking for more money.
Sorry for the long story, but it felt good just typing it all out, even if nobody reads this.4 -
Still trying to get good.
The requirements are forever shifting, and so do the applied paradigms.
I think the first layer is learning about each paradigm.
You learn 5-10 languages/technologies, get a feeling for procedural/functional/OOP programming. You mess around with some electronics engineering, write a bit of assembly. You write an ugly GTK program, an Android todo app, check how OpenGL works. You learn about relational models, about graph databases, time series storage and key value caches. You learn about networking and protocols. You void the warranty of all the devices in your house at some point. You develop preferences for languages and systems. For certain periods of time, you even become an insufferable fanboy who claims that all databases should be replaced by MongoDB, or all applications should be written in C# -- no exceptions in your mind are possible, because you found the Perfect Thing. Temporarily.
Eventually, you get to the second layer: Instead of being a champion for a single cause, you start to see patterns of applicability.
You might have grown to prefer serverless microservice architectures driven by pub/sub event busses, but realize that some MVC framework is probably more suitable for a 5-employee company. You realize that development is not just about picking the best language and best architecture -- It's about pros and cons for every situation. You start to value consistency over hard rules. You realize that even respected books about computer science can sometimes contain lies -- or represent solutions which are only applicable to "spherical cows in a vacuum".
Then you get to the third layer: Which is about orchestrating migrations between paradigms without creating a bigger mess.
Your company started with a tiny MVC webshop written in PHP. There are now 300 employees and a few million lines of code, the framework more often gets in the way than it helps, the database is terribly strained. Big rewrite? Gradual refactor? Introduce new languages within the company or stick with what people know? Educate people about paradigms which might be more suitable, but which will feel unfamiliar? What leads to a better product, someone who is experienced with PHP, or someone just learning to use Typescript?
All that theoretical knowledge about superior paradigms won't help you now -- No clean slates! You have to build a skyscraper city to replace a swamp village while keeping the economy running, together with builders who have no clue what concrete even looks like. You might think "I'll throw my superior engineering against this, no harm done if it doesn't stick", but 9 out of 10 times that will just end in a mix of concrete rubble, corpses and mud.
I think I'm somewhere between 2 and 3.
I think I have most of the important knowledge about a wide array of languages, technologies and architectures.
I think I know how to come to a conclusion about what to use in which scenario -- most of the time.
But dealing with a giant legacy mess, transforming things into something better, without creating an ugly amalgamation of old and new systems blended together into an even bigger abomination? Nah, I don't think I'm fully there yet.8 -
I have got a new director at work. My previous director had to retire already, the man was already feeling it and he had been on the institution for more than 35 years....I am 30, so this tells you how much the man has been there.
This new dude.....has the presence of a Caterprie (Pokemon) or an Oompa Loompa. In contrast, the previous director felt like a 4 star General (never been in the presence of a 5 star since those occurrences are world war rare) but I had respected that man so much and loved working with him. I really did loved my boss, he was stern and professional, but kind and friendly to his staff, fiercely protective, no one took advantage of I.T while he was there, he would literally fight for us and took our word before anything else. The man was, well, a true man. A true leader.
He took a chance in putting me as the head of my department, but he had faith in me, and coached me and trained me as much as he could. Had the requirement for his position not been a masters he himself told me that he would have loved to make me his successor, even when I would constantly tell him that I was scared shitless of the work he did and the amount of things he did for the institution, to me this is a very laaaaaaaaarge cowboy hat to fill (this is Texas, he wore a hat, the saying is normally "shoes to fill", but fuck it)
This new guys looks away when the other managers are speaking to him. He constantly interrupts us. He constantly tells us about how the other institution in which he was (rival might I add) does X or Y, its fucking annoying to the point that me and the other managers have a drinking game, for every time he references his old institution we drink one beer over the weekend. It is Saturday night and I am 36 in in total (this is my favorite part of it tho) and it is just annoying.
His train of thought makes no sense to me:
"This application, where did you buy it? we tried purchasing one on Y when I was still there but found none"
Me: "Well, since it was a new government mandate and had nowhere to go we had to develop it in house"
Him: "We had tried to purchase what you guys had but found no place that sold it, so why didn't you try purchasing it?"
Me:.....well, because it was brand new, purchase it from where? We also don't like dealing with vendors that manage these sorts of things because every new requirement takes them weeks to produce on very high budgets, historically, my department has only had maintenance fees for the software that we have and even those applications crap themselves all the time and they take weeks to answer back to us.
Him: So you decided to develop it in house instead? we would never do that! back at y we purchased everything our engineers never really developed anything!
Me: Well then, what is the purpose of having engineers if they are not going to actually develop an application?
Him: IF there is something out there that is better then why should you reinvent the wheel?
Me: For this one I did not reinvent the wheel, I am not talking about creating a programming language from scratch, but how does custom solutions that specifically feed the needs of the institution to be produced otherwise? The department has developers for a reason, because they have very specific needs in here that can only come from a team of developers that are in house satisfying those needs.
Him: Well our engineers never had to do that. Sure projects sometimes had to put on holds because the vendor was busy, but such is the nature of development
Me: No it is not, the nature of development is to create things, it is one thing for my team to go through bugs and software considerations, it is another for me to not provide a service because some random company is taking two weeks on a $300 dllr an hour contract to put a simple checkbox on a form. If a project fails the board is not going to care that some vendor is not doing their job, they are just going to blame me, if that is the case then I would much rather the blame be actually mine than some sucky third party "developer" also, your engineers where not even engineers, they were people with a degree that purchased things, that's it, please do not compare them to my guys or refer them as engineers in front of me, they are not.
Him: Well, maybe.
MAYBE?!! motherfucker I did not kill myself learning the ins and outs of architecture and software engineering on my own time after my fucking bachelors in C.S for your codeless background ass to tell me MAYBE. My word IS the fucking WORD here, not yours. Fuck me I really dislike this dude's management practices.
The shitty part? He is not a bad person, he is not a bad dude that is out to get us, just a simple minded moron with no place as a leader.
I know leaders, I know what a leader is, this is not one.10 -
Am I being completely ignorant? I like to think of programming like construction (worked for 9 years in that industry) when I learn a new language I approach it the same way as using a new tool. I don't feel like I'm learning a new "trade", just a new way to do the same things i already know how to do using a different method. I feel like a lot of programmers have trouble picking up new languages/frameworks because the THINK it is completely new...where as learn a new TRADE (devops, database arch, design etc) is something completely new/different6
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I've caught the efficiency bug.
I recently started a minimum wage job to get my life back in order after a failed 2 year project (post mortem: next time bring more cash for a longer runway)
I've noticed this thing I do at every job, where I see inefficiency and I think "how can I use technology to automate myself out of this job?"
My first ever application was in C++ for college (a BASIC interpreter) and it's been so long I've since forgotten the language.
But after a while every language starts to look like every other language, and you start to wonder if maybe the reason you never seriously went anywhere as a programmer was because you never really were cut out for it.
Code monkey, sure. Programmer? Dunno, maybe I just suffer from imposter syndrome.
So a few years back I worked at a retail chain. Nothing as big as walmart, but they have well over 10k store locations. They had two IBM handscanners per store, old grungy ugly things, and one of these machines would inevitably be broken, lost or in need of upgrade/replacement about once a year, per location. District manager, who I hit it off with, and made a point of building report with, told me they were paying something like $1500 a piece.
After a programming dry spell, I picked up 'coding' with MIT app inventor. Built a 'mostly complete' inventory management app over the course of a month, and waited for the right time.
The day of a big store audit, (and the day before a multi-regional meeting), I made sure I was in-store at the same time as my district manager, so he could 'stumble upon' me working, scanning in and pricing items into the app.
Naturally he asked about it, and I had the numbers, the print outs, and the app itself to show him. He seemed impressed by what amounted to a code monkeys 'non-code' solution for a problem they had.
Long story short, he does what I expected, runs it by the other regionals and middle executives at the meeting, and six months later they had invested in a full blown in house app, cutting IBM out of the mix I presume.
From what I understand they now use the app throughout the entire store chain.
