Re: Aspect questions?
On 03/02/2012 02:20 PM, Arne Vajh??j wrote:
On 3/1/2012 2:24 AM, Lew wrote:
On 02/29/2012 05:44 PM, Novice wrote:
always fall back on COBOL in a pinch ;-) Some of the others, even if I
refreshed myself on them, would be of no use anywhere. I don't imagine
CSP is used anywhere any more. Or whatever 4GL Online Express was part
of. ;-)
I learned SNOBOL once, at university. No practical use to it whatsoever.
I learned Prolog for the Hell of it. Never made a dime from it. Studied
a whole book on natural language processing with Prolog. Never got
f**k-all for that professionally. Learned enough LISP to know that its
fanboys are drug addicts. No one's ever offered to make that investment
pay off, not directly.
Did I waste my time?
Could it be that learning multiple languages, and how the hardware
works, and how to freaking build an application such that it actually
runs for someone for a change, and all those other foundational,
below-the-surface-part-of-the-iceberg skills have indeed made me the
supergenius amazing developer that I am? Could there be some gestalt
effect that polyglot programming skills elicit?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Du you know the programming language MODEST?
:-)
I've been hired again and again and again for languages that I didn't
know until I started the job.
How long does it take to learn a computer language? It took me about a
week to learn Java. Less for Python, assuming you can say that I've
learned it just because I can write effective programs in it. (I
haven't, actually.) They gave me three class sessions in college to
learn Pascal; I never showed up for the third session. Didn't need to. C
I just picked up on the job because it looked interesting.
http://norvig.com/21-days.html
Excellent article. As I mentioned obliquely elsewhere, my (immodest?) claims
were based on my own personal sense of when I've learned a language. Also on
the understanding that learning doesn't end.
I programmed that project successfully in 1999 where I had a week to actually
learn Java, as opposed to a year of just looking at it. I continued to learn
Java throughout that project, that year, and ever since. I don't count my
knowledge as complete, perfect or really, even sufficient yet. At least, not
sufficient to let up on the learning.
A mentor taught me years ago to devote at least an additional 20% of time
above mandated work to study of the craft. "If you aren't advancing your
skills that aggressively," he told me, "you're falling behind."
--
Lew
Honi soit qui mal y pense.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Friz.jpg