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A Middle-Aged Writer's Quest To Start Learning To Code For the First Time (1843magazine.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the gotta-start-somewhere dept.

OpenSourceAllTheWay writes: The Economist's 1843 magazine details one middle-aged writer's (Andrew Smith) quest to learn to code for the first time, after becoming interested in the "alien" logic mechanisms that power completely new phenomena like crypto-currency and effectively make the modern world function in the 21st Century. The writer discovers that there are over 1,700 actively used computer programming languages to choose from, and that every programmer that he asks "Where should someone like me start with coding?" contradicts the next in his or her recommendation. One seasoned programmer tells him that programmers discussing what language is best is the equivalent of watching "religious wars." The writer is stunned by how many of these languages were created by unpaid individuals who often built them for "glory and the hell of it." He is also amazed by how many people help each other with coding problems on the internet every day, and the computer programmer culture that non-technical people are oblivious of.

Eventually the writer finds a chart of the most popular programming languages online, and discovers that these are Python, Javascript, and C++. The syntax of each of these languages looks indecipherable to him. The writer, with some help from online tutorials, then learns how to write a basic Python program that looks for keywords in a Twitter feed. The article is interesting in that it shows what the "alien world of coding" looks like to people who are not already computer nerds and in fact know very little about how computer software works. There are many interesting observations on coding/computing culture in the article, seen through the lens of someone who is not a computer nerd and who has not spent the last two decades hanging out on Slashdot or Stackoverflow.

91 of 183 comments (clear)

  1. Re:"The Economist's 1843 magazine" ahh a good year by burtosis · · Score: 1

    I didn't realize steampunk ran on python. You learn something new every day.

  2. meanwhile, in the kitchen... by ealbers · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Economist's 1843 magazine details one middle-aged writer's (Andrew Smith) quest to learn to cook for the first time, after becoming interested in the "alien" logic mechanisms that power completely new phenomena like oven cooking and effectively make the modern world function in the 21st Century. The writer discovers that there are over 1,700 actively used recipes to choose from, and that every chef that he asks "Where should someone like me start with cooking?" contradicts the next in his or her recommendation. One seasoned chef tells him that chefs discussing what recipe is best is the equivalent of watching "religious wars." The writer is stunned by how many of these recipes were created by unpaid individuals who often built them for "glory and the hell of it." He is also amazed by how many people help each other with cooking problems on the internet every day, and the kitchen chef culture that non-technical people are oblivious of.

    Eventually the writer finds a chart of the most popular recipes online, and discovers that these are Beef,Chicken and Pork. The syntax of each of these recipes looks indecipherable to him. The writer, with some help from online tutorials, then learns how to cook a basic recipe that tastes a lot like orange hair marmalade with small hands. The article is interesting in that it shows what the "alien world of cooking" looks like to people who are not already kitchen nerds and in fact know very little about how the chemistry of cooking works. There are many interesting observations on cooking/chef culture in the article, seen through the lens of someone who is not a cooking nerd and who has not spent the last two decades hanging out on BigCookDot or Potoverflow.

    1. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by sfcat · · Score: 2

      Well written and funny, but I hope you're not proposing that the metaphor holds up.

      Everyone knows that all /. metaphors have to do with cars or libraries of congress.

      --
      "Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
    2. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by johannesg · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I came here to ridicule the article, but you have already done all I could have hoped for and more. Thank you.

      For anyone who thinks it is only computer nerds that speak an 'alien' language full of 'weird terminology', try talking to a builder, a plumber, a farmer, a teacher, or really anyone of any other profession about his work. You'll soon discover that their professions are also full of weird and alien terminology, rituals, and habits that make absolutely no sense to an outsider. The fact that we need words to describe things in our little corner of the world is not strange, it's what every profession does. The difference with us is that everyone uses computers, so everyone gets exposed to our terminology.

      And of course we are also in a unique position of our tools appearing to be magic. I very much doubt any blacksmith ever received a bug report like "I bought an axe for cutting down trees from you. I then tried to cut down a skyscraper, but the axe failed completely at this task. There is a bug in my axe. It should cut down anything I want to cut down." or "I prefer holding the axe by the metal part, since the metal feels smooth and cool. However, the wooden part is terrible at cutting things down. It doesn't even cut grass in this configuration! I think my axe is broken. It should cut properly in every orientation, not just when you are holding the wood part. Some people prefer to hold the metal part, they should be accomodated as well."

      That last one is just about literally a bug report that I received last week. Of course I'm a programmer, not a blacksmith, so nobody bats an eye at it...

    3. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      I once got a requirement for a battery operated device that I made, which said that the device should blink the power led to indicate that the battery was dead.

    4. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by The+Evil+Atheist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why does the article need ridicule? Here's a middle aged person with no skill in the subject, putting himself through something difficult to a lot of people just to get insight about something, rather than be scared of it.