So if you work at IBM, sorry, that contract you lost for handscanners at 10k+ stores? Yeah that was my fault (and MIT app inventor).
They say software is 'eating the world' but it really goes to show, for a lot of 'almost coders' and 'code monkeys' half our problem is dealing with setup and platform boilerplate. I think in the future that a lot of jobs are either going to be created or destroyed thanks to better 'low code' solutions, and it seems to be a big potential future market.
In the mean while I've realized, while working on side projects, that maybe I can do this after all, and taken up Kotlin. I want to do a couple of apps for efficiency and store tracking at my current employer to see if I'm capable and not just an mit app-inventor codemonkey after all.
I'm hoping, by demonstrating what I can do, I can use that as a springboard into an internal programming position at my current gig (which seems to be a company thats moving towards a more tech oriented approach to efficiency and management). Also watching money walk out the door due to inefficiency kinda pisses me off, and the thought of fixing those issues sounds really interesting. At the end of the day I just like learning new technologies, and maybe this is all just an excuse to pick up something new after spending so long on less serious work.
I still have a ways to go, but the prospect of working on B2B, and being able to offer technological solutions to common and recurring business needs excites the hell out of me..as cringy and over-repeated as that may sound.5 -
Learning a new programming language:
1. reading basics
2. creates small programs
3. plan new projects
4. search everything else in the internet
5. output: we have become code gods
*winks at stack overflow and github*5 -
Hey guys,
this rant will be long again. I'm sorry for any grammar errors or something like that, english isn't my native language. Furthermore I'm actually very sad and not in a good mood.
Why? What happened? Some of you may already know - I'm doing my apprenticeship / education in a smal company.
There I'm learning a lot, I'm developing awesome features directly for the clients, experience of which other in my age (I'm only 19 years old) can only dream.
Working in such a small company is very exhausting, but I love my job, I love programming. I turned my hobby into a profession and I'm very proud of it.
But then there are moments like the last time, when I had to present something for a client - the first presentation was good, the last was a disaster, nothing worked - but I learned from it.
But this time everything is worse than bad - I mean really, really worse than bad.
I've worked the whole week on a cool new feature - I've done everything that it works yesterday, that everything gets done before the deadline of yesterday.
To achieve this I've coded thursday till 10pm ! At home! Friday I tested the whole day everything to ensure that everything is working properly. I fixed several bugs and then at the end of the day everything seems to be working. Even my boss said that it looks good and he thinks that the rollout to all clients will become good and without any issues.
But unfortunately deceived.
Yesterday evening I wrote a long mail to my boss - with a "manual". He was very proud and said that he is confident that everything will work fine. He trusts me completly.
Then, this morning I received a mail from him - nothing works anymore - all clients have issues, everything stays blank - because I've forgotten to ensure that the new feature (a plugin) and its functionality is supported by the device (needs a installation).
First - I was very shoked - but in the same moment I thought - one moment - you've written an if statement, if the plugin is installed - so why the fuck should it broken everything?!
I looked instant to the code via git. This has to be a very bad joke from my boss I thought. But then I saw the fucking bug - I've written:
if(plugin) { // do shit }
but it has to be if(typeof plugin !== 'undefined')
I fucked up everything - due to this fucking mistake. This little piece of shit I've forgotten on one single line fucked up everything. I'm sorry for this mode of expression but I thought - no this can not be true - it must be a bad bad nightmare.
I've tested this so long, every scenario, everything. Worked till the night so it gets finished. No one, no one from my classmates would ever think of working so long. But I did it, because I love my job. I've implemented a check to ensure that the plugin is installed - but implemented it wrong - exactly this line which caused all the errors should prevent exactly this - what an irony of fate.
I've instantly called my boss and apologized for this mistake. The mistake can't be undone. My boss now has to go to all clients to fix it. This will be very expensive...
Oh my goodnes, I just cried.
I'm only working about half a year in this company - they trust me so much - but I'm not perfect - I make mistakes - like everyone else. This time my boss didn't looked over my code, didn't review it, because he trusted me completly - now this happens. I think this destroyed the trust :( I'm so sad.
He only said that we will talk on monday, how we can prevent such things in the feature..
Oh guys, I don't know - I've fucked up everything, we were so overhelmed that everything would work :(
Now I'm the looser who fucked up - because not testing enough - even when I tested it for days, even at home - worked at home - till the night - for free, for nothing - voluntary.
This is the thanks for that.
Thousand good things - but one mistake and you're the little asshole. You - a 19 year old guy, which works since 6 months in a company. A boss which trusts you and don't look over your code. One line which should prevent crashing, crashed everything.
I'm sorry that this rant is so long, I just need to talk to you guys because I'm so sad. Again. This has happend to frequently lately.16 -
NEW 6 Programming Language 2k16
1. Go
Golang Programming Language from Google
Let's start a list of six best new programming language and with Go or also known by the name of Golang, Go is an open source programming language and developed by three employees of Google and the launch in 2009, very cool just 3 people.
Go originated and developed from the popular programming languages such as C and Java, which offers the advantages of compact notation and aims to keep the code simple and easy to read / understand. Go language designers, Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike and Ken Thompson, revealed that the complexity of C ++ into their main motivation.
This simple programming language that we successfully completed the most tasks simply by librariesstandar luggage. Combining the speed of pemrogramandinamis languages such as Python and to handalan of C / C ++, Go be the best tools for building 'High Volume of distributed systems'.
You need to know also know, as expressed by the CTO Tokopedia namely Mas Leon, Tokopedia will switch to GO-lang as the main foundation of his system. Horrified not?
eh not watch? try deh see in the video below:
[Embedyt] http://youtube.com/watch/...]
2. Swift
Swift Programming Language from Apple
Apple launched a programming language Swift ago at WWDC 2014 as a successor to the Objective-C. Designed to be simple as it is, Swift focus on speed and security.
Furthermore, in December 2015, Swift Apple became open source under the Apache license. Since its launch, Swift won eye and the community is growing well and has become one of the programming languages 'hottest' in the world.
Learning Swift make sure you get a brighter future and provide the ability to develop applications for the iOS ecosystem Apple is so vast.
Also Read: What to do to become a full-stack Developer?
3. Rust
Rust Programming Language from Mozilla
Developed by Mozilla in 2014 and then, and in StackOverflow's 2016 survey to the developer, Rust was selected as the most preferred programming language.
Rust was developed as an alternative to C ++ for Mozilla itself, which is referred to as a programming language that focus on "performance, parallelisation, and memory safety".
Rust was created from scratch and implement a modern programming language design. Its own programming language supported very well by many developers out there and libraries.
4. Julia
Julia Programming Language
Julia programming language designed to help mathematicians and data scientist. Called "a complete high-level and dynamic programming solution for technical computing".
Julia is slowly but surely increasing in terms of users and the average growth doubles every nine months. In the future, she will be seen as one of the "most expensive skill" in the finance industry.
5. Hack
Hack Programming Language from Facebook
Hack is another programming language developed by Facebook in 2014.
Social networking giant Facebook Hack develop and gaungkan as the best of their success. Facebook even migrate the entire system developed with PHP to Hack
Facebook also released an open source version of the programming language as part of HHVM runtime platform.
6. Scala
Scala Programming Language
Scala programming termasukbahasa actually relatively long compared to other languages in our list now. While one view of this programming language is relatively difficult to learn, but from the time you invest to learn Scala will not end up sad and disappointing.
The features are so complex gives you the ability to perform better code structure and oriented performance. Based programming language OOP (Object oriented programming) and functional providing the ability to write code that is capable of evolving. Created with the goal to design a "better Java", Scala became one behasa programming that is so needed in large enterprises.3 -
Not learning data structures and algorithms. Not learning programming languages. Actually not learning anything to answer during a job interview.
I am more of a learn-while-you-do kind of guy. I never learn anything, instead just do it. Interviewers think I am useless because I know nothing. But I can get a job done, any kind of job done. I have no learning period, I can start working from first day in a all new language, in a all new IDE, in a all new OS.
