Ask Slashdot: Can an Old Programmer Learn New Tricks?

An anonymous reader writes "I have been programming in some fashion, for the last 18 years. I got my first job programming 15 years ago and have advanced my career programming, leading programmers and bringing my technical skill sets into operations and other areas of the business where problems can be solved with logical solutions. I learned to program on the Internet in the 90s.. scouring information where ever I could and reading the code others wrote. I learned to program in a very simple fashion, write a script and work your way to the desired outcome in a straight forward logical way. If I needed to save or reuse code, I created include files with functions. I could program my way through any problem, with limited bugs, but I never learned to use a framework or write modular, DRY code. Flash forward to today, there are hundreds of frameworks and thousands of online tutorials, but I just can't seem to take the tutorials and grasp the concepts and utilize them in a practical manner. Am I just too old and too set in my ways to learn something new? Does anyone have any recommendations for tutorials or books that could help a 'hacker' like me? Also, I originally learned to program in Perl, but moved onto C and eventually PHP and Python."

Comments

Practical application is the only way

[Karmashock]

You have 18 years of learning by doing.

Classes and tutorials are not what got you there. You did things.

Name a program you could make in C or perl that you know well. Now try one of the new languages you wish to learn and set the goal of making that program in that language.

Then do it.

You'll have to look up syntax etc for every little operation. But you'll learn. And once you know how to do that you'll have the confidence and core knowledge to bootstrap yourself further.

Re:Practical application is the only way

[Chrisq]

Name a program you could make in C or perl that you know well

Actually I think you should take this a step further, not just taking a program you could write, but one you have written already. This turns the exercise from a programming-from-scratch to a porting one: All logical problems were solved when you wrote the original version. Now you can concentrate on the details of the new language/framework/whatever.

This will work well except when you are switching to a new programming paradigm. If you rewrite a program you originally wrote in a procedural language in a mixed or object oriented language (python, java, scala, ruby, etc.) you will have to work very hard not to code a procedural solution. Similarly with a functional language - but you are more likely to struggle to write something procedural in haskel or ocaml.

Re:Practical application is the only way

[VortexCortex]

Name a program you could make in C or perl that you know well. Now try one of the new languages you wish to learn and set the goal of making that program in that language.

My GOTO program for this is Tetris.

It has everything from input to timing to graphics, audio, network state synchronization, even custom asset data storage of the shapes or push notification of high scores. You can make it in everything from Ada to Brainfuck, on any output from printed paper to LEDs connected to a parallel port, from the command terminal to 3D data visualizers. The state is minimal enough to manage in 100 DWORDS, but complex enough to learn the efficiencies of joins, etc. in a SQL DB.

It's simple enough to code in a few thousand chars, yet can cover all the bases esp. if you factor in "cheat prevention" (read: server side validation and user authentication).

In my experience the older you get the more efficient you are at learning a new platform. Programming becomes a meta task of translating solutions into the platform's problem space. Do it long enough and you'll end up writing your own compiler for a meta language so that you can simply add a new platform "runtime" to the supported target language lists, check off which subsystem to output in what language, and deploy existing solutions faster than these noobs can say "expressive"...

what you need them for?

[gl4ss]

maybe that's your problem. just taking a framework and using it for nothing leaves you with nothing.

most "frameworks" are just gobbled up shit anyways, quite often now consisting of other frameworks which consist of other frameworks and so you end up with something that serves a tcp/ip connection, serves 100kb of files but somehow manages to take up 300mbytes of disk space and 600mbytes of ram...

so whats a hip framework today? is it hip because it's actually good? unlikely. as proof just check what was hip and cool 10 years ago, 9 years ago and so forth.

Specialism

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in about the same situation, except that I'm not 100% autodidact (I *did* learm programming at school, back in the 1970's), and I sometimes feel the same.

There's one observation though: we've got a number of 'junior programmars' here, fresh from school.
They're all extremely good at what they do, much better at using a framework than I am, but at the same time they're not even competent in stuff I consider elementary.

Among them are 4 (four) Flash developers. As a test, when we moved to another building and they all got new computers last year, I made them configure their mail reader (MS Outlook) by themselves. Just gave them each a piece of paper with everything they needed, set them loose, and observed.
One immediately came back asking for help, and two of the others wouldn't have got it working without assistance from the fourth.

Those same four are proficient in Perforce (source management) because they were taught how to use that that at school, and when they were hired, the person who hired them (who left the company since) installed a Perforce server especially for them. When I tried to make them switch over to Subversion because that's what I and everyone else uses here, three out of four complained that it was too difficult. Even with Tortoise as a client.

It's Never Too Late!

[buchalka]

I've been a programmer (mostly) for the past 25 + years.

At 16 I wrote my first computer game, love it and then... Stopped.

Used Fortran, Cobol and stuff and eventually Java Enterprise stuff.

Realised I HATED IT!!

At 46 decided games were my passion (should have continued from my first game at 16).

Fast forward 3 years I feel proficient in Objective-C, Cocos2D and other game frameworks - I absolutely love it. 3 published games later and a pile of other stuff - Having the time of my life.

Do what you love is all I can say to anyone readying this.

And if you want to learn IOS there is NO BETTER COURSE out there (yeah I like capital letters) than the free Stanford CS193P course on iTunes - Google it.

Paul Hegarty rocks as an instructor.

Embrace it, I am living proof its never too late!

I've been learning new things for 30 years

[AccUser]

I started to learn programming at the age of 11, and two years later had a 'summer job' writing software for a contracting firm in central London. That was in 1984. I'm now 43 years old, and am still learning new things. I stopped contracting a couple of years ago for a simpler life, and my software development is more about scratching my itch rather than a clients, and it is certainly more interesting that way. If you're not motivate to learn something new just for the sake of it (I'm a big fan of Duolingo and Khan Academy) then you're going to have to find that itch for yourself.

wow

[Tom]

Someone broke Betteridge's Law. That's quite a lot more interesting than the actual question, which is, of course, dumb.

That only young people can learn is one of those myths that get debunked all the time and no one ever pays any attention. You know that bullshit about language and how children pick up languages (including their mother tongue) magically while adults struggle so much? Yeah, it's total bogus, in fact adults learn languages faster and better than kids with the same investment in time and dedication.

The main difference is that young people in practice learn faster because they have little else to do. If you'd get the same exposure and personal teacher attention as a small kid does, you'd pick up a new language in half the time.

So the real question is: How much time and effort are you willing to expend? Is it something you really want and are willing to spend a few hours a day on?