      Why do you want to ridicule that?

      Compare to the average Slashdotter who whinges about the stupidest programming horrors and refusing to learn anything new or difficult and preferring to remain stuck in whatever they were taught or learnt at the time. Then they ridicule other people who do learn the stuff they refuse to learn, and speaking completely from ignorance.

      Kudos to this person who didn't do that, and actually tried his hand at something completely foreign to him.

      --
      Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
    5. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Why do you want to ridicule that?

      There seem to be quite a few people who can only make themselves feel good by shitting on others efforts. I generaly assume they have prodced nothing of worth.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    6. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      So did you put in an extra battery (or perhaps a capacitor) to blink the "no power" indicator? Or did you go back and ask if they meant "low power" instead? It seems a lot of software engineers would pick the first option.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    7. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by johannesg · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It needs ridicule because _every_ profession on this planet comes with its own unique, impenetrable terminology, yet somehow computer professionals are the only group always being called out on it. Has there ever been an article about someone being amazed at the number of different tools a carpenter uses? If not, why is an article expressing amazement about the number of programming languages ok? And don't even get me started on legal, financial, or medical professions, where you need a professional just to interpret what the other professionals are saying...

      So yes, it's perfectly fine to ridicule someone who barges in and acts like he is visiting the bloody Morlocks, like we are some sub-human tribe that cannot possibly be expected to hold a normal human conversation. It's idiotic and demeaning.

    8. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by johannesg · · Score: 1

      I feel your pain, man.

    9. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by bickerdyke · · Score: 1

      The Economist's 1843 magazine details one middle-aged writer's (Andrew Smith) quest to learn to cook for the first time,

      Welcome to 'murica where cooking has been reduced to heat up prepackaged stuff.

      --
      bickerdyke
    10. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Because it's showing a stunning level of ignorance where it can't even express the problem before. Consider someone trying to learn physics in the same way. They don't really indicate the things that they want to understand and are then shocked that brane theory and string theory seem contradictory and each have strong proponents. They went straight to quantum mechanics because they kept asking people 'how do I learn physics' without saying 'I want to understand the path that a ball will travel when I throw it' (or whatever the real problem that they're trying to solve is). Shockingly, the author discovers that a discipline that people devote an entire professional career to learning a fairly small subset of is difficult to pick up in a few hours.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    11. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      It's classic Dunning-Kruger. Everything looks hard until you just wade in, and find you can scrape Twitter really easily.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    12. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      I just redefined requirement to 'power led is off to indicate dead battery'.

    13. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      It's a boring yawn-fest to hear someone complain about jargon, when literally every job has it. Did you know that when you take french fries out of the freezer and put them on a rack to partially thaw before cooking, it's called slacking? Yes, even being the fucking fry guy comes with jargon. When someone complains about there being 1,700 "active" programming languages, they are stretching desperately to make a point — and by the time they actually know enough to write the article, they know how badly they are stretching. You can literally have a whole career as a programmer with just one or two languages under your belt. You don't need to care about all 1,700 of those languages any more than an author needs to know all 3,866 languages which use a writing system. Wait, that's more languages than programming!

      I only wish the parody above had been writing-related, because it would have hit the nail more precisely upon its head.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    14. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      That's just amazingly petty.

      The article is amazingly petty. Oh, look at me overcomplicate this thing, it's so complicated. Everyone has jargon and special skills in the thousands. Why don't they call the left and right side of a boat the left and right side? Port and starboard? We don't steer off the side any more, and either side can be the port side. Now multiply me whining about that by twenty and see if it makes an interesting article.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    15. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by The+Evil+Atheist · · Score: 2

      The problem with you nerds is that you think he's writing for you. He's not. He's writing for the readers of that publication who are not familiar with what we do. He's establishing to his readers that he's approaching this from where they are - with no idea of what he's about to get into. Articles like that are about telling a story to his readers - in this case a story of how he is trying to get to know a subject - not some boring technical manual.

      If people bothered making their way through the whole article, you'd realize he actually put in effort to learn completely new stuff that the industry thinks is beyond someone his age, let alone start from complete scratch. That is much more can be said by whiny Slashdotters who complain about having to learn new stuff in just their own domain, let alone something completely outside it.

      Seriously, complaining about jargon? There are tons of professional programmers on Slashdot complaining about some language or another to hide their own inadequacies all the time.

      Grow up and realize it's not all about you.

      --
      Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
    16. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      I would change that to "power led off indicates time to buy new widget".

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    17. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

      And don't even get me started on legal, financial, or medical professions, where you need a professional just to interpret what the other professionals are saying...

      And yet we "little people" are supposed to read and understand paperbook-thick documents and sign them, binding us to whatever the fuck they say.