I know nothing, and I learn nothing. I am a problem solver. You got a problem, I can solve it.6 -
I spent over a decade of my life working with Ada. I've spent almost the same amount of time working with C# and VisualBasic. And I've spent almost six years now with F#. I consider all of these great languages for various reasons, each with their respective problems. As these are mostly mature languages some of the problems were only knowable in hindsight. But Ada was always sort of my baby. I don't really mind extra typing, as at least what I do, reading happens much more than writing, and tab completion has most things only being 3-4 key presses irl. But I'm no zealot, and have been fully aware of deficiencies in the language, just like any language would have. I've had similar feelings of all languages I've worked with, and the .NET/C#/VB/F# guys are excellent with taking suggestions and feedback.
This is not the case with Ada, and this will be my story, since I've no longer decided anonymity is necessary.
First few years learning the language I did what anyone does: you write shit that already exists just to learn. Kept refining it over time, sometimes needing to do entire rewrites. Eventually a few of these wound up being good. Not novel, just good stuff that already existed. Outperforming the leading Ada company in benchmarks kind of good. At the time I was really gung-ho about the language. Would have loved to make Ada development a career. Eventually build up enough of this, as well as a working, but very bad performing compiler, and decide to try to apply for a job at this company. I wasn't worried about the quality of the compiler, as anyone who's seriously worked with Ada knows, the language is remarkably complex with some bizarre rules in dark corners, so a compiler which passes the standards test indicates a very intimate knowledge of the language few can attest to.
I get told they didn't think I would be a good fit for the job, and that they didn't think I should be doing development.
A few months of rapid cycling between hatred and self loathing passes, and then a suicide attempt. I've got past problems which contributed more so than the actual job denial.
So I get better and start working even harder on my shit. Get the performance of my stuff up even better. Don't bother even trying to fix up the compiler, and start researching about text parsing. Do tons of small programs to test things, and wind up learning a lot. I'm starting to notice a lot of languages really surpassing Ada in _quality of life_, with things package managers and repositories for those, as well as social media presence and exhaustive tutorials from the community.
At the time I didn't really get programming language specific package managers (I do now), but I still brought this up to the community. Don't do that. They don't like new ideas. Odd for a language which at the time was so innovative. But social media presence did eventually happen with a Twitter account that is most definitely run by a specific Ada company masquerading as a general Ada advocate. It did occasionally draw interest to neat things from the community, so that's cool.
Since I've been using both VisualStudio and an IDE this Ada company provides, I saw a very jarring quality difference over the years. I'm not gonna say VS is perfect, it's not. But this piece of shit made VS look like a polished streamlined bug free race car designed by expert UX people. It. Was. Bad. Very little features, with little added over the years. Fast forwarding several years, I can find about ten bugs in five minutes each update, and I can't find bugs in the video games I play, so I'm no bug finder. It's just that bad. This from a company providing software for "highly reliable systems"...
So I decide to take a crack at writing an editor extension for VS Code, which I had never even used. It actually went well, and as of this writing it has over 24k downloads, and I've received some great comments from some people over on Twitter about how detailed the highlighting is. Plenty of bespoke advertising the entire time in development, of course.
Never a single word from the community about me.
Around this time I had also started a YouTube channel to provide educational content about the language, since there's very little, except large textbooks which aren't right for everyone. Now keep in mind I had written a compiler which at least was passing the language standards test, so I definitely know the language very well. This is a standard the programmers at these companies will admit very few people understand. YouTube channel met with hate from the community, and overwhelming thanks from newcomers. Never a shout out from the "community" Twitter account. The hate went as far as things like how nothing I say should be listened to because I'm a degenerate Irishman, to things like how the world would have been a better place if I was successful in killing myself (I don't talk much about my mental illness, but it shows up).
I'm strictly a .NET developer now. All code ported.5 -
C is probably my favorite programming language. I use it for learning new concepts and implementing algorithms.
It's just sometimes I hate that I have to do everything myself when I need to focus on the solution/concept instead.
P.S., I hate C++ from all my heart. It's an abomination and a deformity of C.21 -
Got demoted, got a pay raise and don't know how to feel about it. A story of how not to drink with your coworkers?
The story begins roughly 8-9 months ago. Me and this coworker (let's name him Tim) go out drinking after a Friday party at the office. We do some rounds and we're both smashed. Tim starts telling me how he's happy with life and that he's earning a nice salary right now. He told me his salary. It was the same as mine. Which was weird - He codes in a more hardcore languages than me and has almost double the time in the company as me. I think after some more drinking I've confessed that I make the same as him. This part is sort of a blur (drinking). I've gotten a pay raise(+30-40%) roughly a few months ago from that point backwards because another company gave be a much higher offer. The company I work for matched to keep me. Anyway, 3 months or so after the drinking,Tim is promoted to team lead, and me and a few other people are added to his team. Conversation slips and he told me his new salary - quite a bit more than me.I think it's safe to assume what happened.
The problem with that is that I was a team lead of 1 person (me) at that time, and I was managing my own time and my own tasks, was working with people individually. I was part of the weekly meetings with the CEO and other team leads. Being stripped of this title wasn't a problem at the beginning, as people still contacted me because of their problems, suggestions, whatever. A few more months pass (to now) and less and less people are contacting me - instead they are talking with Tim, and are asking of his opinion on tasks I should do, where he has no experience and roughly 0 lines in the programming language I code in. This is starting to piss me off.
There are a couple other things to take into consideration as well - The company is hiring a lot of people right now. The whole structure for team leads changed a bit, more team leads then ever right now and new roles added pretty fast.
I've gotten a pay raise a few weeks ago though(10%~).
I'm not sure on how to react to this. Should I comply and just keep on working on these tasks? Or should I still keep contacting people directly on their requests and talk to them directly, take credit for the projects I complete publicly and the stuff I do as I was previously doing? Part of me wants to reroute all of the stupids questions people have to Tim, as he is now responsible for these tasks and get this weight off my shoulders.
I'm starting to shift to learning a new programming language and thinking of jumping ship. Thoughts?6 -
8 years ago,
I studied in a small school and every year we had computer classes, but most of the times, it gets cancelled or we just sit and browse and sometimes few of us don't even get a computer.
In that time, the only reason I was attached with the computer was due to games.
Our curriculum mentioned HTML, CSS, Access and Excel, which none of the teachers taught us for past 2 years. I wanted to learn all does, but gave up since no one cared about it.(please note that time, I didn't know even to use YouTube or W3schools to learn stuffs)
Then, a new student joined in our class and also a new computer ma'am joined our school. Both of them turned out to be really fun when it comes to learning computers.
She was active during last sessions and teach us HTML, CSS. I even started writing blogs which she taught. The most surprising part was she was super frank. She went beyond her duty, and taught me what Facebook is, how to use it, and opened an account for me which I am still using it, and she sent a friend request to herself. (In lab, past teachers would shout to students trying to open fb. All of them were super strict.)
She was kind and friendly, and during theory classes, the new student in our class would answer every single question. Then, somehow we both started sharing sits in computer class, and he will tell me answers and we both raise hands to answer the question. My teacher will also keep asking interesting questions which made me more inclined to computer science.
My story isn't related to learning a programming language or an algorithm, but it was the wave that brought me closer towards CS and after 2 years, I joined CS in University and till now, haven't look back and always thanked both of them, my respected ma'am and my dear friend, who inspired me and brought out my curiosity towards computers.
Note: My friend is doing Medical currently and when I teased him that I did CS and now, I know more than you and this time, I am gonna whisper in your ears if someone asks any question, to which he replied, I accept I am doing Medical, but I still love computers and know a hell lot about it.
My teacher got married and she also got a cute baby. We talk occasionally in fb and she is going great too.
I hope to meet both of them someday soon. -
Another day, another company that doesn’t live up to its own hype.
This time interviewing for a company that only want people who are willing to start with the language they currently know but learn other programming languages and not shy away from new things.
Brilliant, I’m up for that. I love learning and want to be at a place that values learning. I’ve got 20+ years of experience and I’ve learnt all sorts in that time to stay relevant. Currently I’m a c# dev, but I’ve worked on projects using JavaScript & Typescript, Angular, React etc. Done front end and back end, taught myself mongo and architecture. Point is that I have a proven track record of learning.
