Most developers don’t really know any computer language
shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com
shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com
* "Never memorize something that you can look up in a book."
* We may know about 10k-40k words depending on the study, person, etc, but can generally communicate any idea with those that we do. There's a ton of overlap and specialization that can be worked around with smaller, simpler pieces (Guy Steele's recently linked '98 OOPSLA talk on growing a language comes to mind...).
The second point is pretty familiar when it comes to programming. Maybe you don't know the most efficient algorithm, the most maintainable strategy, the whizbang idiomatic language construct, etc. but that doesn't mean you can't "communicate" useful work to/through the code you do "know".
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4785581
For me, this is very reassuring so I thank you :)
Perl by default passes by reference, copies by value, and mutates in place. How many Perl programmers have any clue of what I said?
By contrast Python by default passes by reference, copies by reference, and does not mutate values in place. How many Python programmers have any clue what that means?
And how many programmers who have programmed both languages professionally (or other commenters in this discussion) can discuss some of the differences in the languages that arise from this difference? Can you write a concrete piece of code which will demonstrate consequences of this difference?
My guess is that few really understand what I'm talking about. Nor do you need to because the memorized patterns for writing loops, functions, etc work perfectly well whether or not you understand this internal design decision.
I don't agree with the conclusion though. I think that a programmer "knows" a language if he/she understands the idiomatic way of representing an idea. For example, if a functional language programmer comes to C, perhaps he/she might write a summing function this way:
int sum(int* arr, int count) {
if (count == 0) {
return 0;
}
return *arr + res(arr++, count--);
}
int sum(int* arr, int count) {
int sum = 0;
int i = 0;
loop:
if (i == count)
return sum;
sum += arr[i];
i++;
goto loop;
}
When I write code in a language, I try to follow the idioms of that language:
* Go: multiple return values and interfaces
* Java: small, polymorphic classes with tons of getters and setters
* Javascript: prototypes, callbacks and array methods
* Python: list comprehensions, generators, and tuples
* D: templates, "auto" and parameter storage classes (in, out, ref, inout)
A programmer doesn't have to know the nitty gritty details of a language to "know" the language. I think the programmer can omit omit learning crazy #define macro foo, the "comma" operator, type coercion rules, bit alignment in structs (for cheap struct serialization) and the like and still "know" the language. Conversely, the more of these details you know, the more likely it is that you won't write idiomatic code. If you know, for example, that x << 0 is faster than parseInt(i, 10) is faster in Javascript, you'll tend to use that more often than the more idiomatic way. This is an implementation detail and shows that you don't understand the idiomatic way of writing Javascript code.
I use a language depending on the problem domain. Some languages lend themselves to certain problems better than others. I don't, however, know the implementation details that only a compiler designer should know, but I don't feel that precludes me from "knowing" a language.
It also really pays to know a language when you're using something that compiles into it. You're going to have a bad time with Coffeescript if you're not already fluent in Javascript, and you need to be able to understand the patterns and conventions in the compiled code.
But it certainly helps. And you'll never write good code without a solid understanding of the runtime your syntax is sitting on. But I don't think that's any more true of CS/JS than it is for any other environment. Java progammers need to understand the JVM, C people want some ability to read disassembly and understand calling conventions, people writing code generators need to understand the hardware pipeline they are optimizing for.
It's turtles all the way down.
It's very different than understanding .NET (or Mono, for that matter) to write C#, or understanding the JVM to write Clojure.
It's just like investing, you are putting all your eggs in one basket. I don't think Ruby's future is especially in trouble, but it is certainly not as secure as the basket of languages I included above.
Also ruby is only really used for a small subset of tasks. With the basket of languages I included you could really do anything from microcontroller programming to making video games to website dev.
But it's unclear what benefit we'd supposedly reap by teaching languages in a more superficial way?
If there is a substantive point to this article (aside from the pretentious suggestion has a deeper knowledge of programming than everyone else), I failed to understand his point.
and i'm glad i can answer this question as i kinda stopped at that point...
edit: Actually it looks like the entire article is still visible right on the blog landing page: http://shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com/