      At least with computers, you do not have to understand them, you can just use them.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    18. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by skam240 · · Score: 1

      I don't think there's anythong idiotic or demeaning about this at all. In fact, I feel like this is the opposite. The author recognized that coding is not some mystical art as much of the public perceives it and from there sought to understand it better and in the process help others do so.

      The only negative I see to that is that it risks de-mystifying my profession and some times I like being made to feel like a wizard :)

      --
      I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
    19. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You're the reason why nerds get beat up, and I no longer feel sorry about nerds getting beaten up since you're arseholes to people who are trying something new.

      You're not sorry people get beaten up, yet I'm the arsehole?

      When was the last time you tried something completely new and outside of your skillset?

      I'm not taking exception to him trying something completely new, that part is cool. I'm taking exception to him doing something completely trite, whining about jargon and complexity when every field has jargon and complexity. It's whiny and it's hypocritical.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    20. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by avandesande · · Score: 1

      Yet he missed the real beauty of programming... that you can experiment or try anything with infinite levels of undo. A carpenter can't un-saw a piece of wood(hence the saying measure twice cut once). If you are willing to fuck around with shit (I can't think of a better use of curse words) you will be successful.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    21. Re: meanwhile, in the kitchen... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Oh give it a fucking rest. Nobody is mad at the guy for trying to learn how to program. They are upset because he doesn't really want to program. And that is obvious. Because if he did, he would have figured it out like the rest of us. Instead he just bitched.

      I never had any hand holding. And I learned just fine. Nothing replaces experience. So like another poster said, instead of bitching about how hard it is, stfu and dive in and learn.

    22. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      That's just amazingly petty.

      He started it!

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    23. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by CoolDiscoRex · · Score: 1
      I'm trying hard to get your gripe, but I'm failing to grasp it.

      Carpentry has been around since biblical times, and it's premise is something the everyone understands, because it manipulates the physical world in predictable ways. Sure, they have their own language, but the underlying concepts are relatable.

      Software is something very new in human history. Most people still don't understand it. It's completely foreign to them.

      It's quite rare to see a completely new profession come into existence during one's lifetime. Especially when that profession touches nearly everything one does these days, from business to leisure. Things that carpentry and plumbing do not do.

      Trying to make sense of this thing that controls an ever-expanding amount of your life is understandable. And let's face, it plumbing and carpentry lingo is nowhere near as complicate as, for instance, polymorphism and the like. Computing is pretty unique in the sheer number of concepts to master.

      I'm a developer as well, and can't find a reason to get upset by it.

      Maybe it's an age thing? I do think that younger folks are more inclined to find candor manufacture offense.

      Not judging, just trying to figure out where you're coming from.

    24. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by CoolDiscoRex · · Score: 1
      Okay, yeah, so I'm starting to get it now.

      You're right, he is approaching like he should be able to master it in a relatively short amount of time, and he's asking questions that make it seem like the answer can be conveyed in a single paragraph.

      Alright, yeah, I can see that. It is kind of insulting when you put it that way.

    25. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Where the hell is he whining about jargon? The word "jargon" doesn't appear in the article.

      To be fair, I am engaging in metacommentary, based on other people's comments who have read the article, because reading the article requires javascript so fuck them.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    26. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      To be fair, I am engaging in metacommentary, based on other people's comments who have read the article, because reading the article requires javascript so fuck them.

      I'm browsing using links-2 which I can assure you doesn't have javascript and I can see the article just fine. On the other hand it doesn't support CSS either so it's entirely possible the have hidden the text with CSS and require javascript to view it. I woldn't know.

      Actually on a whim, I flipped over to firefox. It renders fine with all of the scripts blocked (my default setting).

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    27. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Actually on a whim, I flipped over to firefox. It renders fine with all of the scripts blocked (my default setting).

      I am using pale moon with ublock origin and noscript and all I see is a big white page that says "Sorry, you need to enable JavaScript to visit this website." at the top. Perhaps you are not blocking as many scripts as you think, or maybe they are explicitly refusing me to serve content based on my browser string. Either way, they can DIAF.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    28. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Perhaps you are not blocking as many scripts as you think,

      Given that it works with links2: no. Javascript support was removed from it over a decade ago.

      or maybe they are explicitly refusing me to serve content based on my browser string.

      Possibly? Pretty obnoxious if they are.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    29. Re: meanwhile, in the kitchen... by The+Evil+Atheist · · Score: 1

      Give it a fucking rest. You did not learn how to program on your own.

      And he DID dive in and learn. That was the point of the article you didn't read.

      He just also explained his thoughts and processes along the way, instead of pretending to be a "hard man" like you are trying so hard to.

      --
      Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
    30. Re:meanwhile, in the kitchen... by q4Fry · · Score: 1

      Either way, they can DIAF.