To cut a long story short, they give me a .net test. Nothing special about it. I have a 4 hour chat. And a week later I’m rejected because I don’t do Python. WTF?!
I thought this place was all about allowing people to learn if they were willing, not about what they know right now. I’m calling bullshit.7 -
Anyone have the experience where you are learning a new programming language and you are eager to do stuff with it but you need to use another one for your job? So frustrating!2
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I need to rant about life decisions, and choosing a dev career probably too early. Not extremely development related, but it's the life of a developer.
TL;DR: I tried a new thing and that thing is now my thing. The new thing is way more work than my old thing but way more rewarding & exciting. Try new things.
I taught myself to program when I was a kid (11 or 12 years old), and since then I have always been absolutely sure that I wanted to be a games programmer. I took classes in high school and college with that aim, and chose a games programming degree. Everything was so simple, nail the degree, get a job programming something, and take the first games job that I could and go from there.
I have always had random side hobbies that I liked to teach myself, just like programming. And in uni I decided that I wanted to learn another language (natural, not programming) because growing up in England meant that I only learned English and was rarely exposed to anything else. The idea of knowing another fascinated me.
So I dabbled in a few different languages, tried to find a culture that seemed to fit my style and attitude to life and others, and eventually found myself learning Korean. That quickly became something I was doing every single day, and I decided I needed to go to Korea and see what life there could be like.
I found out that my university offered a free summer school program for a couple of weeks, all I had to pay for was the flights. So a few months later I was there and it was literally the best thing I'd done in my life to that point. I'd found two things that made me feel even better than the idea of becoming the games programmer I'd always wanted to be. Travelling and using my other language to communicate with people that I couldn't in English. At that point I was still just a beginner, but even the simple conversations with people who couldn't speak English felt awesome.
So when I returned home, I found that that trip had completely thrown a spanner into my life plan. All I could think about after that was improving my language skills and going back there for as long as possible. Who knows what to do.
I did exactly that. I studied harder than I'd ever studied for anything and left the next year to go and study in Korea, now with intermediate language skills, everyday conversations no longer being a problem at all.
Now I live here, I will be here for the next year and I have to return to England for one year to finish my degree. Then instead of having my simple plan of becoming a developer, I can think of nothing I want to do less than just stay in England doing the same job every day, nothing to do with language. I need to be at least travelling to Korea, and using my language skills in at least some way.
The current WIP plan is to take intensive language classes here (from next week, every single weekday), build awesome dev side projects and contribute to open source stuff. Then try to build a life of freelance translation/interpreting/language teaching and software development (maybe here, maybe Korea).
So the point of this rant is that before, I had a solid plan. Now I am sat in my bed in Korea writing this, thinking about how I have almost no idea how I'm going to build the life that I want. And yet somehow, the uncertainty makes this so much more exciting and fulfilling. There's a lot more worrying, planning and deciding to do. But I think the fact that I completely changed my life goals just through a small decision one day to satisfy a curiosity is a huge life lesson for me. And maybe reading this will help other people decide to just try doing something different for once, and see if your life plan holds up.
If it does, never stop trying new things. If it doesn't (like mine), then you now know that you've found something that you love as much as or even more that your plan before. Something that you might have lived your whole life never finding.
I don't expect many people to read this all, but writing it here has been very cathartic for me, and it's still a rant because now I have so much more work and planning to do. But it's the good kind of work.
Things aren't so simple now, but they're way more worth it.3 -
This is real rant, not one of these funny stories!
So, I spent 4 years to get a Computer Science degree, and did two specializations, 3.5 years more in Uni. I have 6 years of experience working in IT, from support to programming. I also speak 3 languages.
I'm from a South America country, and now I'm living in EU.
I'm 30 now and earning a little more than a MacDonald's cashier earns in the US. I have to live in a shared apartment like a fucking Uni student. I have nothing, no car, no house, no girlfriend. WTF!
IT is a fucking lie! Profession of the future my ass!
In Uni they said that finding a good job was easy, that companies would literally grab us by the neck to work for them. LIE!
I did found a low paying job though, where at least I could learn a lot more.
People were really satisfied with my work and I even received a proposal of one of our clients to work for them, but the offer wasn't good enough.
I tried entering some big companies as a Trainee, but it was so ridiculous, they said they were looking for an IT person, but they asked things related to economy and other stuff that had nothing to do with IT. I always failed in the group work/interview, it was so ridiculous, I remember one candidate saying her dream was to work for the company since she was a child, SERIOUSLY!
When the opportunity came, I moved to EU and now I'm working as a dev. But as I said, I'm not satisfied with it! In the US the yearly average software engineer salary is about 100K, I earn less than 1/4 of it. And don't come saying that US pays more because of the cost of life, here the cost of life is the same or even more expensive, a super small apartment/loft is at least 180K, a simple new car 18K and a Big Mac costs 4€.
In the US, the average salary of someone that just graduated from uni is 60K to 70K! LOL
In EU, it's super hard for someone to earn 100K, that's why many companies are creating offices here, good workforce, 2 to 3 times smaller salary!
IT also sucks because it's too volatile, there's new stuff all the time. Someone always has to come with a new language, new framework, new library, etc etc. And you have to keep learning new stuff all the time.
Also job openings always ask for experienced people, like you must have at least two years of experience with VUE.js, or something.
Do you remember the last time you went to a doctor for a checkup, did they use a new tool, or did something different during the checkup? Probably not, the medic don't have to learn new stuff all the time, he is still using a stethoscope, he is still placing a wooden stick in your mouth to check your throat...
But in IT, almost no one nowadays is going to create code using CoffeeScript, they instead will use TypeScript.
I read an article saying that an IT professional must study 20 hours a week to keep up with new trends. So I must work 40 hours and study another 20? LOL
It's not that I don't like learning new stuff, but this sucks, I want to maybe learn something different or have a hobby.
Today I regret going to uni, I feel it was a waste of time and money. They taught things like calculus and physics that I never had to use professionally, and even programming stuff like linked lists I never had to use.
If instead I had studied dentistry or studied to be a ophthalmologist I think I would be earning more, would be working more independently and wouldn't need to keep up learning new things so much.
Also to work in IT you don't need a diploma, I read an article by a dude that learned programming by his own, did some software for his portfolio and got a job at Google.
When I read these kinds of story I regret even more going to uni, It really feels I wasted my time.
For these reasons I can't recommend going to uni to study IT, if you want to go to uni go study something else!
If you want to study programming do it on your own, there's everything you must know online for free, create a portfolio, and look for a job or even try working for yourself!
Living the life I have now, there's just no incentive to keep going.
Should I keep learning new stuff so maybe I can get a better job that will still pay low, or quit and try creating something on my own?
Or even ditch IT all together and go back to uni? LOL NO!5 -
Why is it that virtually all new languages in the last 25 years or so have a C-like syntax?
- Java wanted to sort-of knock off C++.
- C# wanted to be Java but on Microsoft's proprietary stack instead of SUN's (now Oracle's).
- Several other languages such as Vala, Scala, Swift, etc. do only careful evolution, seemingly so as to not alienate the devs used to previous C-like languages.
- Not to speak of everyone's favourite enemy, JavaScript…
- Then there is ReasonML which is basically an alternate, more C-like, syntax for OCaml, and is then compiled to JavaScript.
Now we're slowly arriving at the meat of this rant: back when I started university, the first semester programming lecture used Scheme, and provided a fine introduction to (functional) programming. Scheme, like other variants of Lisp, is a fine language, very flexible, code is data, data is code, but you get somewhat lost in a sea of parentheses, probably worse than the C-like languages' salad of curly braces. But it was a refreshing change from the likes of C, C++, and Java in terms of approach.
But the real enlightenment came when I read through Okasaki's paper on purely functional data structures. The author uses Standard ML in the paper, and after the initial shock (because it's different than most everything else I had seen), and getting used to the notation, I loved the crisp clarity it brings with almost no ceremony at all!
After looking around a bit, I found that nobody seems to use SML anymore, but there are viable alternatives, depending on your taste:
- Pragmatic programmers can use OCaml, which has immutability by default, and tries to guide the programmer to a functional programming mindset, but can accommodate imperative constructs easily when necessary.
