Things Every Programmer Should Know
programmer.97things.oreilly.com
programmer.97things.oreilly.com
It kind of feels like I'm offloading my thoughts for re-factoring in the back of my mind while I'm doing something else.
There are a number of items worth reading from some pretty good writers in there (Verity Stob, Michael Feathers, Scott Meyers, Uncle Bob, to name a few.) Mostly short vignettes but I enjoyed them.
(Disclosure: I wrote 2/97 of that book, but there are many chapters in there better than mine).
I was surprised that over 97 items there isn't even one item mentioning the importance of knowing a lot of mathematics. I would emphasize that as one of the top ten items if I were compiling a list like this. I have learned from working programmers who know a lot of mathematics that they think many of their fellow programmers could spot solutions for industry problems easier if only they recognized the mathematical structure of the problems they are trying to solve. In general, learning mathematics thoroughly at the primary-to-undergraduate level in a problem-solving curriculum builds problem-solving skills
http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?pa...
that generalize well to solving programming problems.
With foreign language (and even native English for me) trying to do that will not work. Instead you need to constantly ask, is this an exception to the rules.
In my experience, foreign language study consists of the memorization of lengthy lists of vocabulary words and verb suffixes. There's almost nothing but memorization, and if you forget a word or something, you're dead in the water unless you can remember it. I wasn't very good at it, it wasn't very much fun, I never used it and I've retained almost nothing. Other than satisfying graduation requirements on paper, I've gotten absolutely zero value out of it.
Whereas with programming or mathematics, the memorization is minimal, the focus is on abstract ideas you use to represent problems and the way you put together the building blocks you know. You might memorize a string of symbols like this:
x = (-b +- sqrt(b^2 / 4*a*c)) / (2*a)
a*x^2 + b*x + c = 0
Likewise, with programming, once you know how to do "everything" (i.e. have mastered the bare minimum amount of syntax to write Turing-complete programs), if you forget about a standard library function or the implementation details of a particular algorithm, you can always write your own version with enough time, patience, and debugging.
Yes, you need to memorise some things, but I've found that once I've got a few hundred words, the structures start building themselves in my brain. I don't bother memorising verb endings, they start to come of their own accord when I'm communicating with people. I read simple novels in my target language, spotting when the same words turn up multiple times and looking them up to make sure I've got the right definition.
Things accrue, the structures emerge, and suddenly I'm a parody of a foreigner, but I can communicate.
Your characterisation of math and programming needing effectively no memorisation is similarly counter to my experience. You need to know some things, they need to be as natural as breathing, otherwise when confronted by a huge structure to build, you have nowhere to start. Without knowing some of the standard results, sometimes even the statements of problems in math make no sense.
Try working with code written by complete beginners as they've struggled, and failed, to implement something beyond their current skill set, and you will find that you know, and have memorised, much more than you think. Pair program with a beginner and you will be frustrated at how little they know, things you take for granted, things you have memorised.
So my experience is that learning a foreign language is not entirely irrelevant to programming. For you to say it is, from your personal experience, makes me wonder if you have actually ever learned one.
Can you tell us your experience base? How many (natural) languages can you communicate in?
The other day it didn't let me repost a link last posted almost 2 years ago.
Yeah, "functional". Hello, C.
Otherwise you can call it "1001 Things Every Programmer Forgets".
I'm getting to the point where I can write elisp functions adding cool functionalities to Emacs (like jumping to a function whose name appears in a comment), does this count as knowing my IDE? ; )
I must have it all wrong: I did follow pg and Steve Yegge's advices and learned Emacs and Lisp ; )
I'm probably not a programmer...
/s