      You're starting to lose the moral high ground you had back at

      You're the reason why nerds get beat up, and I no longer feel sorry about nerds getting beaten up since you're arseholes to people who are trying something new.

      You're not sorry people get beaten up, yet I'm the arsehole?

  3. Dave Barry to the rescue by Krishnoid · · Score: 5, Funny

    I guess some things never change:

    Well, my computer makes my dog look like Albert Einstein. I plugged it in and turned it on, and instead of going to work on my telephone-company letters, it started asking a lot of idiot questions, such as what day it was. So I typed in the following computer program:

    NEVER YOU MIND WHAT DAY IT IS. WHAT I WANT YOU TO DO IS STRAIGHTEN OUT ALL MY FILES AND COME UP WITH A NICE HEALTHY LIST OF MY TAX DEDUCTIONS, TAKING PAINS TO GIVE ME, RATHER THAN THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE, THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT, BUT NOT CLAIMING ANYTHING THAT WOULD LAND ME IN THE SLAMMER, IF YOU GET MY DRIFT.

    And the computer said:

    SYNTAX ERROR

    Do you believe that? This machine that doesn't even know what day it is tells me, the paid professional writer, that I have a syntax error.

    1. Re:Dave Barry to the rescue by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 1

      pretty soon alexa skill will be able to handle that dialogue

      More disturbingly, there are people alive today who will likely specialize in verbally programming Alexa to so different stupid things to people than it would otherwise.

  4. Urgh. by Motor · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Coding is about a way of thinking... not about a particular language. Pick one that lets you get started quickly and doesn't require you to understand objects etc just to do your first simple program. This is why BASIC was great... it got kids going quickly and gave them a nice simple slope into more complex subjects and ambitious stuff:

    10 print "hello"
    20 goto 10

    Also, ignore 99.9% of the stuff you get as advice. I remember back in the mid-2000s... I read some Gentoo Linux nuts advising people wanting to get off Windows that Gentoo was the right choice - definitely. It will compile up from source... and it only takes about 15 hours to install - and oh, BTW, you should make sure you set CFLAGS to "-march=x86_zzxxxy_intel -O9999".

    Shut up zealots.

    --
    We all know that crap is king
    Give us dirty laundry!
    1. Re:Urgh. by Daemonik · · Score: 1

      Pick one that lets you get started quickly and doesn't require you to understand objects etc just to do your first simple program.

      Not exactly an easy thing to do without actually trying out a bunch of languages. People can recommend some simple languages but that can be subjective and subject to bias.

    2. Re:Urgh. by bickerdyke · · Score: 1

      I went that way with Gentoo as my first Linux. It was more like 15 days than 15 hours, but I stuck through it and was rewarded with knowing every byte on my harddisk.

      And there is a certain beauty of starting with an empty harddisk and seeing grwoing and evolving from within itself.

      --
      bickerdyke
    3. Re:Urgh. by shmlco · · Score: 1

      "Pick one that lets you get started quickly and doesn't require you to understand objects etc just to do your first simple program."

      And today, with pretty much every one of them you're going to need to understand objects in order get past Hello World.

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    4. Re:Urgh. by Joey+Vegetables · · Score: 1

      Gentoo did turn out to be the right choice for me. Others in my family not so much. That's why we still have some degree of variety and choice in the Linux world, systemd and like abominations notwithstanding. We also have Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Windows in our home (the latter was not by my choice, but some of our kids are gamers, and felt they didn't really have a choice).

      --

      Nonaggression works!
  5. basic programming by mapkinase · · Score: 2

    is accessible literally to every single person on Earth.

    It's trivial. Even actors can learn it.

    --
    I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
  6. Start with by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    Logo.
    Basic.
    Pascal.
    Ada.
    Lisp.
    Finally move to todays most best and newest trendy online app ready gui app code that can really code for apps.. ready for a big fast gpu with many cpu cores..
    Avoid any new trendy code that comes with strange political demands as part of "using" the code.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    1. Re:Start with by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Thats the academic foundation of todays very best real engineers.
      People who had to learn math on merit to a great standard.
      The ability to create and sell a GUI app while been guided by todays app creating GUI software will not create a person who can understand and think about more complex code.
      They need the deep math of something like a Pascal, Ada, Lisp to be able to adjust and get the most out of any new code over the next decades.
      Getting the very most out of every part of a very advanced gpu, cpu design for a given battery limitations.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    2. Re: Start with by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Today's real engineers also understand how cimputers work, so you'll have to throw assembly onto your list or something.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re:Start with by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Why would you start with Pascal when you can start with Oberon?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  7. 1843 is a misleading title. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 2

    1843 Magazine is a bi-monthly cultural magazine published by the Economist Group. The Economist began publication in 1843. Unfortunately, managers there are apparently not aware that 1843 is a misleading title.