- F# was born as OCaml on .NET but has now evolved into its own great thing with many upsides and very few downsides; I recommend every C# developer should give it a try.
- Somewhat more extreme is Haskell, with its ideology of pure functions and lazy evaluation that makes introducing side effects, I/O, and other imperative constructs rather a pain in the arse, and not quite my piece of cake, but learning it can still help you be a better programmer in whatever language you use on a day-to-day basis.
Anyway, the point is that after working with several of these languages developed out of the original Meta Language, it baffles me how anyone can be happy being a curly-braces-language developer without craving something more succinct and to-the-point. Especially when it comes to JavaScript: all the above mentioned ML-like languages can be compiled to JavaScript, so developing directly in JavaScript should hardly be a necessity.
Obviously these curly-braces languages will still be needed for a long time coming, legacy systems and all—just look at COBOL—, but my point stands.7 -
[DISCLAIMER : Potential Troll Topic here] I am self taught python and js (not considering myself as a real developer as I don't push much on github and work in a complete other field than anything related to CS right now) and would be interested to learn another language, with another paradigm. So, as I love you all, I would be interested In your highlights as I am currently considering either C, C++, Rust or Go.
with C, I know I could interface it with python. With C++ (despite Linus considering it evil) I know I could interface it with Node. I don't know currently what to do with Go, but some people seem really enthusiastic about it (not really relevant I know) and Rust seems like the C of today, with a bunch of new cool kid stuff. My main goal, after all, is to learn something new, to have another sight on programming. Either understanding more about hardware or learning another way of coding (like different from oop).
I know it sounds like a troll, but I promise it's not, just a serious genuine question (hopefully it won't be closed here like on SO)
So what do you think devranters ?
Being eternally grateful to all of you, I wish you a good night.10 -
How the Common Lisp Community will eventually die soon:
Clojure is the only main Lisp dialect having some sort of heavy presence in today's modern development world. Yes, I am aware of other(if not all) environments in which Lisp or a dialect of it is being used for multiple things, CADLisp, Guile Scheme, Racket, etc etc whatever. I know.
Not only is Clojure present in the JVM(I give 0 fucks about whether you like it or not also) but also has compilation targets for Javascript via Clojurescript. This means that i can effectively target backend server operations, damn near everything inside of the JVM and also the browser.
Yet, there is no real point in using Lisp or Clojure other than for pure academic endeavours, for which it is not even a pure functional programming language, you would be better served learning something else if you want true functional purity. But also because examples for one of the major areas in software development, mainly web, are really lacking, like, lacking bad, as in, so bad most examples are few in between and there is no interest in making it target complete beginners or anything of the like.
But my biggest fucking gripe with Lisp as a whole, specifically Common Lisp, is how monstrously outdated the documentation you can find available for it is.
Say for example, aesthetics, these play a large role, a developer(web mostly) used to the attention to detail placed by the Rails community, the Laravel community, django, etc etc would find on documentation that came straight from the 90s. There is no passion for design, no attention to detail, it makes it look hacky and abandoned. Everything in Lisp looks so severely abandoned for which the most abundant pool of resources are not even made present on a fully general purpose language constrained as a scripting environment for a text editor: Emacs with Emacs Lisp which I reckon is about the most used Lisp dialect in the planet, even more so than Clojure or Common Lisp.
I just want the language to be made popular again y'know? To have a killer app or framework for it much like there is Rails for Ruby, Phoenix for Elixir, etc etc. But unless I get some serious hacking done to bring about the level of maturity of those frameworks(which I won't nor I believe I can) then it will always remain a niche language with funny syntax.
To be honest I am phasing away my use of Clojure in place of Pharo. I just hate seeing how much the Lisp community does in an effort to keep shit as obscure and far away from the reach of new developers as possible. I also DESPISE reading other Lisp developer's code. Far too fucking dense and clever for anyone other than the original developer to read and add to. The idea that Lisp allows for read only code is far too real man.
Lisp has been DED for a while, and the zombies that remain will soon disappear because the community was too busy playing circle jerks for anything real to be done with it. Even as the original language of AI it has been severely outshined by the likes of Python, R and Scala, shit, even Javascript has more presence in AI than Lisp does now a days.9 -
Some people just don't get it. When you meet friends who are either non technical or very new to programming, all they ask you is what language do you use.
The language is important but not everything. It's what you do with it that matters. Just because you know python, doesn't mean that you can do machine learning. Even simply asking what do I do is better than that!
The language is just a tool! Learn to be language agnostic please. Be a programmer, not a code monkey2 -
!!!rant
Most exited I've been about some code? Probably for some random "build a twitter clone with Rails" tutorial I found online.
I've been working on my CS degree for a while (theoretical CS) but I really wanted to mess with something a bit more practical. I had almost none web dev experience, since I've been programming mostly OS-related stuff till then (C). I started looking around, trying to find a stack that's easy to learn since my time was limited- I still had to finish with my degree.
I played around with many languages and frameworks for a week or two. Decided to go with Ruby/Rails and built a small twitter clone blindly following a tutorial I found online and WAS I FUCKING EXITED for my small but handmade twitter clone had come to life. Coming from a C background, Ruby was weird and felt like a toy language but I fell in love.
My excitement didn't fade. I bought some books, studied hard for about a month, learned Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, SQL (w/ pg) and some HTML/CSS. Only playing with todo apps wasn't fun. I had a project idea I believed might be somewhat successful so I started working on it.
The next few months were spent studying and working on my project. It was hard. I had no experience on any web dev technology so I had learn so many new things all at once. Picked up React, ditched it and rewrote the front end with Vue. Read about TDD, worked with PostgreSQL, Redis and a dozen third party APIs, bought a vps and deployed everything from scratch. Played it with node and some machine learning with python.
Long story short, one year and about 30 books later, my project is up and running, has about 4k active monthly users, is making a profit and is steadily growing. If everything goes well, next week I'll close a deal with a pretty big client and I CANT BE FKING HAPPIER AND MORE EXCITED :D Towards the end of the month I'll also be interviewed for a web dev position.
That stupid twitter clone tutorial made me excited enough to start messing with web technologies. Thank you stupid twitter clone tutorial, a part of my heart will be yours forever.2 -
Here comes lots of random pieces of advice...
Ain't no shortcuts.
Be prepared, becoming a good programmer (there are lots of shitty programmers, not so many good ones) takes lots of pain, frustration, and failure. It's going to suck for awhile. There will be false starts. At some point you will question whether you are cut out for it or not. Embrace the struggle -- if you aren't failing, you aren't learning.
Remember that in 2021 being a programmer is just as much (maybe even moreso) about picking up new things on the fly as it is about your crystalized knowledge. I don't want someone who has all the core features of some language memorized, I want someone who can learn new things quickly. Everything is open book all the time. I have to look up pretty basic stuff all the time, it's just that it takes me like twelve seconds to look it up and digest it.
Build, build, build, build, build. At least while you are learning, you should always be working on a project. Don't worry about how big the project is, small is fine.
Remember that programming is a tool, not the end goal in and of itself. Nobody gives a shit how good a carpenter is at using some specialized saw, they care about what the carpenter can build with that specialized saw.
Plan your build. This is a VERY important part of the process that newer devs/programmers like to skip. You are always free to change the plan, but you should have a plan going on. Don't store your plan in your head. If you plan exists only in your head you are doing it wrong. Write that shit down! If you create a solid development process, the cognitive overhead for any project goes way down.
Don't fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others, especially to the experts you are learning from. They are good because they have done the thing that you are struggling with at least a thousand times.
Don't fall into the trap of comparing yourself today to yourself yesterday. This will make it seem like you haven't learned anything and aren't on the move. Compare yourself to yourself last week, last month, last year.
Have experienced programmers review your code. Don't be afraid to ask, most of us really really enjoy this (if it makes you feel any better about the "inconvenience", it will take a mid-level waaaaay less time to review your code that it took for you to write it, and a senior dev even less time than that). You will hate it, it will suck having someone seem like they are just ripping your code apart, but it will make you so much better so much faster than just relying on your own internal knowledge.
When you start to be able to put the pieces together, stay humble. I've seen countless devs with a year of experience start to get a big head and talk like they know shit. Don't keep your mouth closed, but as a newer dev if you are talking noise instead of asking questions there is no way I will think you are ready to have the Jr./Associate/Whatever removed from your title.
Don't ever. Ever. Ever. Criticize someone else's preferred tools. Tooling is so far down the list of what makes a good programmer. This is another thing newer devs have a tendency to do, thinking that their tool chain is the only way to do it. Definitely recommend to people alternatives to check out. A senior dev using Notepad++, a terminal window, and a compiler from 1977 is probably better than you are with the newest shiniest IDE.
Don't be a dick about terminology/vocabulary. Different words mean different things to different people in different organizations. If what you call GNU/Linux somebody else just calls Linux, let it go man! You understand what they mean, and if you don't it's your job to figure out what they mean, not tell them the right way to say it.
One analogy I like to make is that becoming a programmer is a lot like becoming a chef. You don't become a chef by following recipes (i.e. just following tutorials and walk-throughs). You become a chef by learning about different ingredients, learning about different cooking techniques, learning about different styles of cuisine, and (this is the important part), learning how to put together ingredients, techniques, and cuisines in ways that no one has ever showed you about before. -
I've only been working for a about 6 months, so this is the best I got.
I'm working with a software/programming language I've never worked with before this, so sometimes I have to go ask my co-worker if what I did is correct, or ask him where some information is stored.
So sometimes I do someting, and then go ask him if it's ok and I can continue. He looks at my code, starts asking questions and (sometimes, not always) says something like "this is not it, let's do it together". Alright, I understand that, I know I still make a lot of mistakes and I'm still learning how to work with this. It's all still very new to me.
We start looking for stuff, making queries, programming, etc. and then we end up with the exact same code that I had made... But, somehow, now it's correct...
This happens so much, I hate asking him things now!8 -
!rant
For all of youse that ever wanted to try out Common Lisp and do not know where to start (but are interested in getting some knowledge of Common Lisp) I recommend two things:
As an introductory tutorial:
https://lisperati.com/casting.html/
And as your dev environment:
https://portacle.github.io/
Notice that the dev environment in question is Emacs, regardless of how you might feel about it as a text editor, i can recommend just going through the portacle help that gives you some basic starting points regarding editing. Learn about splitting buffers, evaluating the code you are typing in order for it to appear in the Common Lisp REPL (this one comes with an environment known as SLIME which is very popular in the Lisp world) as well as saving and editing your files.
Portacle is self contained inside of one single directory, so if you by any chance already have an Emacs environment then do not worry, Portacle will not touch any of that. I will admit that as far as I am concerned, Emacs will probably be the biggest hurdle for most people not used to it.
Can I use VS Code? Yes, yes you can, but I am not familiar with setting up a VSCode dev environment for Emacs, or any other environment hat comes close to the live environment that emacs provides for this?
Why the fuck should I try Common Lisp or any Lisp for that matter? You do not have to, I happen to like it a lot and have built applications at work with a different dialect of Lisp known as Clojure which runs in the JVM, do I recommend it? Yeah I do, I love functional programming, Clojure is pretty pure on that (not haskell level imo though, but I am not using Haskell for anything other than academic purposes) and with clojure you get the entire repertoire of Java libraries at your disposal. Moving to Clojure was cake coming from Common Lisp.
Why Common Lisp then if you used Clojure in prod? Mostly historical reasons, I want to just let people know that ANSI Common Lisp has a lot of good things going for it, I selected Clojure since I already knew what I needed from the JVM, and parallelism and concurrency are baked into Clojure, which was a priority. While I could have done the same thing in Common Lisp, I wanted to turn in a deliverable as quickly as possible rather than building the entire thing by myself which would have taken longer (had one week)
Am I getting something out of learning Common Lisp? Depends on you, I am not bringing about the whole "it opens your mind" deal with Lisp dialects as most other people do inside of the community, although I did experience new perspectives as to what programming and a programming language could do, and had fun doing it, maybe you will as well.
Does Lisp stands for Lots of Irritating Superfluous Parentheses or Los in stupid parentheses? Yes, also for Lost of Insidious Silly Parentheses and Lisp is Perfect, use paredit (comes with Portacle) also, Lisp stands for Lisp Is Perfect. None of that List Processing bs, any other definition will do.
Are there any other books? Yes, the famous online text Practical Common Lisp can be easily read online for free, I would recommend the Lisperati tutorial first to get a feel for it since PCL demands more tedious study. There is also Common Lisp a gentle introduction. If you want to go the Clojure route try Clojure for the brave and true.
What about Scheme and the Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs? Too academic for my taste, and if in Common Lisp you have to do a lot of things on your own, Scheme is a whole other beast. Simple and beautiful really, but I go for practical in terms of Lisp, thus I prefer Common Lisp.
how did you start with Lisp?
I was stupid and thought I should start with it after a failed attempt at learning C++, then Java, and then Javascript when I started programming years ago. I was overwhelmed, but I continued. Then I moved to other things. But always kept Common Lisp close to heart. I am also heavy into A.I, Lisp has a history there and it is used in a lot of new and sort of unknown projects dealing with Knowledge Reasoning and representation. It is also Alien tech that contains many things that just seem super interesting to me such as treating code as data and data as code (back-quoting, macros etc)
I need some inspiration man......show me something? Sure, look for a game called Kandria in youtube, the creator, Shimera (Nicolas Hafner) is an absolute genius in the world of Lisp and a true inspiration. He coded the game in Common Lisp, he is also the person behind portacle. If that were not enough, he might very well also be Shirakumo, another prominent member of the Common Lisp Community.
Ok, you got me, what is the first thing in common lisp that I should try after I install the portacle environment? go to the repl and evaluate this:
(+ 0.1 0.2)
Watch in awe at what you get.
In the truest and original sense of the phrase (MIT based) "happy hacking!"9 -
Past two years when I was in 7th grade, my computer teacher taught us the first programming language ie Python. At first, I just copied the syntax in my copy, and in the evening, I searched for it on YT
This introduced me to a new world of programming and I started learning it further3 -
"The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it." - Dennis Ritchie
So, how are you learning - By writing programs or by Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V? 😛3 -
Want to learn a new programming language. My main language is JavaScript and I spent most of my team learning to create full stack applications with it, but I would like to learn a second language to focus on. (I already have some experience in Java and Python and JavaScript wasn't my first language but I like JS)
Are there any languages that you could suggest me?8 -
So the new guy convinces my employer that he is a Machine Learning Expert. Nothing is wrong until He even convinces my employer that he can do Machine Learning with HTML (<==== is not a Programming Language); This is the time my IQ instantly dropped to ```Patrick Star```.8
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ok, fuck people. i mean the people who talk about things that are a big deal. you don't need to take a course in html/css to build a website, you need documentation.
people act like programming languages are a whole separate literacy. they're not. it is not a big deal, nor an accomplishment of any significance, to learn any language to a basic extent. variables, control flow, functions and scope should not be considered challenging topics, and people should stop bragging about them. i'm pretty sure this is because programming is new. as people, i think when something is new we tend to think of it as more complex and harder to understand. basic programming is not that.
ok that was a tangent from my real point. college is a scam. anyone can learn anything from books and the internet. any time you want to learn about something, go to google, and search "${my topic} site:*.github.io" and you'll have a page about that topic written by someone who is knowledgeable and passionate of the topic. colleges don't teach people how to think like these books/websites do. and i'm fucking sick of people who'd rather see a degree then a portfolio. fuck them shits bro. i can distinct my smart friends because my smart friends speak logically and enjoy becoming smarter. i would take the kid who watches aerodynamics videos on youtube and then built a plane over a kid who studied and got a five on his ap physics exam. watching then doing is better learning than watching and repeating. after all, creativity is not at all measured in our grades, and i'd like to argue that sometimes intelligence isn't even measured. i mean, people can say they're good at math, but the kids who talk about fibinnoci numbers and why there can never be two primes more than 7 (i if i remember properly) integers apart or the ones who prove cryptographic algorithms. i guess what i'm trying to say is the dumb kids aren't dumb and the smart kids aren't smart (well not that) but kids who are passionate and just do something instead of waiting for their degree to do the same thing are the best and brightest. i forgot what i was talking about. sorry it is almost 2 am and i am intoxicated , and i don't believe i got my point across very well either.7 -
learning a different language can be difficult sometimes. since i already know other languages, i get them mixed up. putting semicolons, putting spaces even though i shouldnt, putting parenthesis or even forgetting some keywords because in another language, its not necessary. makes it difficult to adjust to the new syntax. but the fun part of learning is having more knowledge and experience.4
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I want to rant about tech YouTubers. As one myself, I feel like I do an even exchange with my viewers.