    Andrew Smith, the author of the article Slashdot is reviewing, seems to have no deep knowledge of technology, and no serious interest in learning. He just wants to write about it. He reminds me of Walter Isaacson, who wrote about Steve Jobs of Apple.

    The Economist magazine has useful articles.

    1. Re:1843 is a misleading title. by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      The Economist magazine has useful articles.

      Indeed. I subscribe to The Economist, and consider it the best news magazine available. I learn new things every week.

      "1843" is fluff. They sent me several free issues trying to get me to subscribe, but I didn't see a single article that I wanted to read. TFA confirms that I am not missing anything.

      It surprises me that the two publications can be so different in quality, yet come from the same organization.

    2. Re:1843 is a misleading title. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Kind of like the Christian Science Monitor.

    3. Re:1843 is a misleading title. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Andrew Smith, the author of the article Slashdot is reviewing, seems to have no deep knowledge of technology, and no serious interest in learning.

      And he's getting silly answers because he's asking the wrong question. Asking 'what is the best way to learn to program?' is like asking 'what is the best way of learning to write well?'. Do you want to learn to write news articles, opinion, marketing copy, novels, technical manuals? The answer will be different in each case, with the possible exception that (as with learning to program) you will be told to practice a lot. If you start with the problem that you want to solve, you will get very different answers, but they might actually be useful.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    4. Re:1843 is a misleading title. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Asking 'what is the best way to learn to program?' is like asking 'what is the best way of learning to write well?'

      And the correct answer in each case is "learn by doing."

      Only by producing a lot of crap early on will you discover what works for YOU. When you run into trouble or are unhappy with what you produce, ASK someone who's been doing it for a long time. Don't trust answers from just one person, compare what you get from different people to what you read in book. Google. Wikipedia. Stack Exchange. YouTube. There's no shortcut, you have to dive in the deep end.

    5. Re:1843 is a misleading title. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Andrew Smith, the author of the article Slashdot is reviewing, seems to have no deep knowledge of technology, and no serious interest in learning.

      Learning to program in middle age (where the attitide seems to be if you didn't code by the time your were 3 you're inadequate and you'll be unemployed by 25 anyhow) from scratch is "no serious interest in learning"?

      WTF? The only evidence you have is that he sat down and actually learned something.

      And he's getting silly answers because he's asking the wrong question.

      Yeah that's part of the leaening process. You went through that too in the dim and distant past.

      Asking 'what is the best way to learn to program?' is like asking 'what is the best way of learning to write well?'. Do you want to learn to write news articles, opinion, marketing copy, novels, technical manuals?

      Which is precisely how no one learns to write ever. Yeah sure long after you've learned the basics of writing and are looking for a career, that's a question to ask. But not right at the beginning.

      If you start with the problem that you want to solve

      Not everyone does things merely to solve a problem. Some people learn things for the sake of learning.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    6. Re:1843 is a misleading title. by iMadeGhostzilla · · Score: 1, Interesting

      The Economist in my experience has a poor track record of predicting future. They describe world events in a way that sounds like they really know what they are talking about, in a measured, intellectual way, at times even boring to maintain the appearance of detachment, almost like how Sherlock Holmes would describe his clues. But unlike Holmes they are almost always wrong. That has been my impression. Their biggest blunders are Trump and Brexit and Trump-era economy, but I have a vague recollection of things they talked about year ago that never came to pass. Might be interesting to randomly pick an issue from early 2010s and see how well their headlines aged.

      Btw their upset with Trump seems to have let their Russophobia seep through their cover art, though it's still quality art.

    7. Re:1843 is a misleading title. by iMadeGhostzilla · · Score: 2

      I picked 2011, a few headlines:

      "Latin America changes its guard: Democracy is happily becoming routine"

      "The long goodbye: China gets ready, cautiously, for new leaders"

      "As the novelty wears off: Things will start to fall apart for Britain’s centre-right coalition government"

      "Powerhouse Deutschland: Germany will increase its influence on the euro-zone economy"

      "Foreign frustrations: Blocked at home, what can Barack Obama achieve abroad?"

  8. Re:"The Economist's 1843 magazine" ahh a good year by The+Fat+Bastard · · Score: 2

    The Economist had a sense of humor about mergers by featuring camel sex on the cover.

  9. Meh, take some college courses by lsllll · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm probably going to get shot down over this and get -1 as troll, but IMAO you cannot make a great programmer unless you've taken some college courses specifically related to computer science. That is in addition to having a passion for problem solving and tinkering with anything and everything. This comes from mostly anecdotal instances of people I have ran into in my over 30 years as a computer programmer.

    Taking courses at a college level teaches you the intricate programming concepts and algorithms. Without taking data structures, assembly, operating systems, OOP, and so on at a college level, you're already at a disadvantage. Can you program a Windows/GTK application without taking those courses? Most likely. Can you write device drivers and system routines? No. "How do I sort this list?" Well, that depends on how fast it needs to be sorted, how much memory you have available, how big the list is, etc. "I'm making a list." Does it need to be an array of structures? Does it need to be a linked list? Does it need to be a doubly linked list? Does it need to be a binary tree? Does it need to be a tree? Most programmers don't have to deal with any of this stuff, but then again most programmers aren't great programmers.

    I have ran into many programmers that didn't get their degree in computer science and didn't take any computer science courses in college, and they all fall in the same level. Mediocre. Again, anecdotal and stereotypical, but I'd wager that it's correct almost all the time.

    My suggestion to the OP would be to (since middle ages is still not too old to become a great programmer, as long as you meet the other criteria of being a tinkerer) take some college courses in computer science. Over 1700 languages doesn't mean shit if you don't understand the concepts of programming (although concepts of something like LISP would be completely different than OOP and other traditional languages). Once you learn the concepts, then the rest is just syntax and concepts specific to the language you're learning, but without the basic concepts, you have no ground to stand on.

    --
    Is that a roll of dimes in your pocket or are you happy to see me?
    1. Re:Meh, take some college courses by dwywit · · Score: 1

      With today's multiple layers of abstraction between programmer and hardware, things like assembly, device drivers and system routines are not in the realm of the applications programmer.

      You can be a clever and successful applications programmer without knowing a thing about device drivers. Closed/proprietary systems don't even expose that part of the system - and please don't bleat to me about open source - closed systems are still a big thing, despite the dreams of many slashdotters.

      College courses are very important, but they're not everything. I've met some amazingly close-minded and stupid graduates of college-level IT courses, and thankfully the interview process weeded them out.

      --
      They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
    2. Re:Meh, take some college courses by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      but IMAO you cannot make a great programmer unless you've taken some college courses specifically related to computer science.

      You mean like Boole, Babbage, Lovelace & Turing didn't?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    3. Re: Meh, take some college courses by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      Because it's an ecommerce site.

    4. Re:Meh, take some college courses by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Dont have the app show words or draw into the reserved space for the notch?

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    5. Re:Meh, take some college courses by religionofpeas · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I have ran into many programmers that didn't get their degree in computer science and didn't take any computer science courses in college, and they all fall in the same level. Mediocre

      Maybe just correlation, not causation. I have a degree in CS, but I mostly I learned programming in my spare time. The fact that I was interested in programming led me to sign up for the education.

      "How do I sort this list?"

      Call the sort() function, usually.

    6. Re:Meh, take some college courses by narcc · · Score: 1

      ^^ This is the best argument I've seen in favor of a formal education.

      --
      Required reading for internet skeptics
    7. Re:Meh, take some college courses by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 1

      Who do you think originally came up with the information taught in those college courses? Hint: It wasn't someone who had taken those college computer courses...

      --
      The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
    8. Re:Meh, take some college courses by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Can you program a Windows/GTK application without taking those courses? Most likely. (...) Most programmers don't have to deal with any of this stuff

      Well we need a lot of those, it's kinda the IT version of handymen where somebody needs a house. And it's not going to be a revolution in carpentry, plumbing or wiring but you take some kind of business need and create software for that, it's a honest living even though you're not pushing the boundaries of CS. Despite many years of trying it'll never be just rule engines and configuration, at least not without turning your business-side into quasi-developers and making the tools so complex and flexible they resemble the code you tried to get away from.

      I'm probably going to get shot down over this and get -1 as troll, but IMAO you cannot make a great programmer unless you've taken some college courses specifically related to computer science.

      I think it goes a bit the other way, if you have a lot of talent you either develop a hubris that my way is the best way and become a "rock star" developer or you want to stand on the shoulders of giants and learn from the best. It doesn't necessarily mean formal college classes, it could just as easily be picking up the book and working through it on your own. Some of the best simply never got around to finishing college because they got job offers so tempting they dropped out and just ran it with it. That said, many finish the degree because "highest education level" is a HR filter...

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    9. Re:Meh, take some college courses by Waccoon · · Score: 4, Interesting

      My experience in college is that academic computer science is completely different than real-world computer science. I learned only math and algorithms in college. Everything else I had to learn on my own in my spare time.

      Granted, my college days were in the early 2000's, and I didn't exactly go to the best school, but all we did back then was algorithms in C. Exclusively. We were also forced to do our work with Emacs and submit our homework to a VAX system using nothing more than a mainframe cheat sheet. If something went wrong, we were stuck. It was confusing and useless to participate unless you already knew what the hell you were doing.

      I learned a HELL of a lot more about real programming after I left college and started to work with other, more experienced people. Then it became more obvious what they were trying to teach us in college, but failing miserably.