I want your attention, I don't feel like I deserve it, so I teach you something coding related. You get something of value, I get your attention.
But that's not the case with most in this space. Idiots feel like they can spout whatever bullshit they think about.
They're all stupid with their stupid fucking titles and ideas. Let's review some.
Video Title: How much Javascript you should know to get in tech??
Anyone with > 2 braincells: WTF !!!!!
Video Title: How would I start over to learn coding if I could?
My Reaction: Nope, I wouldn't. The things that I did and didn't is exactly what my journey is and I would do it all over again.
And I get the intent, you're trying to put a roadmap for beginners but they're not going to follow exactly how you lay it out. And why are you trying to establish that there is a correct way of learning coding? Everyone learns at different paces at different times. It's a journey not a race.
Video Title: A day in the life of {COMPANY} engineer.
My Reaction: What do you want to show everyone? Your fancy office? Your perks? The job perks which 99% of other devs won't have?
Video Title: How to crack FAANG interviews.
My Reaction: Well, only the top 1% is going to get an interview anyway. You're not acknowledging the fact that the acceptance rate is < 1% in these companies. Creating a video like this creates false expectations in beginner's heads. And they only see these companies as their only shots of making careers. They dont consider startups or starting their own companies.
Video Title: Top 4 dying programming languages.
My Reaction: WTF !!! COBOL was invented in 1959 and there still is demand for it. And my blood started boiling when Tiff in Tech said PHP is a dying language. Like seriously????
Video Title: Top paying programming languages in 2023.
My Reaction: Please, come on. We know it's Java. And 99% of the viewers ain't getting that job. You're just wasting time listing out languages. By the time someone starts from scratch and gets to a position of getting a job, something else will be the new fad.
Video Title: What advice would I give myself when I was starting?
My Reaction: Really? You couldn't think about saying what advice you'd give to your viewers? Are you really that full of narcissism?
There are good techies though, it's just that I get angrier and angrier the more YouTube recommends me these stupid videos. Ah, my chest feels lighter now.6 -
Admitting a few things: I found myself ranting multiple times about multiple programming languages and how it's their fault things didn't go my way, I'd like to take the time to admit that I was wrong, not understanding the language was because of my lack of experience with it and patience to understand. So here's my two cents : if you're ranting about a programming language/ framework being bad, you're probably inexperienced and don't know how to use it right. I was retarded for blaming languages such as php and using typescript as being bad even though I was clearly inexperienced with them, sometimes I see a bunch of retards bashing great languages and libraries such as bootstrap, bitch if you can't manage to understand how to copy paste some css classes then you will probably never be able to write css and should consider working as truck driver. It's been a month now in my new company and my skill level has increased exponentially, we are almost ready to launch our app and I have in someway become super excited about learning new tech.5
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After using and learning programming with Python for two years and getting comfortable with the language's ins-and-outs, now it has come the time to learn my second language. I selected C++, and I am so glad I waited until I understood my first language before jumping into a new one because it was worth the time. Before, C++ looked intimidating, but now I see its beauty (reasonably strongly typed language). It took me some hours to understand the basics and ended the day making a simple Python-3 adapter using C++.
Side notes:
Maybe because I am a noob, I don't see why Rust is preferred over C++?
While I only plan to use C++ to speed heavy preprocessing tasks within Python projects - I was surprised to find no NLP libraries?4 -
Okay I'm back to Dev Rant tho it still looks new and confusing sometimes, maybe because I'm new to programming world. Well I need some type of advice , I like web development, I started learning PHP (I know it an old language but it all I can help myself with, by learning). Is there any thing I'm missing? Any link on improving my skills ?
I will be glad to learn a lot from the senior developers on here . I really want to go wide into programming I'm ready for the challenges because I know the path isn't always easy!!
Thanks in advance10 -
In addition to the programming language or theoretical concepts. It is also essential to develop good problem solving skills.
Concepts like design patterns and refactoring would be better taught using hands on exercises based on a long running example, such as having the students create a project in an introductory course on a programming language and then take that codebase as a starting point for the assignments on design patterns and refactoring.
It would be unrealistic to assume that developers would be working only on a single programming language in their entire career. So, a few pointers on how to go about learning new languages based on similarities with programming language(s) they already know would also be there. -
Can anyone help me with this theory about microprocessor, cpu and computers in general?
( I used to love programming when during school days when it was just basic searching/sorting and oop. Even in college , when it advanced to language details , compilers and data structures, i was fine. But subjects like coa and microprocessors, which kind of explains the working of hardware behind the brain that is a computer is so difficult to understand for me 😭😭😭)
How a computer works? All i knew was that when a bulb gets connected to a battery via wires, some metal inside it starts glowing and we see light. No magics involved till now.
Then came the von Neumann architecture which says a computer consists of 4 things : i/o devices, system bus ,memory and cpu. I/0 and memory interact with system bus, which is controlled by cpu . Thus cpu controls everything and that's how computer works.
Wait, what?
Let's take an easy example of calc. i pressed 1+2= on keyboard, it showed me '1+2=' and then '3'. How the hell that hapenned ?
Then some video told me this : every key in your keyboard is connected to a multiplexer which gives a special "code" to the processer regarding the key press.
The "control unit" of cpu commands the ram to store every character until '=' is pressed (which is a kind of interrupt telling the cpu to start processing) . RAM is simply a bunch of storage circuits (which can store some 1s) along with another bunch of circuits which can retrieve these data.
Up till now, the control unit knows that memory has (for eg):
Value 1 stored as 0001 at some address 34A
Value + stored as 11001101 at some address 34B
Value 2 stored as 0010 at some Address 23B
On recieving code for '=' press, the "control unit" commands the "alu" unit of cpu to fectch data from memory , understand it and calculate the result(i e the "fetch, decode and execute" cycle)
Alu fetches the "codes" from the memory, which translates to ADD 34A,23B i.e add the data stored at addresses 34a , 23b. The alu retrieves values present at given addresses, passes them through its adder circuit and puts the result at some new address 21H.
The control unit then fetches this result from new address and via, system busses, sends this new value to display's memory loaded at some memory port 4044.
The display picks it up and instantly shows it.
My problems:
1. Is this all correct? Does this only happens?
2. Please expand this more.
How is this system bus, alu, cpu , working?
What are the registers, accumulators , flip flops in the memory?
What are the machine cycles?
What are instructions cycles , opcodes, instruction codes ?
Where does assembly language comes in?
How does cpu manipulates memory?
This data bus , control bus, what are they?
I have come across so many weird words i dont understand dma, interrupts , memory mapped i/o devices, etc. Somebody please explain.
Ps : am learning about the fucking 8085 microprocessor in class and i can't even relate to basic computer architecture. I had flunked the coa paper which i now realise why, coz its so confusing. :'''(14 -
Went to meet up last night. I was there acting like I have no experience and was just starting to learn programming. Suddenly this guy turns and faced me he said non verbatim “don’t use JavaScript thats the worst programming language, its used by wanna be software engineer. Use c# they have blazor so you wont have to code using JS”. My blood pressure went up guys. I understand this because hes kinda old and dont want to learn new things but i got caught off guard. To be honest im not mad, im just sad though, imagine if i was really new and had no experience and just started few months ago. All the hard work and studying will be nothing. Btw hes nice he offered me free food and beer its just JS.