    10. Re:Meh, take some college courses by mcswell · · Score: 1

      "I'm probably going to get shot down over this and get -1 as troll" You might get -1 as a prophet, but looks like you did pretty well otherwise. Well done!

    11. Re: Meh, take some college courses by TimMD909 · · Score: 1

      I'm going to have to disagree. All the examples you've given are things I've learned on my own from books. I've heard colleges use these books too. So what exactly does college provide, other than someone to hold your hand?

    12. Re:Meh, take some college courses by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Did they take college courses specifically related to computer science, which was your original claim?

      Lovelace didn't go to college at all, because tits.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    13. Re:Meh, take some college courses by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      it's the Ivory league know nothing snobs

      The ones who sit in ivy towers?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    14. Re:Meh, take some college courses by CoolDiscoRex · · Score: 1
      I definitely do not agree, because my company has many great developers who have never even been to college. In fact, those devs are typically more motivated.

      A lot of people take computer science these days because it's a well-paying job, and they learn enough to make a career out of it. Those who learn it on their own, to a high level, tend to be ultra-motivated.

      These are people who write as much code on their free time as they do at work.

      In addition, the college grads tend to specialize in a few things, whereas the breadth of knowledge the the deal-taughts is, on average, much greater, in my experience.

      One of our devs has been coding since he was 12, and always had enough work. Spending incredible amounts of money to get a degree was superfluous, as his resume already showed competence.

      Colleges are businesses. The ability to attend one and stay in one varies dramatically, and that ability is most heavily influenced by family wealth.

      Those who have gone through the trouble of getting one always tout the "mandatory" nature of degrees, and of course, *they* think they should be required for this or that. I mean, why should someone else get to take a shortcut instead of paying $100,000+ and spending 4 years going through the trouble, right?

      Well, by not adhering to the status-quo, one definitely takes risks. Employment tends to be more predictable for college grads.

      If you become good at what you do, however, that risk can be rewarded. A lot of books have been written by guys without college degrees. Some of those guys have shaped the industry as we know it. By far, the most interesting people I've met, are people who didn't follow the college degree path, but yet, still succeeded anyway.

      You can even make the argument that, to be able to succeed without the benefit of a degree, one probably has to be a step or two above his/her peers in competency.

      Put a college grad developer next to his non-grad developer, and my money will be on the non-grad every time. He had to be better to get where he was.

    15. Re:Meh, take some college courses by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 1

      "Call the sort() function, usually"

      Unless it's a sort() method. That's completely different.

  10. Fortran by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 1

    Yes, 1843, that sounds about the right year for this article to have been written

    So the article is about his struggles learning Fortran?

    1. Re: Fortran by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      He's been in a dialogue with Charles Babbage.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:Fortran by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

      Yes, 1843, that sounds about the right year for this article to have been written

      You know it's 2018 and most people still don't have the first clue about programming. It's not exactly out of place.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  11. Start with the best language... Perl6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Start with Perl6 but first listen to one of Larry Wall's lectures on postmodern programming.

    I'm not going to lie Perl6 is probably the best general purpose programming language in existence right now yet I still feel a childish need to be dismissive because I can't be bothered to take the time to learn it. Even if I did it would mean shit for my "career". Just writing "Perl" on a resume is a death sentence.

    In other words don't ask Slashdot for advice on learning to code. Half the people here think cutting and pasting "JavaScript" and "HTML" from stack overflow is "programming". The other half know their shit and are real snobs about it. They will make fun of you if you don't use a functional language and correctness proofs.

    1. Re:Start with the best language... Perl6 by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 2

      You don't cut and paste from stack overflow. You copy and paste. I doubt all of your assertions now.

  12. Re:Poor author finds out he's a poor coder by The+Fat+Bastard · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The average American reads at the sixth or seventh grade level. The Econmist is college level. If you want to improve your reading comprehension, read The Economist or The Wall Street Journal. I wouldn't worry about his coding. His comments might be more readable than most comments by programmers.

  13. Two decades on Stack Overflow? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Stack Overflow was created in 2008, so there can't be a lot of people who have spent two decades "hanging out" there.

  14. Re:Poor author finds out he's a poor coder by c120plus · · Score: 2

    This guy is almost unreadable. And apparently he's a professional author. I shudder to think what his coding attempts will be like.

    Look like you didn't read the article, because the code is provided at the end. While simple, the code looks very readable. Nothing like the unreadable mess you'd expect from a beginner. Of course it helps, that Python forces indention on you so you have to indent your code or it won't run,

  15. Learning code should be a early education requirem by bensch128 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm a professional software programmer/engineer and I shutter to think what might happen if society can't understand how all of the complex computing machinery works. Or gives up because of the overwhelming complexity.

    But seeing articles like this gives me hope. It means that we are successfully simplifying/explaining the really difficult bits and allowing more creativity to be layered on top of the complex parts. The author didn't need to know any details about how Twitter, the web, or tcp/ip works in order to build his search app. That's pretty cool.

    It was sad that he gave up on coding a website because there were too many braces in JavaScript. I guess that with practice the braces fall away and the underlying logic shines through. If he wants to get really shook up, he should check out LISP, the ultimate symbolic language. The parentheses will either break him or make him experience true programming bliss.

  16. Python? Twitter? by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 1

    Fuck the normies, post about his experiences with CMake and VB6 or it's not even amusing.

  17. Re:Reminds me of the chess beginner challenging Ma by Archtech · · Score: 1

    Well, you might beat Mangus, but you certainly wouldn't beat Magnus.

    --
    I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
  18. Re:Learning code should be a early education requi by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    I'm a professional software programmer/engineer and I shutter to think what might happen if society can't understand how all of the complex computing machinery works.

    The guy who wrote the article we're commenting on is a professional writer and probably shudders to think of what people have done to the language.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  19. Wrong Question? by skam240 · · Score: 1

    I seem to recall asking a lot of what you might call "wrong questions" when I first took an interest in coding.

    Asking what is the best way to learn how to program is a perfectly sensible question for some one completely unfamiliar with any kind of programing. Hopefully some one then comes a long and gives the newb some proper guidance.

    --
    I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
  20. Don't comment if you didn't read it by mcswell · · Score: 1

    "difficult to pick up in a few hours" Obviously you did not read the /. summary (which says nothing about "a few hours") nor the original article (which mentions a month of learning at one point, not including the preliminary research on which language to learn, nor the time spent in coding his app). The original article does mention "A few hours on freeCodeCamp, familiarising myself with programming syntax and the basic concepts", but that was a tiny portion of his overall effort.

    1. Re:Don't comment if you didn't read it by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Informative

      Don't comment if you didn't read it

      You must be new here. The point of slashdot it to read the headline then angrily shit on the people in TFA.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    2. Re:Don't comment if you didn't read it by mcswell · · Score: 1

      That’s true enough, Mrs Beaver. Too true.

  21. Re:Poor author finds out he's a poor coder by mcswell · · Score: 1

    Unreadable, you must be joking! (and yes, I did read the original article, and I found it quite readable)

  22. Re:Learning code should be a early education requi by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    I liked TFA. Figuring the world runs on code and it's worth nuderstanding then going out and learning---that's exactly the sort of thing which it's great if people do.

    It was sad that he gave up on coding a website because there were too many braces in JavaScript. I guess that with practice the braces fall away and the underlying logic shines through.

    Eventually, but for beginers, nothing just falls away so everything becomes a barrier. I've been writing in curly brace languages for over 20 years so they don't bother me. For beginners you have to take in a whole chunk in one go before you can really do anything at all.

    he wants to get really shook up, he should check out LISP, the ultimate symbolic language. The parentheses will either break him or make him experience true programming bliss.

    I've poked at LISP a few times. I know the principles but I never really came to like it. I kind of found that providing basically nothing by flexibility it wasn't really anything except something to implement a language in---and there are already plenty of those and some pretty nice ones. Plus I like infix notation.

    About the best takeaway though was if someone starts telling you "code is data and data is code" then best response is to look confused for a moment then say "oh you mean like machine code?".

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  23. Re:I was in the same boat. by HiThere · · Score: 1

    How could you have problems with Boolean logic after a programming class and a data structures class? They must have picked a really lousy text.

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  24. Re:Learn assembler for an 8 bit 8080 or 6502 by AlejandroTejadaC · · Score: 1

    +1!

  25. Re:Poor author finds out he's a poor coder by djinn6 · · Score: 1
    The whole point of writing is to get ideas across. If most of your audience reads at the 6th or 7th grade level, then there's nothing wrong with writing at that level. And I think the author of the article understands that. There aren't a lot of abstruse words and besides paragraph length, it's pretty standard as far as journal articles are concerned.

    If you want to improve your reading comprehension, read The Economist or The Wall Street Journal

    Frankly, I find the poorly written stuff, such as fan fiction, much harder to read than Anna Karenina. It takes a much better reader to make sense of crack fiction or Trump's tweets. To make an analogy, any ordinary pilot can land the most advanced aircraft at the world's most sophisticated airport, but it takes an amazing one to land an engineless plane in the Hudson River.

  26. Article seems to be mistaken by marcle · · Score: 1

    This guy seems to think that Python has functions, whereas C++ doesn't. He claims that repetitive operations in C++ require coding the same lines over and over.
    If he's that misinformed, it kind of ruins his credibility. A perfect example of Dunning-Krueger -- he learned a little and thinks he knows a lot.