If you’re learning any language specifically JS. Dont mind the naysayers. Just learn it and be good at it. Languages has its use cases. Conversation with whats better programming language is useless and a waste of time thats what my professor said and its true.15 -
Learning a new programming language is a lot like putting on a new pair of underpants. At first it's restrictive but then it becomes a part of you!4
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Do you usually spend some of your time learning new programming language/pattern/technology? I mean, I am not the type of person who does same thing over and over again, also like learning new things (I spend a lot of time per month studying new things), trying to get experience and trying new technics, but other side of me thinks that I need to be the best in one of them... My mind flashes blue screen of death sometimes when I am thinking about this...2
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!rant but a question...
I know that with the vast examples/tutorials online this may not be necessary, but I wanted to ask the community if you guys/gals would recommend going back to school to get a formal CS education or if it would be a waste of time, money, and resources compared to just using web based sources? I've tried the college thing 3 times when I was younger but couldn't concentrate and lacked the discipline to focus and finish classes. But I'm a bit older now and wanted to know if you would recommend going back to school or if time would be better spent performing self-study and learning from home?
I'm still extremely new to coding and programming and only have basic knowledge of actual coding and a lot of the theoretical stuff in programming is completely foreign to me. Like for example, how to optimize code. I know that refactoring code to have a smaller more efficient footprint is always desirable, when it doesn't interfere with readability, but I'm unaware of where/how to modify code to run efficiently. Of course that may be wayyy to advanced for my use cases anyway 😂.
I'm trying to teach myself python as it seems like a great language for starting out and getting to understand the concepts of programing. Plus, it can be used directly in my line of work as well as side projects that I wanted to try my hand at.
Thank you in advance for your recommendations everyone!2 -
Alright so I'm in need of a little advice.
So I recently decided to go back and practice basic problem solving and from what I can tell now it's just me not used to JS like I am with python but I want to move on to bigger projects and other basic concepts (like manipulation of the DOM) and move away from basic problems.
But my concern is that I'll look at that list and only pick the ones that I feel I understand I can solve instead of the ones I cant. And theres a large list of them and I see that people are doing a lot of them while I'm just doing a few per page. And I'm afraid I'm just not good enough or stupid if I just ignore the basics and move on because the basics are there for you to figure out the easy stuff.
But I really just want to move on and I dont know when I need to. And last time I asked for advice I mentioned I have been programming for a few years, left out the normal accomplishments I've posted on here but I was just told since it's taking me this long I should just quit I tried to rebuttle but they kept telling me no that literally broke me and my confidence so now I'm sensitive to asking questions also fuck whoever that was.4 -
Doing a language learning app, and doing other interesting managing apps. Totally free to do it my way, and get the job done. Except when my boss who can't even setup his email on his iPhone shows up, asking me to add features that would turn the app structure upside down, and also to deviate from programming to focus on content. The content of a language app, I mean, am I a language teacher now?
I was so excited to start this new project, but I'm stuck with useless chores that I know are useless and never see the daylight -
Currently learning go and I’m really enjoying it. It’s been a while since I learnt a new programming language and the experience is different to what I remember. I’m reading an o reilly book and when about how they implemented a common feature of programming I’m like oh no they didn’t. I think this is what normal feel when they read celebrity gossip. Hash tag goto.2
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Anyone interested to see mine and my wife’s culture & technology crossover performance/arts/music project?
The name is UDAGANuniverse. Udagan in Sakha (northeast Siberia) language toughly translates to ‘she shaman’. I met my wife while she was touring in Europe with a traditional Sakha group (I was touring Celtic trad music that time).
The project is incorporating all our interests, artforms and professional skills under a shamanistic aesthetic. Functional Programming, Live Coding and Machine Learning play a big part in my input and live performance role.
First episode of our newly launched podcast:
https://udaganuniverse.com/news/...
My personal articles — arts based and touching on functional programming + category theory:
https://udaganuniverse.com/music
I’ll be posting new articles more specifically on Coding and ML in performance in the next weeks.
If you’d like to see a little personal backstory (how we came to fuse performance with code/ML) check out this rant here:
https://devrant.com/rants/1279742/...
Hope that you enjoy and please let us know any comments or feedback!3 -
Last week I've been really wanting to start learning a new language. Not the programming type but the original type. Mainly for career opportunities, as I am getting into 2nd year of a 5 year cs curriculum.
Already know : English, Greek (native)
Currently deciding between:
French
Indian
Chinese (not Korean, maybe Japanese?)
Opinions? :)8 -
Hello fellow devs! I am thinking of learning an new language the following year ( not programming 😂 ). Which languages do you think is the best for a programming career ?
I am currently thinking between mandarin(chinese) and Arabic ! Any suggestions ?4 -
advice: while learning a new programming language either do not be proud of your first accomplishment or do not look for solutions of other fellows afterwards.6
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Okay so I want other opinions. So I've been studying for C++ competition and I don't know how to keep learning the language.. for python I just kept finding projects to do or picked a module to learn. But with C++ I was gonna work on the <random> and <string> libraries but after that I have no clue :/13
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The integration of technologies project I have this year. Not yet finished but I already learned a lot of very cool stuff.
First, I learned a new programming language + framework (Ruby on Rails)
Second, for the first time, I implemented a continuous deployment pipeline with Capistrano and Travis ci.
Third, first time I programmed a Restful API.
And more cool stuff coming up ! :D
I freaking love learning ! -
Is it a good idea to learn two programming languages at the same time? I have a learning schedule created like I learn 2 languages alternatively in a week. For example, Python on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Java on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Is this a right approach to learn a new programming language or practice already learnt programming language? Any suggestions or developers following similar pattern of learning, please share your sample schedule.14
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I had an introductory course on C during my engineering (using the Turbo C compiler). Got interested there and started learning on my own during the breaks between semesters. Mainly ended up doing basic things with VB 6, C, C++ and some Windows programming using a language called BCX Basic.
Then ended up being introduced to HTML, JavaScript and Java during my first job and ABAP in the next. Also managed to learn a little of Python in my spare time (weekends) along the way.
I still continue learning the basics of new languages in my spare time (planning to start with PHP next). -
The fact that it sometimes makes me wonder "Why am I learning this? This feature seems better implemented in newLISP." when I am learning a new programming language.
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Started out with C++ when I was 17. Being passionate about programming, loved to learn and explore more of the coding and programming world.
Reached out to the books for different languages such as Java, Python, PHP, etc.
Enjoyed learning anything that I came across.
My initial stages as a programmer, relied on books and video tutorials.
Now, relying upon documentation and other people's source code examples.
You know you can call yourself a developer, when you know how to use a particular language to develop applications that solve real world problems and perform tasks.
Now whenever I start out on a new language, I begin straight away with frameworks, hoping that I can grasp the syntax in parallel. -
Went to check out some IT/Developer educations with my youngest son who will hopefully be graduating high-school next may. At one of the educations they actually used javascript as a *cough* programming *cough* language to start learning these kids the basics ... I guess that rules out at least 1 place to start his new studies.8
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I've been feeling a lot of burnout these past few days/weeks... But like only in a specific programming language? Which is an issue cause I mainly work on python and I can't seem to bring myself to do that while learning and working with new languages/frameworks in classes are no problem.1
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Yeah so WordPress killed me 😅 I am still learning many things, and I was making a website for someone a year and a half ago. So it was my first full WordPress project, like from the beginning to the end, including theme and plugins. And it killed my love to programming for almost a year. I didn't finish, the job is abandoned, it was a pain in the ass, writing in PHP and especially integrating with WordPress was just too painful for me.
I came back to programming a few months ago, after a year-long break, decided to learn a new language, Go. I again enjoy writing code, but I think I am unable to touch PHP again.
Ah, and it all was parallel with when my psychic problems started. So it was even harder.1 -
today is exactly the first month I started learning programming. But, I have always wondered, how is a language created? and why people willingly painstakingly learn new language when its not widely used?1
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Hello all, I am in the Second Year of my engineering and we have to submit the Project at the end of the semester, currently, we are learning java programming language and we have to submit the Project on the Java programming language. our Hod suggests we choose a project which solves real-world problems, as a new one to learn java we choose the Library Management System Project. can anyone please provide the source code of the LMS Project, that will help us with our Project?
Thank You1